I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change : The First Complete Translation With Concordance [Paperback]

Rudolf Ritsema (Author), Stephen Karcher (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1995

This first complete translation of a 3,000-year-old Chinese divination system includes imagery and material previously unavailable to Westerners. The spirit of this unique translation is both very old and radically new--a modern psychological approach that truly bridges East and West.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Chinese --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 816 pages
• Publisher: Element Books Ltd (June 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852306696
• ISBN-13: 978-1852306694
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #729,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Chinese Oricular Classic... from a Western Perspective., April 1, 2004

By 

Andrea Acailawen (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change : The First Complete Translation With Concordance (Paperback)

3 1/2 Stars for this translation.
This translation of the I-Ching (Yi Jing), a 3000+ year old Chinese divination system, offers more than the ever-so-common literal translation of the famous Chinese text that many of the modern translations boil down to, which is good, and bad.

Karcher has relied upon his knowledge of Jung's psychoanalytical methods, and understanding of how the human mind functions, to reveal the I-Ching as a solid and effective psychological tool to unlocking one's own insights. This translation was written to help the individual to connect with his or her inner-self, unlock the creative and reasoning abilities of the mind, and find answers locked deep within. I'll get to my issue with this in a minute.

The material covered in the Chapters includes:

PART I
Introduction to the I-Ching
- What is the I-Ching
- The Name of the Book
- What is Divination
- Origin, History and Development of the Classic of I,
Using the I-Ching
- This Translation
- Questioning the Oracle
- Getting Answers
- Reading the Response
- Keywords: Traps for Tao
- Encounters with the Oracle
The Global System
- Divination and Traditional Science
- The Time Cycle
- Yin & Yang: Struction and Action
- Yin & Yang: Choice and Change
- The Five Transformative Moments
- The Trigram Cycle

PART II:
A Quick Guide to the Oracle
- Hexagram Texts and their Functions
- Orthography and Punctuation
A List of the Hexagrams
- The Section of the Hexagrams
The Hexagrams 1 to 64

PART III
Concordance
Further Reading
A Key to the Hexagrams

Karcher's approach to the I-Ching has its advantages in that it explains the I-Ching with an understanding of how the mind, itself, works, which may be very helpful for the analytical-minded.

My issue with this translation is that it is handled from a Western psychological approach, which, in my honest opinion, takes away from the Chinese *philosophy* behind it, and reduces the open-ended, free-flowing nature of the work that allows for multiple-interpretations. So, this is a reasonably good translation, but not a great one.

If you are looking for a *logical* approach to understanding the I-Ching, this text certainly wouldn't hurt! It may do well for you. BUT, I would recommend using this text along with another that provides a solid understanding of the Chinese philosophy and thought behind the I-Ching (something sadly lacking in many Western Translations).

"The Complete I Ching: The Definitive Translation" by the Taoist Master Alfred Huang is probably the best English translation of the I-Ching available, as it was written by someone who not only truly understands the culture and philosophy of the Chinese Taoists (he's a Taoist from China himself), but has gone to the effort to kept the open-ended feeling and multiple-interpretation nature of the work in tact.

Best of luck to you.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Masters of the Universe, November 21, 2004

By 

Hakuyu "Ikeda" (Kyoto, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change : The First Complete Translation With Concordance (Paperback)

This version of the Yi-Ching evidently suits some people. But I have a number of reservations about it. It's strong point is that it consciously taps into a 'Jungian' agenda. Jung's ideas are certainly complementary to aspects of the Yi-Ching. But this 'Jungian' perspective is exaggerated, affecting the way the material is approached. My chief reservation here, is the way the translation was kept semantically vague, in the hope that it would somehow reflect something of the open-ended quality of the Chinese text. In this respect, the authors try - perhaps too hard, to do their readers work for them, unpacking bits of line symbolism piecemeal, without making their intrin- sic connection clear. I suppose this was meant to widen the psychological parameters - presenting a kind of larger 'Rorcharch' ink-blot to look out, as it were. It was an interesting experiment - which has its applicability, but at times, the readings seem needlessly obscure. For example, in
# 7 Shih: The Army - why be so literal, putting 'Left' - when it is clear that 'Left' means to be in 'retreat' - and 'right,' to advance. Again, it seems arbitrary to translate 'chang-tzu' as 'Longer-lived brother' - when it clearly means 'elder-brother' - in contrast to the Ti-tzu, or younger brother. Why this excessive thirst for unpacking detail? - when the primary symbols - from the Chinese point of view, are the 'kua' (i.e. trigram relationships). Although the authors noted the 'inner' and 'outer' trigrams etc., their relevance is almost displaced, by the focus on breaking down line texts. When it comes to a 'Jungian' type approach to the Yi-Ching, I don't think anyone has bettered Carol Anthony's books -summing up the archetypal situations reflected in the kua/hexagrams, without all this semantic obfuscation.
�@

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars inscrutable yet strikingly direct, December 10, 2008

By 

S. Ellsworth - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Ching (Hardcover)

The I Ching is a tool, or a formalized framework, for accessing your own intuition. Most versions of it have commentaries that lead you through the meaning of your answer in a very friendly and accessible way. This book takes a different approach: It leaves the original text in a verse form adhering as closely as possible to the Chinese original, word-for-word. Then it gives a range of possible meanings for each word from the verse. The result is something less verbose, and more directly reaching my feelings and intuitions -- which has allowed me, over the years, to get far more out of the I Ching, as a bold and clear window into life, than I might have otherwise had.

I have the hardbound edition, and have been using it since it came out -- about ten years ago I even had to have it rebound. It's fantastic, and an esthetically pleasing book as well. Its only shortcoming is that it doesn't use the newer pinyin system of transcribing Chinese words.