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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1I. INTRODUCTION. 5 accounts of divination by the Yi interspersed over the long intervening period. For centuries before Confucius appeared on the stage of his country, the Yi was well known among the various feudal states, which then constituted the Middle Kingdom}, (iii) We may now look into one of the Appendixes for its testimony to the age and authorship of the Text. The third Appendix is the longest, and the most important?. In the 49th paragraph of the second Section of it it is said:— ‘Was it not in the middle period of antiquity that the Yi began to flourish? Was not he who made it (or were not they who made it) familiar with anxiety and calamity ?’ The highest antiquity commences, according to Chinese writers, with Fd-hsf, B.c. 3322; and the lowest with Confucius in the middle of the sixth century B.c. Between these is the period of middle antiquity, extending a comparatively short time, from the rise of the A4au dynasty, towards the close of the twelfth century B.c., to the Confucian era. According to this paragraph it was in this .period that our Yf was made. The 69th paragraph is still more definite in its testimony :— ‘Was it not in the last age of the Yin (dynasty), when the virtue of Kau had reached its highest point, and during the troubles between king W4n and (the tyrant) Kau, that (the study of) the Yi began to flourish? On this account the explanations (in the book) express (a feeling of) anxious apprehension, (and teach) how peril may be turned into security, and easy carelessness is sure to meet with overthrow.’ The dynasty of Yin was superseded by that of Ku in B.C.1122. The founder of Kau was he whom we call king Wan, though he himself never occupied the throne. The ! See in the 80 Khwan, under the 22nd year of duke Kwang (8.c. 672); the 1st year of Min (661); and in his 2nd year (660); twice in the 15th year of Hst (645); his 25th year (635); the rath year of Hsiian (597); the 16th year of Khang (575); the gth year of Hsiang (564); his asth year (548); the sth year of Kh4o (537); his 7th year (535); his 12th year (530) ; and the oth year of Ai (486). * That is, the third as it appears farther on in this volume in two Sections, With the Chinese critics it forms the fifth and sixth Appendixes, or ‘ Wings,’ as they are termed. 6 THE y! KING. CH. I. troubles between him and the last sovereign of Yin reached their height in B.C. 1143, when the tyrant threw him into prison in a place called Ya-li, identified as having been in the present district of Thang-yin, department of Kang-teh, province of Ho-nan. W4n was not kept long in confinement. His friends succeeded in appeasing the _ jealousy of his enemy, and securing his liberation in the following year. It follows that the Yi, so far as we owe it to king Wan, was made in the year B.C. 1143 or 1142, or perhaps that it was begun in the former year and finished in the latter}.
2His friends succeeded in appeasing the _ jealousy of his enemy, and securing his liberation in the following year. It follows that the Yi, so far as we owe it to king Wan, was made in the year B.C. 1143 or 1142, or perhaps that it was begun in the former year and finished in the latter}. But the part which is thus ascribed to king Wn is only a small portion of the Yi. A larger share is attributed to his son Tan, known as the duke of X4u, and in it we have allusions to king Wd, who succeeded his father Wan, and was really the first sovereign of the dynasty of KAu?. There are passages, moreover, which must be understood of events in the early years of the next reign. But the duke of K4u died in the year B.C. 1105, the 11th of king Khang. A few years then before that time, in the last decade of the twelfth century B.C., the Yi King, as it has come down to us, was complete 8, 5. We have thus traced the text of the Yi to its authors, the famous king Wan in the year 1143 B.C. and his equally famous son, the duke of Au, in between thirty and The Yt isnot forty years later. It can thus boast of a the most great antiquity; but a general opinion has indent of prevailed that it belonged to a period still books. more distant. Only two translations of it have been made by European scholars. The first was executed by Regis and other Roman Catholic missionaries in the beginning of last century, though it was given to the public only 1 Sze-m4 Khien (History of the K4u Dynasty, p. 3) relates that, ‘when he was confined in Y(-1f, Wan increased the 8 trigrams to 64 hexagrams,’ 2 E.g., hexagrams XVII, 1.6; XLVI, 1. 4. Tan’s authorship of the symbolism is recognised in the 30 KAwan, B.C. 540. 3 P. Regis (vol. ii, p. 379) says: ‘ Vel nihil vel parum errabit qui dicet opus Yi King fuisse perfectum anno quinto Ksing Wang, seu anno 1109 aut non ultra annum 1108, ante aerae Christianae initium; quod satis in rebus non omnino certis.’ But the fifth year of king Khing was B.c. 1111. cH. 1. INTRODUCTION. 7
3ii, p. 379) says: ‘ Vel nihil vel parum errabit qui dicet opus Yi King fuisse perfectum anno quinto Ksing Wang, seu anno 1109 aut non ultra annum 1108, ante aerae Christianae initium; quod satis in rebus non omnino certis.’ But the fifth year of king Khing was B.c. 1111. cH. 1. INTRODUCTION. 7 in 1834 by the late Jules Mohl, with a title commencing ‘ Y- King, antiquissimus Sinarum liber!’ The language of the other European translator of it, the Rev. Canon McClatchie of Shanghai, whose work appeared in 1876, is still more decided. The first sentence of his Introduction contains two very serious misstatements, but I have at present to do only with the former of them ;—that ‘the Yi King is regarded by the Chinese with peculiar veneration, .... as being the most ancient of their classical writings.’ The Sha is tHe oldest of the Chinese classics, and contains documents more than a thousand years earlier than king Wan. Several pieces of the Shih King are also older than anything in the Yi; to which there can thus be assigned only the third place in point of age among the monuments of Chinese literature. Existing, however, about 3000 years ago, it cannot be called modern. Unless it be the books of the Pentateuch, Joshua, and Judges, an equal antiquity cannot be claimed for any portion of our Sacred Scriptures. It will be well to observe here also how much older the The Tent Text is than the Appendixes. Supposing much older them to be the work of Confucius, though than the oo Appendixes. it will appear by and by that this assumption 1 It has been suggested that ‘Antiquissimus Sinarum liber’ may mean only ‘A very ancient book of the Chinese,’ but the first sentence of the Preface to the work commences :—‘ Inter omnes constat librorum Sinicorum, quos classicos vocant, primum et antiquissimum esse Y-King.’ At the end of M. De Guignes’ edition of P.Gaubil’s translation of the Sh, there is a notice of the Yf King sent in 1738 to the Cardinals of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide by M. Claude Visdelou, Bishop of Claudiopolis. M. De Guignes says himself, ‘L’ Y-King est le premier des Livres Canoniques des Chinois.’ But P. Visdelou writes more guardedly and correctly :—‘ Pour son ancienneté, s'il en faut croire les Annales des Chinois, il a été commencé quarante-six siécles avant celui-ci. Si cela est vrai, comme toute ka nation V'avoue unanimement, ou peut & juste titre l’appeler le plus ancien des livres.’ But he adds, ‘Ce n’étoit pas proprement un livre, ni quelque chose d’approchant ; c’étoit une énigme trés obscure, et plus difficile cent fois a expliquer que celle du sphinx.’
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1I. INTRODUCTION. 5 accounts of divination by the Yi interspersed over the long intervening period. For centuries before Confucius appeared on the stage of his country, the Yi was well known among the various feudal states, which then constituted the Middle Kingdom}, (iii) We may now look into one of the Appendixes for its testimony to the age and authorship of the Text. The third Appendix is the longest, and the most important?. In the 49th paragraph of the second Section of it it is said:— ‘Was it not in the middle period of antiquity that the Yi began to flourish? Was not he who made it (or were not they who made it) familiar with anxiety and calamity ?’ The highest antiquity commences, according to Chinese writers, with Fd-hsf, B.c. 3322; and the lowest with Confucius in the middle of the sixth century B.c. Between these is the period of middle antiquity, extending a comparatively short time, from the rise of the A4au dynasty, towards the close of the twelfth century B.c., to the Confucian era. According to this paragraph it was in this .period that our Yf was made. The 69th paragraph is still more definite in its testimony :— ‘Was it not in the last age of the Yin (dynasty), when the virtue of Kau had reached its highest point, and during the troubles between king W4n and (the tyrant) Kau, that (the study of) the Yi began to flourish? On this account the explanations (in the book) express (a feeling of) anxious apprehension, (and teach) how peril may be turned into security, and easy carelessness is sure to meet with overthrow.’ The dynasty of Yin was superseded by that of Ku in B.C.1122. The founder of Kau was he whom we call king Wan, though he himself never occupied the throne. The ! See in the 80 Khwan, under the 22nd year of duke Kwang (8.c. 672); the 1st year of Min (661); and in his 2nd year (660); twice in the 15th year of Hst (645); his 25th year (635); the rath year of Hsiian (597); the 16th year of Khang (575); the gth year of Hsiang (564); his asth year (548); the sth year of Kh4o (537); his 7th year (535); his 12th year (530) ; and the oth year of Ai (486). * That is, the third as it appears farther on in this volume in two Sections, With the Chinese critics it forms the fifth and sixth Appendixes, or ‘ Wings,’ as they are termed. 6 THE y! KING. CH. I. troubles between him and the last sovereign of Yin reached their height in B.C. 1143, when the tyrant threw him into prison in a place called Ya-li, identified as having been in the present district of Thang-yin, department of Kang-teh, province of Ho-nan. W4n was not kept long in confinement. His friends succeeded in appeasing the _ jealousy of his enemy, and securing his liberation in the following year. It follows that the Yi, so far as we owe it to king Wan, was made in the year B.C. 1143 or 1142, or perhaps that it was begun in the former year and finished in the latter}.
2His friends succeeded in appeasing the _ jealousy of his enemy, and securing his liberation in the following year. It follows that the Yi, so far as we owe it to king Wan, was made in the year B.C. 1143 or 1142, or perhaps that it was begun in the former year and finished in the latter}. But the part which is thus ascribed to king Wn is only a small portion of the Yi. A larger share is attributed to his son Tan, known as the duke of X4u, and in it we have allusions to king Wd, who succeeded his father Wan, and was really the first sovereign of the dynasty of KAu?. There are passages, moreover, which must be understood of events in the early years of the next reign. But the duke of K4u died in the year B.C. 1105, the 11th of king Khang. A few years then before that time, in the last decade of the twelfth century B.C., the Yi King, as it has come down to us, was complete 8, 5. We have thus traced the text of the Yi to its authors, the famous king Wan in the year 1143 B.C. and his equally famous son, the duke of Au, in between thirty and The Yt isnot forty years later. It can thus boast of a the most great antiquity; but a general opinion has indent of prevailed that it belonged to a period still books. more distant. Only two translations of it have been made by European scholars. The first was executed by Regis and other Roman Catholic missionaries in the beginning of last century, though it was given to the public only 1 Sze-m4 Khien (History of the K4u Dynasty, p. 3) relates that, ‘when he was confined in Y(-1f, Wan increased the 8 trigrams to 64 hexagrams,’ 2 E.g., hexagrams XVII, 1.6; XLVI, 1. 4. Tan’s authorship of the symbolism is recognised in the 30 KAwan, B.C. 540. 3 P. Regis (vol. ii, p. 379) says: ‘ Vel nihil vel parum errabit qui dicet opus Yi King fuisse perfectum anno quinto Ksing Wang, seu anno 1109 aut non ultra annum 1108, ante aerae Christianae initium; quod satis in rebus non omnino certis.’ But the fifth year of king Khing was B.c. 1111. cH. 1. INTRODUCTION. 7
3ii, p. 379) says: ‘ Vel nihil vel parum errabit qui dicet opus Yi King fuisse perfectum anno quinto Ksing Wang, seu anno 1109 aut non ultra annum 1108, ante aerae Christianae initium; quod satis in rebus non omnino certis.’ But the fifth year of king Khing was B.c. 1111. cH. 1. INTRODUCTION. 7 in 1834 by the late Jules Mohl, with a title commencing ‘ Y- King, antiquissimus Sinarum liber!’ The language of the other European translator of it, the Rev. Canon McClatchie of Shanghai, whose work appeared in 1876, is still more decided. The first sentence of his Introduction contains two very serious misstatements, but I have at present to do only with the former of them ;—that ‘the Yi King is regarded by the Chinese with peculiar veneration, .... as being the most ancient of their classical writings.’ The Sha is tHe oldest of the Chinese classics, and contains documents more than a thousand years earlier than king Wan. Several pieces of the Shih King are also older than anything in the Yi; to which there can thus be assigned only the third place in point of age among the monuments of Chinese literature. Existing, however, about 3000 years ago, it cannot be called modern. Unless it be the books of the Pentateuch, Joshua, and Judges, an equal antiquity cannot be claimed for any portion of our Sacred Scriptures. It will be well to observe here also how much older the The Tent Text is than the Appendixes. Supposing much older them to be the work of Confucius, though than the oo Appendixes. it will appear by and by that this assumption 1 It has been suggested that ‘Antiquissimus Sinarum liber’ may mean only ‘A very ancient book of the Chinese,’ but the first sentence of the Preface to the work commences :—‘ Inter omnes constat librorum Sinicorum, quos classicos vocant, primum et antiquissimum esse Y-King.’ At the end of M. De Guignes’ edition of P.Gaubil’s translation of the Sh, there is a notice of the Yf King sent in 1738 to the Cardinals of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide by M. Claude Visdelou, Bishop of Claudiopolis. M. De Guignes says himself, ‘L’ Y-King est le premier des Livres Canoniques des Chinois.’ But P. Visdelou writes more guardedly and correctly :—‘ Pour son ancienneté, s'il en faut croire les Annales des Chinois, il a été commencé quarante-six siécles avant celui-ci. Si cela est vrai, comme toute ka nation V'avoue unanimement, ou peut & juste titre l’appeler le plus ancien des livres.’ But he adds, ‘Ce n’étoit pas proprement un livre, ni quelque chose d’approchant ; c’étoit une énigme trés obscure, et plus difficile cent fois a expliquer que celle du sphinx.’
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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