I Ching/Explanation Of I Ching Hexagrams And Lines

Notes: In the table below,


 * 1) The column on the right gives the name of the Gua (hexagram) in Simplified Chinese. The name of each hexagram in Traditional Chinese can be found in the left column.
 * 2) For each Gua, the left column gives the binary representation of the Gua. For example, the first Gua is "Qian", and it can be represented by "111111". When the table is sorted by this column, it will also be sorted by the binary representation of the Gua, and the I Ching hexagrams arranged by Shao Yong, in vertical sequence, appears. In other words, Shao Yong arranged the Gua from "000000" (as the first hexagram) to "111111" (as the last hexagram), in strict binary order, about a thousand years ago.
 * 3) When the table is sorted by the right column, we can conveniently find a hexagram by its name as transliterated from Chinese. However, this name is not in Pinyin or Wade-Giles, and the tonal pronunciation can only be found in the left column. For example, if we look for "Jian" and "Qian" in the column on the right, we will find two entries for each of these terms. We can then proceed to obtain the pronunciation in the left column, one for each entry. The transliteration in the right column serves as a pointer to the accurate pronunciation and Chinese characters representing each of the 64 hexagrams.
 * 4) The translation and transliteration of the Chinese characters representing the hexagrams can differ substantially between authors, depending on their understanding and interpretation, as well as whether they use Pinyin, Wade-Giles, or their own method of transliteration. For example, Qian (the first hexagram) is translated as "Initiating" by Alfred Huang, and translated as "The Creative" by James Legge. In addition, this hexagram is  transliterated as "Qian" and "Ch'ien" by the two authors respectively, and in Pinyin it is represented as "qián". The hexagrams themselves are the only unchanging references between books by different authors.
 * 5) The translation of some basic terms can be problematic, and sometimes Legge attempts a word-for-word translation. For example, the term "small man" means 小人, although it actually means a petty or mean-spirited person, of either gender. The term "superior man" means 君子, and indicates a person of virtue (in the Confucian sense of the term), regardless of gender. In other words, the terms "small" and "superior" refer to the moral and ethical stature and not the physical size of a person. Similarly, the terms "man" or "men" usually refer to person(s)/human(s) and are not indicative of gender.

Ref: Yi Ching translated by James Legge (1815 –1897). Both the explanation of the Gua by King Wen and the explanation of the lines by the Duke of Kau were translated by James Legge.