Full Description
In imperial China, the Yijing (Book of Changes) was not just read as a Confucian classic for moral cultivation, but also put into practice to solve problems of everyday life. To explain why the Yijing was so widely used in China, this volume examines its multiple textual layers, its divinatory practices, its medical uses, and its role in Chinese modernity. Together, the ten chapters demonstrate that the Yijing is indeed a living text used by both the educated elite and the populace to alleviate their fear and anxiety.
Contributors are: Andrea Bréard, Chang Chia-Feng, Constance A. Cook, Stéphane Feuillas, Tze-ki Hon, Liao Hsien-huei, William Matthews, Tao Yingna, Xing Wang, and Zhao Lu.
Contents
A Note on Style
List of Tables and Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: From "Historical Turn" to "Everyday Life Yijing"
Tze-ki Hon
Part 1 The Unique Voice of the Yijing
1 Stalk and Other Divination Traditions before the Changes Canon: Views from Newly Discovered Texts
Constance A. Cook and Andrea Bréard
2 The Book of Changes as a Cosmological Manual in Han China
Zhao Lu
3 Yijing Divination and Religion during the Tang Dynasty
Xing Wang
Part 2 The Yijing Prediction Practices
4 Predicting Success: Song Literati's Uses of the Changes in Divination
Liao Hsien-huei
5 Prediction Based on the Past: Yang Wanli's (1127-1206) Commentary on the Changes
Stéphane Feuillas
6 Yijing and Medicine: Discussions of the Gate of Life in Late Imperial China
Chang Chia-Feng
7 Hexagrams and Mathematics: Symbolic Approaches to Prediction from the Song to the Qing
Andrea Bréard
Part 3 Yijing and Modernity
8 Predicting a Regime Change: The Politicization of the Yijing in Twentieth Century China
Tze-ki Hon
9 Simplified Procedure and Extended Divination Objects: A Study of Plum Blossom Yi Numerology
Tao Yingna
10 Reducing Uncertainty: Six Lines Prediction in Contemporary China
William Matthews
Index
