Reading the I Ching (Book of Changes) - by Geoffrey Redmond (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

The 3,000 year old I Ching is the most esteemed of the ancient Chinese classics, yet also the most enigmatic. Reading the I Ching (Book of Changes) incorporates recent advances in scholarship, such as recently excavated texts, and demonstrates how the Zhouyi (the ancient textual layer of the I Ching) was compiled from mostly oral material and how it was organized to serve as an easily consulted compendium of divination responses.

In this book Geoffrey Redmond clarifies the meanings of the ancient text by examining use of literary devices such as prognostic terms, imagery from daily life, rhetorical tropes, metaphors, proverbs and set phrases. This provides insight on how the Zhouyi was composed and explains its use for divination. It also shows how, centuries later, the Zhouyi was adapted by the Confucians, who believed it to be the creation of ancient sages, and the source of their metaphysics and cosmology. Redmond also analyzes the Changes through a variety of philological heuristics, such as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, methods of analogy and anomaly, the distinction between argumentative and context dependence, as well as modern approaches such as Jungian psychology, and critical theory. Included are the interlinear Chinese text, and a glossary of key words in English, Chinese, and pinyin, making it essential reading for students studying Chinese philosophy, Chinese religion, and early Chinese history, as well as readers looking for a clear and accessible gloss of this text.

Review Quotes

"This book serves as an important reference for general readers, as well as scholars who are working on Chinese philosophy in general and the Yìjing in particular." --Religious Studies Review

"This is a useful reference book for guiding readers to obtain an overall picture of the key topics regarding the study of the I Ching, an old Eastern book of wisdom. It is written on the basis of numerous publications by the author who has been conducting research on the classic for more than two decades. Through the guidance of the chapters, readers can further explore the multifarious and mysterious world of the Book of Changes." --Dennis K. H. Cheng, Chair Professor of Cultural History, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

"With aplomb and gusto, writing as a fan and student of the Yijing, Geoffrey Redmond brings considerable erudition and affecting passion to bear on his valiant effort to reconstruct the original meanings of the ancient classic. His hermeneutic endeavor contributes to a better understanding of the text's philosophical as well as oracular messages." --On-cho Ng, Professor of Asian Studies and Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University, USA

"In his latest book on the I Ching or Book of Changes, Geoffrey Redmond has opened yet another window on this endlessly fascinating Chinese classic--a work that has stimulated creative minds in China for some three thousand years. The special merit of Redmond's book is that it organizes and explains the imagery of the I Ching thematically, helping us to understand how and why the cryptic classic found such fertile interpretive soil, not only in the land of its birth, but also in many other parts of the world, including the West." --Richard J. Smith, George and Nancy Rupp Professor of Humanities Emeritus, Rice University, USA

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