The Duke of Zhou Changes: A Study and Annotated by Stephen L. Field (review)

This new translation of the Zhouyi (The Zhou Changes) is divided into three parts: introductory material (pp. 5–57), the translation proper (pp. 59–248), and “Practical Applications” (pp. 249–257). The three parts are preceded by a list of contents (pp. v–vii), a preface (pp. ix–xii), a brief introduction (pp. 1–2), and a list of Chinese periods and dynasties (p. 3). The book concludes with a glossary (pp. 259–263), a bibliography of primary and secondary sources (pp. 265–271), and an index (pp. 273–281), followed by a hexagram location chart. In addition to that, seven tables and sixteen illustrations are provided.

Field’s translation targets both the general reader and the specialist: “it maintains a minimum of exegesis so that the specialist can understand the derivation of what may initially appear to be unorthodox renditions of various passages” (p. xi). It furthermore includes subsections and charts that cater to readers who will want to use the book for divination purposes. The introductory material and the translated parts include Chinese characters for convenient reference.

In his preface Stephen Field refers to some of the previous translations and declares his indebtedness to Richard Kunst, Edward Shaughnessy, Richard Rutt, and John Minford, all of whom have translated the older part of the Changes.¹ However, unlike any of these translators Fields believes that the line texts of the Zhouyi were in fact composed by the Duke of Zhou 周公 (hence the title) who lived in the eleventh century b.c.e. The tradition that the two sets of texts of the Zhouyi, the hexagram texts and the line texts, were co-authored by Ji Chang 姬昌 (aka the Cultured King 文王) and his son Ji Dan 姬旦 (the Duke of Zhou)—both semi-legendary paragons of virtue in the eyes of Confucius (Kongzi 孔子) and his followers—can be traced back to Ma Rong 馬融 (79–166) but may of course be older. A similar tradition had Confucius as the author of the so-called Ten Wings. In this reviewer’s opinion, it is entirely possible to appreciate the multilayered structure of the Yijing without subscribing to any of these attributions, which themselves seem to have arisen well over a thousand years after the deaths of the putative authors.

The introductory material in part 1, “The Origin of the Zhouyi,” focuses on ancient Chinese history and ancient Chinese divination as well as the mythical and historical origins of the Yijing. These are generally reliable if somewhat speculative syntheses of archaeological discoveries and summaries of traditional Chinese accounts, although the latter appears with little or no critical distance and hardly any consideration of the contexts in which these stories came to life. The reign of the last Shang king “degenerated into tyrannical oppression” (pp. 10–11) while the father of the Cultured King was “a just and wise ruler” and the Cultured King himself had “qualities of meekness and humility [that] were so opposed to the cruelty and intimidation of the Shang kings that worthy people from all directions flocked to serve him” (p. 12; see also note 3 ibid.). Readers familiar with the Confucian canon will recognize this Confucian pro-Zhou spin to bolster the legitimacy of what may otherwise have been construed as the rebellion of a vassal against his lord. Instead, the Zhou takeover of the Shang was celebrated throughout China’s history as a just victory of the virtuous Zhou clan legitimized by the Mandate of Heaven. “[T]he tradition in which the Zhou figure so centrally is a Zhou creation,” writes Robert Bagley, and adds “it bears the stamp of symbolic history.”²

Again Field endorses authorship attributions which are highly uncertain at best and therefore abandoned by most scholars in the field (see page 16 for the Duke of Zhou’s alleged role in the formation...