tradition
Daoism
A family of Chinese practices and texts concerned with the Way, change, and how to live among things that already move.
Also known as Taoism
Meetings with this tradition
Water appears in Daoism.
Daoist writing often praises water’s lowliness and persistence. That is a Chinese philosophical use of water, not a flood epic.
appears in · interpretive · culturally specific
Circle appears in Daoism.
Later diagrams of yin and yang sit in a circle. That diagram is not the Yijing’s hexagrams, and it is not a Greek maze.
appears in · interpretive · modern interpretation
Transformation appears in Daoism.
The Yijing is a book of changes. Wilhelm’s mediation made it famous in the West as a Daoist-adjacent classic; the book is older and wider than one school.
from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950
appears in · partially sourced · historically uncertain
Divination is used in Daoism.
The Yijing is consulted by casting and reading hexagrams. Wilhelm’s book taught a Western public that method; the classic is Chinese and not only Daoist.
from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950
used in · partially sourced · historically uncertain
Yijing appears in Daoism.
Later readers filed the Yijing with Daoist books. The classic is older and wider; the pointer stays historically uncertain on purpose.
from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950
appears in · sourced · historically uncertain
Eight is associated with Daoism.
Later Daoist and popular diagrams use bagua. The Yijing is older and wider than Daoism as a label.
from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950
associated with · sourced · culturally specific
Meetings in this tradition's context
The Yijing is a classic that can be opened and consulted. Wilhelm’s volume is one Western binding of that classic.
from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950
connected to · partially sourced · historically uncertain
The Yijing is consulted by a cast that produces a hexagram. Wilhelm taught a Western public that method; the classic is Chinese.
from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950
used in · partially sourced · historically uncertain
Yijing is used in Divination.
Consulting the Changes is a divinatory use of a classic. It is not Delphi and not Ifá.
from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950
used in · partially sourced · historically uncertain
Yijing is associated with Transformation.
The book’s name is Change. The change is a Chinese classic’s subject, not Ovid’s bodies and not alchemical cookery.
from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950
associated with · sourced · historically uncertain
Yijing is associated with Cycle.
Hexagrams are read as situations that can turn. The turning is the book’s own grammar of change.
from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950
associated with · partially sourced · historically uncertain
sources
- I Ching (Yijing) · Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation)
The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. Richard Wilhelm, English Cary F. Baynes.