Deep reading: scholarship and a reading list

Questions still debated

DebateYuan heng li zhen: four virtues, or 'grand offering; favourable to divine'?

The Wenyan commentary reads them as four virtues (origination, success, benefit, steadfastness), and that reading shaped two thousand years. Modern scholars such as Gao Heng, Li Jingchi and Edward Shaughnessy, drawing on oracle-bone and bronze usage, argue that zhen originally meant 'to divine' and heng stood for xiang, 'offering': the phrase was a divinatory formula. Both readings coexist today: one is the text's original sense, the other the philosophical meaning the tradition gave it.

DebateFu: sincerity, or captives?

Traditional commentaries read fu as sincerity or trust. Some modern scholars, noting that fu and fu 俘 are interchangeable in oracle-bone and bronze inscriptions, argue that in many statements it refers to captives or spoils of war. Opinions differ case by case.

ConsensusWho wrote the Yijing?

'Three sages across three ages' (Fu Xi, King Wen, Confucius) is the traditional account. The scholarly mainstream holds that the judgments and line statements were compiled in the late Western Zhou from earlier divinatory material, and that the Ten Wings come from several authors between the Warring States and the early Han. Ouyang Xiu, in his Yi tongzi wen (11th century), already questioned Confucius' authorship of several Wings.

FactIs there only one order of the hexagrams?

The received text uses the King Wen order, in pairs that are either inverted or opposite. The Mawangdui silk manuscript uses an entirely different order, built systematically from upper and lower trigrams; Shao Yong's 'Earlier Heaven' square and circle are yet another. Different orders reflect different ways of understanding the book.

ConsensusWhere do the broken and solid lines come from?

In the late 1970s and in 1980, Zhang Zhenglang proposed that the groups of numerals on Shang and Zhou oracle bones, pottery and bronzes ('numerical hexagrams') are early hexagrams. It is widely accepted that the yin and yang lines evolved from odd and even numerals; the details of that evolution are still debated.

DebateA book of divination, or of philosophy?

Both. The Mawangdui manuscript Yao records that Confucius loved the Changes in old age and said he 'observed its virtue and rightness', sharing the road with diviners but arriving elsewhere. Wang Bi set the images aside for meaning; Zhu Xi insisted the book was 'originally made for divination' while reading it for principle. How to balance the two remains the interpreter's choice.

Timeline: from the Western Zhou to the Tsinghua manuscripts

1. c. 1250–1046 BCE Fact
   Late Shang: divination on turtle plastrons and bovine scapulae; groups of numerals appear on bones and objects.
2. c. 1046 BCE Consensus
   The Zhou conquest of the Shang. Tradition credits King Wen with the hexagrams and the Duke of Zhou with the line statements.
3. 9th–8th c. BCE Consensus
   Late Western Zhou: the judgments and line statements of the Zhouyi are compiled (mainstream scholarly view).
4. 7th–6th c. BCE Fact
   The Zuozhuan and Guoyu record some twenty consultations of the Zhou Changes.
5. c. 300 BCE Fact
   Date of the Chu bamboo Zhouyi held by the Shanghai Museum, among the earliest surviving manuscripts.
6. 213 BCE Fact
   The Qin burning of books; the Changes survives as a book of divination.
7. 168 BCE Fact
   Mawangdui tomb 3 is sealed, containing the silk Zhouyi and lost commentaries such as Ersanzi and Yao.
8. 136 BCE Fact
   Emperor Wu of Han establishes erudites for the Five Classics; the Changes heads the canon.
9. 1st c. BCE Fact
   Jing Fang (77–37 BCE) develops image-and-number studies: the eight palaces, najia, hexagram-qi.
10. 226–249 Fact
    Wang Bi writes his commentary: 'grasp the meaning, forget the image', founding the meaning-and-principle school.
11. 638–653 Fact
    Kong Yingda and colleagues compile the Zhouyi zhengyi on the basis of Wang Bi, the official Tang standard.
12. 11th c. Fact
    Shao Yong transmits the 'Earlier Heaven' diagrams; Zhou Dunyi writes the Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate.
13. 1099 Fact
    Cheng Yi completes the preface to his commentary, reading the Changes through principle.
14. 1177 / 1186 Fact
    Zhu Xi's Zhouyi benyi and Yixue qimeng set out the rules for changing lines.
15. 1701–1703 Fact
    The Jesuit Joachim Bouvet sends Leibniz the Fu Xi diagrams; in 1703 Leibniz submits his paper on binary arithmetic to the Paris Academy (published 1705).
16. 1834–1839 Fact
    The Latin translation by Jean-Baptiste Régis and fellow Jesuits is published by Julius Mohl.
17. 1882 Fact
    James Legge's English translation, Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16.
18. 1924 / 1950 Fact
    Richard Wilhelm's German translation; in 1950 Cary F. Baynes's English version appears with Jung's foreword, and the Italian edition is published by Astrolabio.
19. 1947 Fact
    Niels Bohr receives the Order of the Elephant and chooses the taijitu for his coat of arms, with the motto Contraria sunt complementa.
20. 1973 / 1977 / 1993 Fact
    Excavation of the Mawangdui silk manuscripts (1973), the Fuyang Shuanggudui slips (1977) and the Wangjiatai Qin Guicang slips (1993).
21. 1994 / 2003 Fact
    The Shanghai Museum acquires the Chu bamboo manuscripts (1994); the Zhouyi is published in 2003.
22. 2013 Fact
    Volume 4 of the Tsinghua bamboo manuscripts publishes Shifa (Divination Methods) and Biegua.
23. 2025 Fact
    John T. P. Lai's edited volume Global Yijing is published by Springer.

Reading list

Classical commentaries

• 王弼、韩康伯注，孔颖达疏《周易正义》，阮元校刻《十三经注疏》（1816）The foundation of the meaning-and-principle school and the Tang official standard.
• 李鼎祚《周易集解》；李道平《周易集解纂疏》Collects the Han image-and-number commentators.
• 程颐《伊川易传》Reads the Changes through principle, with a focus on human affairs and self-cultivation.
• 朱熹《周易本义》《易学启蒙》Holds divination and principle together; the source of the changing-line rules.

Modern Chinese scholarship

• 高亨《周易古经今注》（1947）、《周易大传今注》（1979）Reconstructs the original sense of the text through philology.
• 李镜池《周易通义》（1981）Reads the statements as sources for Western Zhou society.
• 黄寿祺、张善文《周易译注》（上海古籍出版社）One of the most widely used modern annotated editions.
• 朱伯崑《易学哲学史》A comprehensive history of Yijing philosophy.
• 张政烺《试释周初青铜器铭文中的易卦》，《考古学报》1980年第4期The starting point of research on numerical hexagrams.
• 李学勤《周易溯源》（2006）；廖名春的帛书《周易》研究Re-examines text and commentaries in the light of excavated manuscripts.

Western scholarship

• Edward L. Shaughnessy, I Ching: The Classic of Changes (Ballantine, 1996); Unearthing the Changes (Columbia UP, 2014)Translation and study of the Mawangdui text and other excavated Changes manuscripts.
• Richard Rutt, Zhouyi: The Book of Changes (Curzon, 1996)Translates the text as a Bronze Age document.
• Richard J. Smith, Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World (2008); The I Ching: A Biography (Princeton UP, 2012)The history of the Changes in China and the world; the best place to start.
• Richard John Lynn, The Classic of Changes … as Interpreted by Wang Bi (Columbia UP, 1994)A complete translation following Wang Bi.
• Kidder Smith, Peter K. Bol, Joseph A. Adler, Don J. Wyatt, Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching (Princeton UP, 1990)How Song scholars used the Changes.
• Joseph A. Adler (tr.), Zhu Xi, Introduction to the Study of the Classic of Change (2002); The Original Meaning of the Yijing (Columbia UP, 2020)English translations of Zhu Xi's two works on the Changes.
• Hellmut Wilhelm, Change: Eight Lectures on the I Ching (1960)Concise introductory lectures.
• Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 2 (Cambridge UP, 1956)A critical discussion from the history of science.
• François Jullien, Figures de l'immanence. Pour une lecture philosophique du Yi king (Grasset, 1993)A philosophical reading by the French philosopher.
• Geoffrey Redmond, The I Ching (Book of Changes): A Critical Translation of the Ancient Text (Bloomsbury, 2017)A critical translation focused on the original meaning.

Translations

• Jean-Baptiste Régis et al., Y-King, antiquissimus Sinarum liber, ed. Julius Mohl (1834–1839)The first complete translation into a Western language (Latin).
• James Legge, The Yi King, Sacred Books of the East XVI (Oxford, 1882)The classic Victorian English translation.
• Richard Wilhelm, I Ging. Das Buch der Wandlungen (1924); tr. Cary F. Baynes, foreword by C. G. Jung (1950)The most influential version in the West.
• I King. Il libro dei mutamenti, tr. Bruno Veneziani (Astrolabio, 1950); I Ching. Il libro dei mutamenti (Adelphi, 1991)Italian translations from Wilhelm.
• John Minford, I Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Oracle and Book of Wisdom (Viking, 2014)Offers both readings: the Book of Wisdom and the Bronze Age oracle.

East–West encounters and global reception

• John Tsz-pang Lai (ed.), Global Yijing: Intercultural Encounters with World Religions and Thoughts (Springer, Chinese Culture 17, 2025)Twelve chapters in three parts: Asian philosophy and religions; Christian and Islamic encounters; Western thought and artistic practice.
• 黎子鵬《清初耶穌會士白晉〈易經〉殘稿選注》（2020）An annotated anthology of Joachim Bouvet's Yijing manuscripts.
• 黎子鵬、Jochebed Hin Ming Wu《耶易會通：清代天主教徒呂立本〈易經本旨〉研究與編注》（香港中文大學出版社，2024，開放獲取）A study and edition of the Yijing work of a Qing-dynasty Chinese Catholic, Lü Liben (open access).
• David E. Mungello, Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology (1985)Jesuit accommodation and the origins of sinology.
• Claudia von Collani, Joachim Bouvet S.J. Sein Leben und sein Werk (1985)Bouvet and the Figurists.
• G. W. Leibniz, Explication de l'arithmétique binaire (1703/1705); Discours sur la théologie naturelle des Chinois (1716)The primary sources on binary and the Fu Xi diagrams.
• C. G. Jung, Foreword to the Wilhelm–Baynes I Ching (1950); Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (1952)Jung's synchronicity and the Changes.

Psychology and decision science

• Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011); Kahneman, Sibony, Sunstein, Noise (2021)Bias and noise in judgement.
• Gary Klein, 'Performing a Project Premortem', Harvard Business Review (2007)The pre-mortem.
• Ethan Kross & Ozlem Ayduk, 'Self-distancing', Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 55 (2017); Grossmann & Kross, Psychological Science (2014)Self-distancing and wise reasoning.
• James J. Gross, 'The Emerging Field of Emotion Regulation', Review of General Psychology (1998)Cognitive reappraisal.
• Lord, Lepper & Preston, 'Considering the Opposite', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1984)'Consider the opposite' as a debiasing strategy.
• Bertram R. Forer, 'The Fallacy of Personal Validation', Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology (1949)The Barnum effect: something every reading must guard against.
• Amy Edmondson, 'Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams', Administrative Science Quarterly (1999)Psychological safety.
• Philip Tetlock & Dan Gardner, Superforecasting (2015)Calibrated probabilistic judgement.

Strategy and management

• Pierre Wack, 'Scenarios: Uncharted Waters Ahead', Harvard Business Review (1985)Shell's scenario planning.
• Michael E. Porter, 'How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy', Harvard Business Review (1979)The five forces.
• David Snowden & Mary Boone, 'A Leader's Framework for Decision Making', Harvard Business Review (2007)The Cynefin framework.
• John P. Kotter, 'Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail', Harvard Business Review (1995)Change management.
• W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy (2005)Value innovation.
• Karl E. Weick, 'Small Wins', American Psychologist (1984)Small wins, in the spirit of hexagrams 9 and 53.