A study of the divinatory statements in the bamboo slip edition of the Book of change in the Shanghai Museum = Shang bo jian "Zhou yi" duan zhan ci yan jiu

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heung-wing Tse
Keyword(s):  
Shanghai Museum ◽  
Zhou Yi

A First Reading of the Shanghai Museum Bamboo-Strip Manuscript of the Zhou Yi

Early China ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward L. Shaughnessy
Keyword(s):  
Unusual Feature ◽  
Southern State ◽  
Shanghai Museum ◽  
Final Question ◽  
Zhou Yi

This study introduces a bamboo-strip manuscript of the Zhou Yi or Zhou Changes purchased by the Shanghai Museum in 1994. The fragmentary manuscript includes 58 strips, about one-third of the received text of the Zhou Yi. Orthographic features suggest that it was copied in the southern state of Chu about 300 B.C.E. Although the manuscript includes numerous orthographic variants vis-à-vis the received text, it does show that the text was stable by this date of copying. The most unusual feature of the manuscript is a pair of symbols written after the hexagram name and at the end of the hexagram text. Although several explanations of these symbols have been advanced, none of them appears to be convincing to date. A final question about the manuscript concerns the sequence of hexagrams in it. Since the binding straps of the manuscript had already decayed and the strips become disordered, and since each hexagram text begins on a new bamboo strip, no sequence is apparent. However, the physical circumstances of the strips, especially the points at which they are broken, may suggest that the sequence was more or less similar to that of the received Zhou Yi.

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