The Original I Ching Oracle: The Pure and Complete Texts with Concordance [Paperback]

Rudolf Ritsema (Author), Shantena Augusto Sabbadini (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2007

This remarkable work is the final result of 50 years of I Ching research and over 10 years of roundtables and seminars. Based on a revolutionary translation method, and inspired by Carl Jung’s insights into the psyche, The Original I Ching Oracle offers Western readers the closest possible approach to the true content of the ancient Chinese oracle. By cutting through layers of philosophical analysis and recovering the original images of the I Ching, it puts readers in contact with a deep universal dimension of the human psyche, as important today as it was for the shamans in China over 3,000 years ago.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dilettantes who are seeking a brief, basic introduction to the I Ching, the classic text of Chinese divination, will want to look elsewhere. At more than 850 pages, with numerous annotations and highly technical explanations about textual divergences and linguistic issues, this is not for the beginner. Novices will be lost in the precise and specialized discussions of hexagrams, outer and inner trigrams, and transforming lines. However, readers who have already dipped their toes into the I Ching (which is usually translated as the Classic of Change) will relish this sophisticated and detailed full translation, produced under the auspices of the Eranos Foundation, a Swiss think tank. It offers what may be the first-ever complete concordance of the text, an index of sorts to every appearance of every character-or "core word"-used in the entire document. This will prove useful to serious students of Chinese spirituality, and to those who want to not only read the I Ching but to use it as a textbook for the practice of divination. To this end, the editors include advice on "interrogating the oracle," or using the text to obtain answers to specific questions or guidance on a decision. The book's design is also a plus, with bold reds punctuating a layout that is rich in tables and illustrations.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 864 pages
• Publisher: Watkins (October 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1905857055
• ISBN-13: 978-1905857050
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,086,373 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a good choice as a first, or only, version of the I Ching, July 9, 2009

By 

J. Lin (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Original I Ching Oracle: The Pure and Complete Texts with Concordance (Paperback)

To provide context, I bought this as part of a course on I Ching meditation. It was my first exposure to the I Ching, and it was recommended to try to read it three times before the course. The introduction was well written and informative. On the other hand, I found the book itself extremely frustrating to read - the first time. I never made it to the second.

The "easiest" part of translation is going from a word in one language to a word in another. The great problem with translation is, not only that there may not be an exact word in another language, but that a word may carry connotations and allusions which frequently differ from one language to the other. Further, those connotations or allusions can vary depending on the context. So the great challenge of translation is to choose the word which best describes not only the primary meaning but the "cloud" of secondary connotations and allusions that accompany it in that particular context. Words can also change their meaning with time: for example, several hundred years ago the word awful meant to fill someone with awe, whereas nowadays it means something terrible.

Then, after choosing the best words, the next great problem is stringing them together in a way that maintains the sense of the original while reading well in the second language. This may require rearranging the order to maintain the sense. Thus, one can easily imagine that translating an ancient text such as the I Ching, with the continuous succeeding millennia of Chinese literature and commentary adding so much accretion of meaning to the original texts, from the archaic Chinese to modern English, would be a formidable problem.

The Eranos "solution" to this problem is to provide a translation of the primary meaning of each character in the I Ching, along with "fields of meaning" which contain the possible secondary connotations of the primary word, without choosing among them or explaining the context. They also provide the minimal amount of connecting words between the characters. This is similar to taking a Chinese to English dictionary, translating character by character and printing the result. Often the consequence is incomprehensible pidgin English - for example, "to obstruction belongs in-no-way people." Or this, "Beings not permitted to use completing exceeding." Huh? Yes, every single word is English. If you whack at it hard enough you might be able to bludgeon some sense out of it - but does it mean what the original Chinese meant? No idea.

They also choose obscure English words such as "feudatories." Anybody who knows what that means raise their hands. I thought so. Hint: it means vassals - can anyone think of a good reason not to use the more common word?. Would any native English speaker choose that word? It seems to be the result of the translators going from a second language - Chinese - to their third language, English.

The introduction claims this is the result of a lifetime of study, but to what end? To put it bluntly, the hard work of actually translating has largely not been done. This is not so much a translation as a do-it-yourself translation kit. This is an English translation that needs an English translation. It is probably best used as a secondary source to compare with whatever your primary reading version of the I Ching is - but not to try to read, unless your mind works differently from most.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For specialists only, June 19, 2011

By 

Ezio Insinna "Ezio 83170" (Vins sur Caramy - France) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Original I Ching Oracle: The Pure and Complete Texts with Concordance (Paperback)

This book is very useful but should be used only by people who are really acquainted with the subtleties of the Book of Changes. Beginners beware !

12 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Immerse yourself in a woderful translation of this classic., May 24, 2006

By 

Timothy Ryan Britt "]noodlenozzle[" (Sa, Tx) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Original I Ching Oracle: The Pure and Complete Texts with Concordance (Hardcover)

I recieved this volume as a gift celebrating my graduation from the university, from my father-in-law, who taught me the basics of eastern thought, but is too impatient to understand the depth of the archetypal language found in this volume. However, It would be safe to say that anyone reading and writing at a master's degree level should be comfortable with the subjective associations required by the text. As an architecture student, much of my education was relatively subjective, so the underlying catalysts in the text were simple to activate. However, I would not suggest the book to those looking for a more rigid system of divination such as the tarot, or for those who do not have suffcient experience in archetypal langauge and cultures.