From this page, you can scroll through the different Yijing translations I’ve reviewed here, and click through to their pages to read the full review and (if you’re a member) add your own.
I’ve tried to sort the translations by ‘type’. That’s anything but an exact science with Yijing books, but hopefully it’ll help you to navigate to what you’re interested in. There’s overlap between the sections – for instance, a ‘complete Yijing with all the Wings included’ might also be a scholarly modernist version (eg Rutt) or a traditional one (eg Wilhelm/Baynes). So some books appear in more than one place.
We have…
- Complete Yijings, with the full text of all ten Wings
- ‘Traditional’ books, that represent an established Chinese tradition of interpretation
- Books based on modern scholarship
- ‘Other’ – the translations that don’t quite fit under either ‘traditional’ or ‘modernist’ headings
Complete Yijings
including all 10 Wings
The Wilhelm/Baynes I Ching
The translation for many people, still Amazon’s best-selling version, and guaranteed to be found on the bookshelf of every I Ching enthusiast. This status is not undeserved: this translation is the result of a tremendous amount of hard work and scholarship, coupled with a firm belief in the value of the I Ching itself.
The Wilhelm/Baynes has a unique historical position as the source of the I Ching’s popularity in the West. Clarity, along with hundreds of other sites and books and research efforts, probably owes its existence to Wilhelm…
R.J. Lynn I Ching
This is a remarkable work of scholarship that offers unusual insight into the development of early Chinese traditions of interpretation. It includes all the Wings, translated into clear and sometimes very poetic language, along with the all commentary of Wang Bi, the earliest I Ching commentator. In addition to giving the Dazhuan in its entirety – with Wang Bi’s commentary – Lynn also intersperses relevant excerpts from this and other Wings into the main body of the translation. The only other books I know of that do this are Wilhelm (book III) and John Minford (book I).
For each hexagram you have…
Richard Rutt, Zhouyi
This is a huge, scholarly study of the probable original meanings of the earliest stratum of the I Ching, the Zhouyi. Many of the translations offered here are quite different from the traditional meanings, and it is up to the reader to find the connections.
Rutt also includes complete translations of all the later Wings of the I Ching – a real rarity among I Ching books – but he keeps these separate from the Zhouyi texts. His version of the Dazhuan (Great Treatise) is my favourite one to read, study and quote…
Wu Jing Nuan, Yijing
There’s a long, intriguing introduction before the main part of this book, which is a complete translation of the Zhouyi (that is, the names, judgements and line statements). Browse on into the final chapters and the appendix, and you find that this is one of the very few I Ching books to include the complete I Ching, with all its traditional Wings. The translation throughout is fluent and straightforward.
The introduction begins with a deeply poetic elaboration of the traditional account of the beginnings of the I Ching, beginning with Fuxi. Wu is prepared both to embrace the myth and its meanings, and to move smoothly from myth to history when this better serves as a foundation for understanding.
Traditional translations
The Wilhelm/Baynes I Ching
The translation for many people, still Amazon’s best-selling version, and guaranteed to be found on the bookshelf of every I Ching enthusiast. This status is not undeserved: this translation is the result of a tremendous amount of hard work and scholarship, coupled with a firm belief in the value of the I Ching itself.
The Wilhelm/Baynes has a unique historical position as the source of the I Ching’s popularity in the West. Clarity, along with hundreds of other sites and books and research efforts, probably owes its existence to Wilhelm…
R.J. Lynn I Ching
This is a remarkable work of scholarship that offers unusual insight into the development of early Chinese traditions of interpretation. It includes all the Wings, translated into clear and sometimes very poetic language, along with the all commentary of Wang Bi, the earliest I Ching commentator. In addition to giving the Dazhuan in its entirety – with Wang Bi’s commentary – Lynn also intersperses relevant excerpts from this and other Wings into the main body of the translation. The only other books I know of that do this are Wilhelm (book III) and John Minford (book I).
For each hexagram you have…
Alfred Huang, The Complete I Ching
This translation is evidently a labour of love, written out of a deep reverence for the I Ching and an understanding of the importance of divination. It brings the oracle to life, and is much more optimistic, and less moralistic, in tone than some English versions.
It’s called the ‘Complete I Ching’ – Huang is emphatic about the value of the Wings – and it is almost complete: it contains all the most important divinatory texts…
Jack Balkin, The Laws of Change
First, this is a beautifully produced book: strong binding, silky paper, and the sense of a job done carefully, attentively and well. The same feeling stays with me from the Introduction right through to the Bibliographical Essay on page 625. The introductory section and the translation and commentary are equally thorough, conscientious and thoughtful. It’s also all highly intelligently expressed, and very clear.
Part I of the book is over 100 closely-printed pages long and comes in six chapters: ‘Introduction’, ‘The Philosophy of the Book of Changes‘, ‘How the Book of Changes works’…
Modern scholarship
Richard Rutt, Zhouyi
This is a huge, scholarly study of the probable original meanings of the earliest stratum of the I Ching, the Zhouyi. Many of the translations offered here are quite different from the traditional meanings, and it is up to the reader to find the connections.
Rutt also includes complete translations of all the later Wings of the I Ching – a real rarity among I Ching books – but he keeps these separate from the Zhouyi texts. His version of the Dazhuan (Great Treatise) is my favourite one to read, study and quote, because it’s fluently written in simple, unpretentious language, and entirely free of interspersed metaphysical commentary.
Stephen Field, The Duke of Zhou Changes
An intriguing, deeply scholarly work, translating and discussing only the Zhouyi – the book’s oldest stratum – and not the accretion of tradition that makes the book a Classic.
It stands out for two things: its excellent introduction to the Yi’s historical and cultural background, and the extensive use of myth and legend in the hexagram commentaries.
The introduction covers the history of Shang and Zhou (in more detail than I’ve found in any other book), the workings of ancient Chinese divination, and the mythical origins of the Yi – again in considerable detail.
Lars Bo Christensen, Book of Changes
An excellent, independently published translation of the Zhouyi core. Unlike almost all translators who concentrate on that core alone, Lars is clear that it’s coherent and meaningful in its own right, and intended for use in divination. His translation reflects this: it’s fluent, it makes sense, and it’s eminently usable.
Margaret Pearson, The Original I Ching
A gentle, reflective and very usable I Ching, blending true scholarship with personal understanding.
The book includes:
- An intriguing, thoughtful introduction.
- A translation that blends the received version of the Zhouyi with emendations taken from the Mawangdui (MWD)manuscript…
Modern scholarship
Hilary Barrett, I Ching
This is my own book, designed to work well as a beginner’s I Ching – to be approachable and understandable without fuss – but without ‘simplifying’ away the essential nature of the oracle itself. I included an unusually complete introduction to describe the whole process of divination, including tips for interpreting your reading (where most books stop with casting instructions).
Ritsema-Sabbadini, The Original I Ching Oracle
I’ve been comparing Ritsema/Sabbadini side-by-side with the original ‘R&K’. The introduction says that it contains ‘a number of significant improvements,’ ‘incorporating all the insights developed in a decade of research’, but it doesn’t seem all that different. The presentation is better, the Tuanzhuan has been demoted to a position after the line texts, the section on constituent trigrams has been lengthened. And yes, some words do have new translations.
There are a few significant changes to hexagram names: Hexagram 1 is Energy now, Hexagram 2 is Space; 57 is Root (I like it); 11 is Compenetration (I had to look that up). Some core words have gained ‘variants’: the most noticeable of these is that zhi is now translated as ‘to [x] belongs’ in places, which makes some parts read better. Sometimes the choice of core word is different, but the overall meaning of the translation is hardly ever changed.
Stephen Karcher, I Ching
This is a ‘fully revised edition’ of the I Ching with concordance by Stephen Karcher and Rudolf Ritsema, the Eranos edition, commonly and affectionately known as ‘R&K’. I owe a huge amount to that book: its uniquely liberating approach really launched my own relationship with the I Ching. Certainly without it I’d never have started Clarity.
The original Ritsema-Karcher gave rise to two offshoots: this book of Karcher’s, and a revision by Ritsema working with Sabbadini. The core of these two books is the same; you don’t need to buy both.
The revised version keeps the great strengths of the original…
Stephen Karcher, Total I Ching
Introduction
Stephen Karcher is an author whose introductions you do not want to skip. This one is essential reading if you are to make full use of the rest of the book, as well as being fascinating in its own right. It describes Yi’s birth and evolution, and moves on to map out the physical and mythological landscape for the oracle as a whole: the world of spirits and human intermediaries; the annual cycles of ritual and sacrifice integrating spiritual and physical realities; the vital connection to the ancestors.
Then come the ‘Tools for Change’. This begins with the same basics that most I Ching books do…