What in most translations is called The Judgment Text has the Chinese title Tuan 彖. This character might be related to 㣇, which is read as 祟 on oracle bones, meaning ‘to expel evil spirits’ (古文字古林, Vol. 8, p. 409). Here it is also said that cuan 䞼 (which has 彖 as a component) is the old form of dun 遯, the name of hexagram 33, and is also related to the meaning of ‘to expel’. That this is more or less possible is shown by the Mawangdui text, which has chuan 椽 (with 彖 as a component) as name for hexagram 33. In the Baoshan divination scripts we see examples of divinations to expel malicious spirits. (see Constance A. Cook, Death in Ancient China).
Tuan 彖
乾.元亨利貞.
Honestly, I don’t know how to translate the name of hexagram 1, Qian 乾. From the context in the third line (see below) I can deduce that it is a verb. A detailed analysis of the character shows that it is connected to the image of a banner, which is the focus in a town or centre. That is why I chose the meaning of ‘(to) focus’ but I am well aware that this is more interpretation than translation.
For the origin of yuan heng li zhen 元亨利貞 see this article.
Focus: Greatly accepted offering.
Favourable to divine.
First line
潛龍勿用.
Yong is ‘handle, act’ (行事; 行動), as in the Shijing 詩經:
百爾君子、不知德行。
不忮不求、何用不臧。
All ye princely men,
Know ye not his virtuous conduct?
He hates none; he covets nothing; –
What does he which is not good?
A submerged dragon. Don’t act.
Second line
見龍在田.利見大人.
See for ‘chief diviner’ as meaning of daren 大人 the fifth line.
See a dragon in the cultivated fields. Favourable to see the chief diviner.
Third line
君子終日乾乾.夕惕若厲.無咎.
The Mawangdui text has ni 泥 for ti 惕, and a commentary found with this text has yi 沂 which is probably a loan for xin 昕, ‘dawn’. Ti 惕 is ‘fearful and watchful’ (戒懼). Jiu 咎, along with xiong 凶, ji 吉 and hui 悔 , is typical of Chinese divination manuscripts. In these manuscripts jiu seems to refer to a curse from the ancestors (甲骨文字典; p. 896), or, as Donald Harper translates it, ‘spirit odium’ (D. Harper, ‘The Textual Form of Knowledge: Occult Miscellanies in Ancient and Medieval Chinese Manuscripts, Fourth Century B.C. to Tenth Century A.D.’, in F. Bretelle-Establet (ed.), Looking at It from Asia: The Processes that Shaped the Sources of History of Science, p. 54).
The lord is all day focused.
At sunset fearful and watchful as if there are threats.
There is no curse from the ancestors.
Fourth line
或躍在淵.無咎.
Huo 或: According to the Jinwen Gulin Bu 金文詁林補 and the Guwenzi Tongjia Zidian 古文字通假字典 you 又–> you 有, ‘there is also’. According to 古代漢語通假字大字典 loan character for ru 如, ruo 若, ‘(as) if’. See also hexagram 2, third line and hexagram 7, line 3. It is interesting that huo occurs mostly at the third line in hexagrams:
1st line: 0x
2nd line: 1x
3rd line: 7x
4th line: 2x
5th line:1x
6th line: 2x
( 1-4, 2-3, 6-3, 6-6, 7-3, 25-3, 32-3, 41-5, 42-2, 42-6, 53-4, 61-3, 62-3)
See for a comprehensive discussion of the usage of huo 或 in the Yijing: Peng Zhanci 彭展賜, 《周易》簡帛異文硏究, p. 137-164.
Yue 躍: Mawangdui text has [魚+龠], but 龠 and 翟 are probably exchangeable, like with 46-2: where the received text has 禴 the MWD text has 濯. 躍 and [魚+龠] can be similar to 䠯, which also means ‘to jump’.
There is a leap over an abyss.
There is no curse from the ancestors.
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This article contains a lot of tiny images, which makes it difficult to post it as a WordPress article. In these cases a PDF works much better. Download here:
Years ago a publisher asked me to make a Yijing Agenda for the years 2000 and 2001. For attractive purposes I made 64 images of the hexagrams: 12 hexagrams for the months and 52 hexagrams for the weeks. Lately I found these images back in my archive, and I thought it would be nice to have these printed as a deck of cards.