The Classic of Changes in Cultural Context: A Textual Ar ...

Chapter 2

Spirits of the Zhou yi—An Essay on Wine

How should one read an archaic text such as the Zhou yi, a text that is so difficult to understand and uses so much strange vocabulary, that one does not know exactly how to translate, and that puts words in such strange arrangements? It will depend on what a person wants to do with it. Whether a reader wants to use Zhou yi for divination or just to read it as a work of philosophy, there exist formidable commentary traditions with full arrays of guidelines and techniques to assist that reading. One is not lacking in study materials if one approaches the classic through its traditional applications.

Or, if one believes that reading a text is finding the exact shade of meaning for each lexical item and locating the choice of each lexical item in comparison with contemporary texts, to construct usage indices for each lexical item, then turn to philological methodologies assisting readings and derivations. Applying these indices to determining frequency