Scryway

Which I Ching translation to read

The I Ching is hard to translate. Its judgments and line statements are terse, many of its characters had meanings around 1000 BCE that they lost later, and for two thousand years it has been read through layers of commentary. Every English version makes choices about all of this, so two translations of the same line can read like different books. Which one suits you depends on whether you want to consult it, study it, or both.

You do not have to buy one to start. The hexagram pages on Scryway give James Legge’s 1882 translation, which is in the public domain, next to Scryway’s own English of Richard Wilhelm’s 1924 German. The books below are the ones worth owning in print.

Wilhelm and Baynes: the standard Western edition

Richard Wilhelm spent years in China and made his German translation with the scholar Lao Naixuan. Cary F. Baynes put it into English in 1950, with a foreword by C. G. Jung. It gives each hexagram’s text with Wilhelm’s explanations and, in a separate part, the traditional commentaries known as the Ten Wings. Most Western writing on the I Ching assumes this edition, and it remains the best single book for consulting the oracle. Its English is dated in places, and Wilhelm reads the text through the later Confucian tradition.

John Minford: two translations in one

Minford’s Penguin Classics edition translates the book twice. The first part, the Book of Wisdom, follows the text as Chinese scholars read it for centuries, with selections from their commentaries. The second, the Bronze Age Oracle, goes back to the oldest layer and renders it as the divination manual it began as. Reading the two side by side shows how much the meaning moved over time. It is long, and better for study than for a quick consultation.

Richard John Lynn: with Wang Bi’s commentary

Lynn translates the text together with the commentary of Wang Bi, a third-century philosopher whose reading shaped how the book was understood for centuries afterwards. It is a scholar’s translation, precise and well annotated, and the best choice if you want to know how the I Ching was read in China itself. Plainer and less evocative than Wilhelm for divination.

Alfred Huang: a reader’s translation

Huang, a Chinese-born teacher, wrote The Complete I Ching for Western readers who want to consult the book. The English is clear and modern, and he explains the Chinese behind each hexagram’s name. A good first translation if Wilhelm’s style puts you off.

Margaret J. Pearson: the early text on its own

The Original I Ching translates only the oldest layer of the book, without the later commentaries, and draws on recent scholarship about what its words meant when it was written. It is short and readable, and a useful counterweight to editions that read every line through later philosophy.

Where to start

  • For consulting the oracle: Wilhelm and Baynes, or Huang if you want plainer English.
  • For understanding the book’s history: Minford, then Lynn.
  • For the earliest meaning of the text: Pearson, or Minford’s second half.

Whichever you choose, you can cast a hexagram here and read it in Legge and Wilhelm alongside your own book, or go back to the I Ching guide for how lines and changing lines work.