Thoughts on Wilhelm/Baynes
Someone wrote to ask what I think of the Wilhelm/Baynes translation.
I have mixed feelings about it. For a lot of people, I know, asking ‘what do you think of Wilhelm/Baynes?’ is much the same as asking, ‘What do you think of the Bible?’ This is the edition the great majority of Yi-users grew up on; it’s basically the edition responsible for making the Yijing known in the West. If it weren’t for Wilhelm, I don’t suppose this website would exist.
So the Wilhelm/Baynes edition has been hugely influential, and many people still more or less equate the I Ching with W/B. It would be hard not to, even for people just getting to know the oracle now: the W/B is still the bestselling I Ching at Amazon.com, still likely to be the only one on the shelves at a bookstore. And I have long since stopped being surprised at people who quote Wilhelm’s commentary and firmly believe they are quoting the I Ching itself. Some people use the book for decades and never succeed in differentiating between oracle and commentary.
Is that a problem? Well, yes. The words of the oracle answer your question; the words of the commentator explain what he thinks that answer means. Now Wilhelm has the weight of a great tradition behind him - we’re not just looking at an individual’s personal opinions - but for all that, his work still has prejudices and limitations that the oracle itself does not have.
For example - at 37.2, Yi says simply
‘No direction to pursue,
Stay put in the centre and cook.
Constancy, good fortune.’
- or words to that effect.
Wilhelm (/Baynes) says:
‘She should not follow her whims.
She must attend within to the food.
Perseverance brings good fortune.’
He has quietly added ‘she’, ‘must’ and ’should’ out of his own perceptions, and put a whole different cast on the thing as a result. And this, of course, is before we get to his commentary, which begins:
‘The wife must always be guided by the will of the master of the house, be he father, husband, or grown son. Her place is within the house.”
Again, this is not just Wilhelm’s voice, but that of a long interpretive tradition. The difficulty arises when people adopt that widespread belief that this is the I Ching: its words, its morality. It becomes more than a problem of interpretation: it’s caused many women, down the years, to discard the book altogether. ‘The I Ching’s the book that says my place is in the kitchen, firmly under my husband’s thumb. I’m an independent woman, so this book has nothing to do with me.’ It’s remarkably hard to convey the idea that although there is a book with ‘I Ching’ on the cover that says exactly this, it isn’t what the I Ching says.
Wilhelm’s work both represents a tradition and is a product of its time. Naturally, there have been discoveries made since the 1940s that affect interpretation, and someone who reads nothing but Wilhelm/Baynes will miss out on all the richness of these stories and images. Actually, someone who picks up an I Ching book at random will most likely be in much the same boat, as a huge volume of paper has been consumed by derivatives and paraphrases of Wilhelm.
I had the great good fortune to ‘grow up’ on the Eranos I Ching, which gave me the firm idea from the outset that Yi was a world of images and possibilities, not something that could be encompassed by a single perspective. And yet… even though I didn’t get a copy of Wilhelm/Baynes for some years, it’s having a pervasive influence on me. On more than one occasion, I’ve wrestled for some time before finally coming up with an interpretation I can be happy with - only to find that Wilhelm had it waiting for me all the time. And the sheer quality of the language has a staying power all its own. Which of these puts down roots in your mind?
48.3, Ritsema/Sabbadini:
‘The well oozing, not taking-in.
Activating my heart’s ache.
Permitting availing-of drawing water.’
(Erm…)
Alfred Huang:
‘Well is dredged.
No drinking.
Sorrow in my heart.
It could be used and drawn.’
Karcher:
‘This Well is turbid. They do not drink here.
“This makes my heart ache.” ’
W/B:
‘The well is cleaned, but no one drinks from it.
This is my heart’s sorrow,
For one might draw from it.’
July 3rd, 2006 at 8:02 pm
Hello Hilary,
My brother has been casting the I Ching for 34 years and I am introducing him to your website. He would like to reply to you:
My name is Joe Eastburn. I’m going to subscribe to your newsletter. My sister and I are here at her pad in Atlanta talking about all things spiritual, and started on the I Ching a minute ago and here I am communicating with you. Such a miracle. From just reading your thoughts on W/B, we both realized you’re an I Ching scholar. Are you saying W/B puts down more “roots” because it presents the mind with a riddle? Anyway, I grew up using Blofeld, then W/B and now Huang. Blessings.
July 7th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
Dear Hilary,
I read your article with interest - I think there is a strong necessity about that issue - and at a first approximation I quite agree with what you say.
However I want to add my two pence to it.
Just at the opposite from you, I have been “grown up” with Wilhelm, so “that” was I Ching for me. I used to read first that tranlation and then several other ones (like Blofeld, Douglas, and T. Cleary, for instance) when I was not satisfied with W.
Then I attended to your course on line - fine - and discovered other “accredited” translations like A. Huang and Karcher, plus a comment, Sarah Dening’s, that you raccomend. Trusting your judgement finally I bought a copy of each of them and started to consult them all in comparison to W.’s transaltion.
Needless to say I found them all illuminating and extremely useful, however…
I must say that W. still has an important place in my readings.
I found out that for general/filosophical/spiritual questions W. is invaluable, while for specific or practical questions (about relationships, for example) the other three ones are clearer and therefore more useful. So I think each of them has a certain area of application and can be regarded as complimentary. What do you think about that?
By the way, dispite of the apparent diversity W.’s and Huang’s tranlations very often convey the same meaning, it seems what you may call a “classical tradition”, while Karcher is quite another thing.
So to conclude, I’d like to remember the advice you give in your course, which sounds reasonable to me: to use the translation with which one feels more at “home” or at easy (and not forgetting the others).
Thank you,
Donato
July 9th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Thanks Donato, hello Joe!
I think W/B puts down roots just because of the quality of the language. I don’t know what that is, exactly - it’s usually rhythmic qualities that make words stick with me. I think Wilhelm might be better at presenting the mind with answers, and Karcher better at presenting it with a mind-expanding enigma.
I agree with Donato, W/B and Huang are representatives of very much the same tradition, and Karcher is a different animal altogether. There are relatively few books outside that tradition - Wu Jing Nuan’s Yijing is another. I like bringing different versions together - the more different, the better - but I can also see the benefits of picking up different versions for different occasions. Personally, if I really want to be told unambiguously what to do, I’d reach for Jack Balkin.
July 9th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
Hilary, I too ‘grew up’ with Wilhelm/Baynes and only relatively recently came across firstly Huang, Carol Anthony, then Eranos and finally Karcher’s Total I Ching (agree with you about the binding…was never going to survive constant use). Ritsema and Karcher’s work was vital in allowing me to understand (and therefore strip out) the heavy moralistic overlay from the Confusian commentaries. This was pretty revelatory for me, as I had always felt deeply uncomfortable with a lot of the commentaries without quite being able to put my finger on why. So much of it seemed to fly in the face of the Dao de Jing. Now it’s pretty obvious why.
Carol Anthony’s work is dedicated and very earnest and shows some deep understanding from an overtly Buddhist position, but is often strained, repetitive and by using W/B as its base text also takes what comes across to me at least as an overly moralistic tone. But her focus on relationships can be very illuminating. I would love to hear other people’s take on her work.
But I must agree with you, that by seeking and discovering other translations and versions, one’s return to Wilhelm often yields delightful surprises, for his language was (is) superb. Not surprising perhaps, since his version was CG Jung’s and Herman Hesse’s constant companion. Though in their era they were not as spoilt for choice as we are.
But ‘rolling the words on the tongue’ and setting ‘fish traps for the dao’ appeals to me the most…for deep meaning and deeper insight seems to me to need time….
December 24th, 2007 at 5:51 am
I am very impressed with the advanced understanding that people here have of the IC… fascinating topic.
I have always approached the IC not as a literary work but as a true Oracle… a way in which to communicate with God. As a result, I see the IC as more of a navigator for my life rather than an interesting topic of study.
I guess i would come from a more emperical school of thought… less concerned with the mechanics and nuances of the subject and more focused on its heuristic value in getting me further along ‘the way’. To some people the IC becomes and end in itself… rather than just a means to get to a further place.
I will say one thing…the way…is one helluva ride.
adlucem