The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi

By: Richard John Lynn

Book Overview

Used in China as a book of divination and source of wisdom for more than three thousand years, the I Ching has been taken up by millions of English-language speakers in the nineteenth century. The... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231082940
• ISBN13: 9780231082945
• Release Date: April 1994
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 602 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 5.3" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 22 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

One for the collection

The reviews on the Lynn book appear to break down to a partisanship between John Richard Lynn and Wilhelm. There's room in the library of the I Ching enthusiast for both. I happen to prefer Lynn, but refer frequently to Wilhelm. It's difficult to imagine either of the two absent from the shelf. I'm particularly grateful to Lynn for the comprehensive footnotes and historical notes to put each item in context.

Scholarship with insight

This is an outstanding blend of scholarship backed by a depth of research and expertise, melded with a sensitivity to what an oracle means to people, and how it is properly to be used. Lynn has recreated and organized the Wang Bi text of the I Ching (Wang Bi was a scholar and writer in ancient China who died at a tragically young age but accomplished extraordinary things on a truly Mozartean scale--his version of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching is still the most read and cited version of that work, and his insight into the I Ching, thanks to Prof. Lynn, deserves as much study). For those who are drawn to the ancient oracle as an insight guide rather than a parlor game or fortune-telling tool, Prof. Lynn's presentation of the Wang Bi I Ching is an essential first step. I would further recommend the work of Carol Anthony ("Guide to the I Ching") and her latest exploration of the I Ching from the perspective of helping one's inner learning to inform and enrich one's outer life, which has been written with Hanna Moog: it is called "I Ching: The Oracle of the Cosmic Way."

An exceptional translation

Richard John Lynn's translation of the I Ching has become one of my most precious books. He has found the style that brings back a very distant voice of ancient China: Wang Bi, a philosophical geenius who died at the age of 23 after having written the most outstanding commentaries ever of the I Ching and the Tao Te Ching. R.J.Lynn brings out the taoist touch of Wang Bi's philosophy by keeping the word "dao" in the English text. Some of his expressions are fun, like when someone's situation has come to a point of decline, Lynn translates Wang Bi with: "this one's dao has petered out". Somehow Lynn has brought Wang Bi's thought back to life.

Exqusite, precise and accessable translation of the I Ching

This translation of the I Ching is the best of the non-popularized versions. While it is a scholarly work, it is also accessable to the average reader who wishes to access the original text. While any translation of this seminal work must have some bias in extracting the meaning from the Chinese, this version seems to take the "middle way" in presenting a translation that is faithful and flexible. Highly recommended