The Return of the Condor Heroes Appendix

The <span class="italic">Book of Changes</span>, yin-yang, and numerology

Most Chinese scholars hold that the Book of Changes¹ took shape at the end of the Shang² and the beginning of the Zhou.³ It came into being very early, and its original purpose was to divine good and ill fortune as a guide to conduct. The ancients were superstitious. Understanding nothing of the natural world, of fate, of how a war would end, of marriage, of building a house, and of other such great matters, they were anxious and afraid, and so they cast hexagrams to decide.

The basic principles of the Book of Changes are lessons that ancient sages drew from observing how things work and from the experience of life. They teach that all things are ever moving and never fixed, that whatever reaches its extreme turns into its opposite, and that in whatever one does one must not go to extremes.

Even from the standpoint of modern philosophy, this makes a great deal of sense. It is generally held that the Zhou Yi⁴ had already taken shape at the beginning of the Western Zhou.⁵ Tradition has always ascribed it to King Wen of Zhou.⁶ That may not be fact, but it is quite possible that King Wen compiled and edited it from traditional materials.

The Book of Changes represents things by the eight trigrams, with a solid line (⚊) for yang and a broken line (⚋) for yin. (Modern Western natural science uses + for positive, or yang, and − for negative, or yin, to the same effect.) The root idea of the Book of Changes is yin and yang,⁷ which was originally a Daoist idea and was later put to use by the Confucians.

Confucius admired the Book of Changes greatly, and seems to have regretted not having studied it properly. In the “Shu Er” chapter of the Analects⁸ we read: “The Master said: Grant me a few more years, so that I may study the Changes at fifty, and I may be free of great faults.”

After the line statements of the Book of Changes come ten pieces explaining the text and the line statements, known as the Commentaries, or the Ten Wings.⁹ Confucians have always held them to be the work of Confucius, but Ouyang Xiu¹⁰ of the Song¹¹ already doubted it, and modern scholars such as Feng Youlan,¹² Qian Mu,¹³ Li Jingchi,¹⁴ Dai Junren,¹⁵ and Chen Guying¹⁶ have shown with ample evidence that they are not the work of Confucius, and were probably added by scholars of the later Warring States.¹⁷

The Analects, the most important Confucian classic, rarely mentions yin-yang, and Confucius himself barely discussed the concept.

Yin and yang are among the earliest ideas to appear in Chinese thought. They first meant the side of a thing facing the sun and the side turned away from it: facing the sun was yang, turned away from the sun was yin. Chinese place names are full of the words yin and yang. Of a place near a mountain or a river, the side the sun shines on was called yang (north of a river, south of a mountain), and the side turned from the sun was called yin (south of a river, north of a mountain). In the Western Zhou, Boyang Fu,¹⁸ the Grand Historian of Zhou, explained earthquakes by the two qi of yin and yang: when the two could not be brought into harmony they clashed, and so the earth shook.

In Dream of the Red Chamber,¹⁹ Shi Xiangyun’s explanation of yin and yang to her maid Cuilu²⁰ is both clear and delightful. It is generally held that everything between heaven and earth has its yin and its yang, so that electricity is negative and positive, and humans are divided into yin (female) and yang (male).

The sun is supreme yang, the moon supreme yin. Laozi²¹ said, “All things carry yin on their backs and embrace yang in their arms, and through the blending of their breaths they achieve harmony.”

Zhuangzi²² went further, holding the two qi of yin and yang to be the direct source of humankind and of all things. The “Tian Zifang”²³ chapter of the Zhuangzi says: “Supreme yin is cold and stern, supreme yang is bright and blazing. The stern comes forth from heaven, the blazing issues from earth. The two meet and mingle, achieve harmony, and all things are born.”

The original Book of Changes paid close attention to yin and yang, but the transmitted text of later ages says little about how yin and yang complement each other. Perhaps the transmitted text now current was altered by later Confucian disciples who “exalted yang and debased yin”.

The silk manuscript of the Book of Changes unearthed from the Han tomb at Mawangdui²⁴ in Changsha is older than the transmitted text, and says more about the patterns of yin and yang, and says it better.

Mister Li Xueqin’s²⁵ book Tracing the Origins of the Zhou Yi and Its Commentaries²⁶ is incisive in its views. It says: “The hexagrams are built from yin and yang lines and so inherently contain the philosophy of yin and yang. Hence the Great Commentary says: ‘One yin and one yang: this is called the Way.’ Yet in the hexagram order of the transmitted text it is hard to find any pattern that accords with yin-yang theory. In embodying the patterns of yin and yang, the silk manuscript is clearly superior to the transmitted text.”

The Book of Changes has eight trigrams,²⁷ with a solid line for yang and a broken line for yin. Writing and printing in ancient times were not what they are today, and when the trigrams were stacked one on another they could come out unclear in writing or in print.

Numbers made misreading less likely, and made the lines easier to cite when they were discussed later. Each hexagram²⁸ is formed by stacking two trigrams, and each line is called a yao,²⁹ counted from the bottom up. The Tai hexagram,³⁰ for example, is Qian³¹ below and Kun³² above.

When written with numbers, yang is represented by nine and yin by six. The first line is called the initial, the second the second, and the sixth the top. Thus the Tai hexagram would be written as: Initial nine, nine in the second place, nine in the third place, six in the fourth place, six in the fifth place, top six.

The Tongren hexagram³³ has Li below and Qian above, written as: Initial nine, six in the second place, nine in the third place, nine in the fourth place, nine in the fifth place, top nine.

Numbers standing for the symbols first appear in writing only with the Ten Wings of the later Warring States. My own guess is that nine was chosen for yang and six for yin because paper, brush, and ink had not yet been invented: when the men of the Warring States wrote books, they cut the trigrams into bamboo and wooden slips with a knife, and the two kinds of mark were easily confused. Using the words “nine” and “six” for them was much easier, and less open to misreading in a written text.

Some hold that yang must be nine and no other number will do, and yin must be six and no other number will do. This confuses two different ideas. It is like saying that because positive electricity is written + and negative electricity −, figures for positive and negative charge may only be added (+) and subtracted (−), never multiplied (×) or divided (÷), since × and ÷ do not stand for positive or negative charge.

In fact the Chinese of tradition were not so rigid. At New Year people often wish one another “three yangs bring prosperity”,³⁴ never “nine yangs bring prosperity”. Chinese medicine holds that the head is where the three yang meridians of the hand and the three yang meridians of the foot meet, and so calls the head “the meeting place of the six yangs”³⁵ or “chief of the six yangs”, never “chief of the nine yangs”. Six Yang Qi-Righting Pills³⁶ are a very widely used Chinese medicine, and nobody needs to rename them “Nine Yang Qi-Righting Pills”.

To force the opinions of the later Warring States upon the Book of Changes of the Yin-Zhou or the Western Zhou is, I fear, to bind the earlier by the later. In Dream of the Red Chamber, Lin Daiyu³⁷ has tuberculosis, for which specific drugs appeared only in modern times, and a critic objects: “Why not treat Sister Lin with the specific drugs rifampicin and isoniazid? And what good is the bird’s nest that Xue Baochai³⁸ sends her?”

You Erjie,³⁹ sensing her end had come, swallowed raw gold and died in unbearable agony, and a modern reader objects: “You Erjie had no common sense. Why didn’t she take sleeping pills? It would have hurt far less.”

Daoist philosophy has always held yin and yang to be of equal weight. In the Taiji diagram⁴⁰ the twin fish are symmetrical: when yin waxes, yang wanes; when yang waxes, yin wanes. Yin and yang are wholly equal, and whatever reaches its extreme turns into its opposite.

As yin gradually waxes, it grows from lesser yin to old yin. At the height of its waxing it begins to decline, and there appear lesser yang and bright yang, and at last old yang, in a cycle of transformation.

To stress yang and hardness while belittling yin and softness is the view of one faction within Confucianism (some think it may have been the followers of Zizhang⁴¹). Dong Zhongshu⁴² went further and applied the theory of yin and yang to human affairs, exalting yang and debasing yin, and with it exalting the ruler over the minister and men over women.

In the “Jiyi” chapter of his Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals,⁴³ Dong Zhongshu writes: “The principles of ruler and minister, father and son, husband and wife all derive from the way of yin and yang. The ruler is yang, the minister yin. The father is yang, the son yin. The husband is yang, the wife yin.”

Among the human relationships, the Confucians singled out three as the guiding cords: the ruler is the cord of the minister, the father the cord of the son, the husband the cord of the wife. To uphold the framework of ritual teaching in a patriarchal clan society, the Confucians gave yin and yang a convenient interpretation.

Dong Zhongshu’s learning flourished greatly in the Western Han, and the codes of nine for yang and six for yin in the Ten Wings came to be used all the more to show yang weighted above yin, though the Ten Wings itself may not have held nine to be more important than six.

Among the peoples of the world, numbers on the whole carry no special meaning. Westerners say seven is lucky, thirteen unlucky, and 666 the Devil, but these are all later superstitions.

The Chinese and Japanese dislike of “four”, because it sounds like “death”, is not an ancient custom either. Cantonese people today like “eight” because it sounds close to fa, “to prosper”, and lately Shanghai people have taken “four” to be lucky, because in numbered musical notation it is the Fa of Do, Re, Mi, Fa, which is fa, standing for success and wealth.

Divination at first used tortoise shells and ox bones as its tools, but divining with oracle bones⁴⁴ was not easy, and later the simpler method of yarrow stalks⁴⁵ was adopted. Yarrow stalks were usually counted off in fives and tens, and so the two numbers five and ten took on a special meaning in the teachings of the numerologists.

The Great Commentary⁴⁶ of the Ten Wings says: “Heaven one, earth two, heaven three, earth four, heaven five, earth six, heaven seven, earth eight, heaven nine, earth ten.”

The Qian Zao Du⁴⁷ says: “Yang moves and advances, yin moves and retreats. Thus yang takes seven and yin eight as their emblems. In the Changes, one yin and one yang together make fifteen: this is called the Way… The five notes, the six pitch-pipes, and the seven changes arise from this. Thus the number of the Great Expansion is fifty, by which transformation is accomplished and ghosts and spirits are set in motion.”

By the Song, Liu Mu⁴⁸ had his so-called River Chart⁴⁹ and Zhu Xi⁵⁰ his so-called Luo Writing,⁵¹ both of them a great heap of numbers. Mister Feng Youlan says in his History of Chinese Philosophy: “What is called the study of images and numbers may at first sight seem a great heap of superstition, but its intention, too, was to give a systematic explanation of the universe and of things in all its aspects.”

In time the calendar, the directions, the sun and moon, the stars, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, metal, wood, water, fire, and earth,⁵² gong, shang, jiao, zhi, and yu,⁵³ the fortunes of the state, marching and fighting, the eight characters of one’s birth, marriage, and feng shui⁵⁴ were, every one of them, bound up with numerology.

The ancients were far less exact about numbers than people are now. The “Youshi” section of the Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals⁵⁵ says: “Heaven has nine fields, earth has nine provinces, the land has nine mountains, the mountains have nine passes, the marshes have nine fens, the winds have eight grades, the waters have six rivers.”

That the earth has nine provinces is fact. But heaven’s nine fields, which nine fields are they? It does not say, and this is already close to the teachings of the yin-yang and wuxing schools.

My friend Ye Hongsheng⁵⁶ of Taiwan wrote a book, On Swordsmanship,⁵⁷ in which, going by the Ten Wings, he insists that the name Nine Yin Manual makes no sense: since the Ten Wings holds that yang is nine and yin six, it ought to be called the Six Yin Manual. He says, “Daoism has no such strange talk as ‘Nine Yin’ (nor has Buddhism).”

In fact, Huang Shang⁵⁸ of the Song writing the Nine Yin Manual is pure fiction to begin with, and besides, he studied only Daoist books and paid no heed at all to the Book of Changes that the Confucians revere. Most of the Ten Wings can hardly be the work of Confucius (Mister Guo Yi holds that part of it may have been edited by Confucius). It was probably written by Confucian disciples of the late Warring States (or by others who were not Confucian disciples).

Its contents are excellent, but Mister Huang Shang was free to say “our ways differ” and pay it no mind. If he insisted on writing a Nine Yin Manual, I doubt anyone else could do much about it. (Could you beat him in a fight?)

My friend Yang Xing’an,⁵⁹ in a note at the end of an essay on my story Moon Cloud,⁶⁰ writes: “Taiwan’s Ye Hongsheng says in his book On Swordsmanship that ‘a yang line takes nine as old (supreme yang), a yin line takes six as old (supreme yin)’, and holds that there is no ‘Nine Yin’.”

My friend Yan Xiaoxing⁶¹ found a Nine Yin Classic of the Divine Lord⁶² in a Daoist compendium. The term “Nine Yin” first appears in the “Great Wilderness: North” chapter of the Classic of Mountains and Seas.⁶³ In the Three Kingdoms period,⁶⁴ Ge Xuan’s⁶⁵ preface to the Dao De Jing contains the phrase “disasters eliminate the Nine Yin, blessings arise in the ten directions.”

The Ten Wings belongs to the learning of the Confucians and the Yin-Yang School, and holds yang weightier than yin, hence yang nine and yin six. By the Western Han,⁶⁶ the Confucians, to exalt the ruler, the father, and the husband, weighted yang far above yin, out of political and ideological need and with no proper philosophical content.

The Nine Yin Manual is a work of Daoist martial learning, holding that the soft can overcome the hard and yin prevail over yang, and so it is called “Nine Yin”. The Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing lays particular weight on the Qian hexagram,³¹ and so it is a martial art of yang hardness, wholly different from the Nine Yin Manual.

My friend Ye Hongsheng’s research into modern martial arts fiction runs deep, but to examine my novels’ wild fancies with such solemn scholarship (the Nine Yin Manual is about martial learning, and has nothing whatever to do with yin-yang trigrams or the numerology of old yin and old yang) comes rather close to “the manner of Great Master Jueyuan”.⁶⁷ Such earnest scholarship commands admiration. It is only that my improvised daydreams are not scholarship. I am most grateful to Yang Xing’an and Yan Xiaoxing for so diligently searching the Daoist Canon over this small question.

In fact, the Confucians and the Yin-Yang School were both among the pre-Qin philosophers, and the Ten Wings blends the teachings of the Confucians, the Daoists, and the Yin-Yang School. The Yin-Yang School flourished in eastern Qi and loved extravagant fancies, and pre-Qin scholars called its talk “wild tales from east of Qi”.⁶⁸

It can hardly serve as authority for all learning. Yet the numerological theories of the Yin-Yang School had a great influence on later Confucians.

The mainstream of Han classical studies expounded the classics through the teachings of the Yin-Yang School. Wang Mang⁶⁹ loved omens of the mandate and Emperor Guangwu⁷⁰ believed in apocrypha and prophecy, both with political and propaganda ends, the message of the propaganda being “Our lord should be emperor”.

Later, when the Ancient Text School⁷¹ of classical studies arose, it opposed the apocrypha and the teachings of the Yin-Yang School, yet even so great a scholar as Yang Xiong⁷² could not shake free of yin-yang numerology.

Yang Xiong wrote the Book of Supreme Mystery,⁷³ whose overall principle is “the one Mystery”, divided into three to make the “three regions”, each divided into three again to make the “nine provinces”, each again into three to make “twenty-seven sections”, and each again into three to make “eighty-one families”.

He concludes: “Regions, provinces, sections, and families are formed by three positions. Speaking of nine times nine, this creates numbers, assists the supreme principles, and thus establishes names. The eighty-one heads all determine the affairs of the year.”

The Book of Supreme Mystery’s numerology states: “One and six share ancestry; two and seven share brightness; three and eight become friends; four and nine share the way; five and five guard each other.”

These numerical games sound very mysterious and have much in common with the ways of magicians and immortals, but what sense they really make, no one can say clearly. It seems we need not take them too seriously. As Mister Feng Youlan said, they are “a great heap of superstition”.

In truth, if we read the Book of Changes and the Ten Wings within it as a philosophy of life and a view of the universe, we can find many profound and useful ideas there. Having absorbed a great deal of the Daoist thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi and of the Jixia Academy⁷⁴ of Tian Qi, the Ten Wings expresses philosophically rich ideas about life, human affairs, and the development of things, well worth taking as a basis for our own thinking.

For example, the Book of Changes emphasises the conflict between yin and yang as opposing forces, similar to dialectics. Like dialectics, it shows how these opposing forces constantly develop, contradict, intensify, wax and wane, and transform.

Dialectics holds that one force overwhelms another, producing “negation”, which can in turn be followed by “the negation of the negation”. The Book of Changes holds instead that yin waxing as yang wanes, or yang waxing as yin wanes, is only a partial waxing and waning: when one force grows stronger the opposing force weakens accordingly, but need not be wholly destroyed, and between the two lies a process of development.

In some Book of Changes hexagrams, yang lines outnumber yin lines, and at extreme yang there are no yin lines at all. When yang reaches its peak, it can suddenly transform to reveal yin. Sayings like “the arrogant dragon will have cause for regret”⁷⁵ and “treading on frost, solid ice will come”⁷⁶ emphasise that “extremes reverse themselves” and “opposing forces arrive imperceptibly”, suggesting a transition from quantitative to qualitative change.

The Book of Changes and the Ten Wings stress that all things are “ever moving, never at rest”, and one of the meanings of the Yi in Yijing is “change”.

The Feng hexagram⁷⁷ says: “When the sun stands at noon it begins to sink. When the moon is full it begins to wane. Heaven and earth fill and empty, waxing and waning with the seasons. How much more so, then, for man? How much more so for ghosts and spirits?”

The Sun hexagram⁷⁸ says: “Decreasing the strong and increasing the weak has its time. Decrease and increase, fullness and emptiness move with time.”

The Fu hexagram⁷⁹ says: “Return: success. The firm returns. It moves and proceeds in accord, and so going out and coming in are without affliction, and friends come without blame. ‘Back and forth goes the way, on the seventh day comes return’: this is the course of heaven. ‘It is favourable to have somewhere to go’: the firm is growing. In Return, do we not see the heart of heaven?”

The Book of Changes takes “every going has its return, going and returning in an endless cycle” as the chief law of heaven and earth, and human affairs are the same. The Ten Wings also develops some of Laozi’s teachings that “the soft and weak overcome the hard and strong” and that “the weak overcomes the strong, the soft overcomes the hard; there is no one under heaven who does not know it, yet no one can practise it”. But at bottom it exalts yang hardness and belittles yin softness.

The Book of Changes and the Ten Wings teach humility and warn against self-satisfaction and greed, which is why the Qian hexagram⁸⁰ and the Sun hexagram⁷⁸ are both good hexagrams. Those fond of expounding the Changes often say that Pi,⁸¹ the worst hexagram, is better than Tai,³⁰ the best. For once things reach the bottom of the valley, they can only slowly improve, and once they reach the summit, they can only go downhill. Hence the sayings “at the end of misfortune comes fortune” and “at the end of fortune comes misfortune”.

Daoists speak of “Yang Nine” and “Yin Nine”,⁸² both meaning great calamities and great misfortunes: “Yang Nine” is nine years of great drought, “Yin Nine” nine years of great flood, and on average a year of great calamity comes once in every eighty.

Cao Zhi’s⁸³ Elegy for Wang Zhongxuan mourns his death: “Then he met with Yang Nine, and the blazing light was dimmed in mid-course.” Qian Qianyi’s⁸⁴ poem “Ciguang Monastery”⁸⁵ says: “Alas, for thirty years the world has turned upside down, and Yang Nine presses close.”

In the novels, the Nine Yang Manual and the Nine Yin Manual turn these meanings around, implying that martial skill itself holds the seeds of great calamity and must be used with care.

Classical Chinese writing does have the terms “Nine Yin” and “Nine Yang”, and it is not as Mister Ye says, that “Nine Yin does not hold”. In fact this so-called “Nine Yin does not hold” means only that the Ten Wings does not use the term “Nine Yin”.

Huang Shang delved into the Daoist Canon, and his writing had no need to rest on the Book of Changes, one of the Six Classics of the Confucians. Even if he valued the Book of Changes, he need not have valued the Ten Wings, privately written by Confucian disciples of the Warring States.

Still less need he have heeded the lopsided view, exalting yang and debasing yin, that Dong Zhongshu of the Western Han stressed in the Ten Wings to exalt the ruler and reinforce the Three Bonds.⁸⁶ Wang Mang and Emperor Guangwu’s traffic in omens and apocrypha was a political act proclaiming “Heaven’s mandate is with me”, and a Daoist work of martial learning could ignore it entirely.

In classical Chinese writing, “Nine Yin” stands for yin qi at its height. Ge Xiangong’s⁸⁷ Preface to the Dao De Jing says, “Disasters exhaust the Nine Yin, blessings arise in the ten directions”, meaning that yin qi at its height brings calamity.

It also means the dark realm of the far north. Liu Zongyuan⁸⁸ writes in Heaven’s Response:⁸⁹ “Northward it turns its head: the Nine Yin, utter darkness.”

Zhan Ruoshui⁹⁰ writes in his Rhapsody on Jiaonan:⁹¹ “I light up the Nine Yin at the Red Water, and behold the dark palace of Feng Yi.” Feng Yi was a water god who dwelt in the far north.

“Nine Yang” means the sun, or the place where it rises. The “Biography of Zhongchang Tong” in the Book of the Later Han⁹² says: “The night mists shall be my meal, and the Nine Yang my candle.”

“The Far-Off Journey”⁹³ in the Songs of Chu⁹⁴ says: “In the morning I wash my hair in the Tang Valley; at evening I dry my body at the Nine Yang.”

Ji Kang⁹⁵ writes in his Rhapsody on the Qin:⁹⁶ “At evening it takes in the light at the Abyss of Yu; it dries its trunk at the Nine Yang.”

In the novels The Return of the Condor Heroes and The Heavenly Sword and the Dragon Sabre, the Nine Yin Manual lays great weight on yin softness, the Daoist learning of Laozi, while the Nine Yang Manual aims at the harmony and mutual support of yin and yang, correcting the Daoist bias.

The schools, names, moves, and martial skills of martial arts novels are all the author’s own inventions. One may criticise their names as inelegant, unconventional, or illogical, but one cannot criticise the writings of Tang⁹⁷ men by the writings of Qing⁹⁸ men.

Such names as Evil-Warding Swordplay,⁹⁹ Sunflower Manual,¹⁰⁰ Nine Jians of Dugu,¹⁰¹ Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing,¹⁰² Lingbo Steps,¹⁰³ Nine Yin Manual, and Nine Yang Manual are all Jin Yong’s wild fancies, no different from the Chong-Ling Swordplay¹⁰⁴ that Linghu Chong and Yue Lingshan made up.

If the Six Immortals of the Peach Valley¹⁰⁵ announced that they had perfected the Six Divine Skills of the Peach Valley, only Jin Yong could stop them and forbid the announcement. Anyone else would be more or less helpless, and could not criticise their “Six Divine Skills” as unsound and propose “Seven Divine Skills” as more fitting. If you could win the argument with these six worthies, and get them to give up their own idea for your suggestion, you would already qualify to be counted among the “Seven Immortals of the Peach Valley”.

The names Nine Yin Manual and Nine Yang Manual were given by their authors, Mister Huang Shang and another nameless master, who wrote them on the basis of Daoist books. They have nothing to do with Confucianism, nothing to do with the Book of Changes that the Confucians revere as one of the Six Classics, and still less to do with the Ten Wings, which may only have been completed in the late Warring States or even in the Qin and Han. The Ten Wings had only just devised its theory of yang nine and yin six, and Huang Shang and the nameless master dismissed the whole of it as “breaking that sort of wind”.

Laozi’s philosophy holds a certain naive dialectics, but how could one fault Laozi by the dialectics of Hegel,¹⁰⁶ Engels,¹⁰⁷ and Marx,¹⁰⁸ who came long after? Laozi said, “Know the white, keep to the black.”¹⁰⁹ This “black” is not Hegel. Gongsun Longzi¹¹⁰ said, “A white horse is not a horse.” This “horse” is not Marx.¹¹¹

Young readers who want to study the Book of Changes may read the works of such scholars as Zhu Bokun, Gao Heng, Zhang Dainian, Qian Mu, Hou Wailu,¹¹² Ren Jiyu,¹¹³ Li Jingchi,¹⁴ Feng Youlan,¹² Li Xueqin,²⁵ and Chen Guying.¹⁶

The “Nine Yin”, “One Yang”, and suchlike in my novels are playful writing with no real practical meaning, and need not be taken seriously.

Footnotes

1. 易经 – Yìjīng. Ancient Chinese divination text used for philosophical guidance and fortune-telling, One of the Five Classics, also known as Yijing or I Ching. See Wikipedia. ↩

2. 商 – Shāng. Second dynasty of ancient China, lasting from 1600 to 1046 BCE. See Wikipedia. ↩

3. 周 – Zhōu. Third dynasty of ancient China, lasting from 1046 to 256 BCE. See Wikipedia. ↩

4. 周易 – Zhōuyì. Original Zhou dynasty divination text, which formed the core of what later became the Book of Changes. Zhou refers to the dynasty, and yi means changes. See Wikipedia. ↩

5. 西周 – Xīzhōu. Western Zhou, the first period of the Zhou dynasty, lasting from 1046 to 771 BCE. See Wikipedia. ↩

6. 周文王 – Zhōu Wén Wáng. Father of King Wu, the founder of the Zhou dynasty, and traditionally credited with creating the Book of Changes’s hexagram texts. See Wikipedia. ↩

7. 阴阳 – Yīnyáng. Literally dark and light. Concept of complementary forces in Chinese philosophy, representing the duality present in all aspects of the universe. ↩

8. 论语 – Lúnyǔ. The Analects, the recorded sayings of Confucius and his disciples. See Wikipedia. ↩

9. 易传 – Yìzhuàn. Literally commentary on Yijing or the Book of Changes, also known as the Ten Wings (十翼 – Shí Yì) as it comprises ten commentaries, traditionally attributed to Confucius. See Wikipedia. ↩

10. 欧阳修 – Ōuyáng Xiū. (1007–1072) One of the greatest literary figures of the Northern Song dynasty. Statesman, historian, essayist, and poet, he was a leading figure in the Classical Prose Movement. His ci poetry was celebrated for its emotional depth and lyrical beauty. See Wikipedia. ↩

11. 宋 – Sòng. Song dynasty, lasting from 960 to 1279 CE. See Wikipedia. ↩

12. 冯友兰 – Féng Yǒulán. Prominent Chinese philosopher and historian. See Wikipedia. ↩ ↩²

13. 钱穆 – Qián Mù. Prominent Chinese historian and philosopher. See Wikipedia. ↩

14. 李镜池 – Lǐ Jìngchí. Renowned Chinese scholar of the Book of Changes. See Baidu Baike. ↩ ↩²

15. 戴君仁 – Dài Jūnrén. Prominent Chinese scholar of the Book of Changes. See Baidu Baike (Chinese). ↩

16. 陈鼓应 – Chén Gǔyìng. Scholar of Daoist philosophy and of the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia (Chinese). ↩ ↩²

17. 战国 – Zhànguó. Warring States period, lasting from 475 to 221 BCE. See Wikipedia. ↩

18. 伯阳父 – Bó Yáng Fǔ. Grand Historian of the Western Zhou dynasty who provided early explanations of natural phenomena using yin-yang theory. See Wikipedia (Chinese). ↩

19. 红楼梦 – Hóng Lóu Mèng. Dream of the Red Chamber, one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels. See Wikipedia. ↩

20. 翠缕 – Cuìlǚ. Shi Xiangyun’s maid in Dream of the Red Chamber. ↩

21. 老子 – Lǎozǐ. Honorific name of the founder of Daoism and author of the Dao De Jing. Zi was the honorific for a master or philosopher in ancient China. See Wikipedia. ↩

22. 庄子 – Zhuāngzǐ. Honorific name of Zhuang Zhou, an influential philosopher during the Warring States period. See Wikipedia. ↩

23. 田子方 – Tián Zǐ Fāng. Chapter 21 of the Zhuangzi (庄子), a foundational Daoist text named after its author Zhuangzi. See Wikipedia. ↩

24. 马王堆 – Mǎwángduī. Literally King Ma’s mound. Archaeological site featuring Han dynasty tombs where important early Chinese manuscripts were discovered. See Wikipedia. ↩

25. 李学勤 – Lǐ Xuéqín. Prominent Chinese historian and palaeographer known for his work on ancient Chinese texts. See Wikipedia. ↩ ↩²

26. 周易经传溯源 – Zhōuyì Jīngzhuàn Sùyuán. Li Xueqin’s study of the origins of the Zhou Yi and its commentaries. ↩

27. 八卦 – Bāguà. Eight trigrams in the Book of Changes. Each trigram composed of three lines. See Wikipedia. ↩

28. 卦 – Guà. Hexagram in the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia. ↩

29. 爻 – Yáo. Individual lines making up trigrams and hexagrams in the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia. ↩

30. 泰 – Tài. Peace hexagram, number 11 in the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia. ↩ ↩²

31. 乾 – Qián. Heaven: the trigram of three solid lines, and the hexagram formed by doubling it, number 1 in the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia. ↩ ↩²

32. 坤 – Kūn. Earth: the trigram of three broken lines, and the hexagram formed by doubling it, number 2 in the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia. ↩

33. 同人 – Tóngrén. Concording People hexagram, number 13 in the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia. ↩

34. 三阳开泰 – Sānyáng kāitài. Literally three yang bringing peace. Traditional New Year greeting expressing wishes for prosperity. ↩

35. 六阳会首 – Liùyáng huìshǒu. Literally six yang meeting at the head. Traditional Chinese medical term referring to the head as the meeting point of the six yang meridians. ↩

36. 六阳正气丸 – Liùyáng zhèngqì wán. Literally six yang qi-righting pill. Traditional Chinese medicine compound used to treat conditions believed to be caused by excessive yin energy or qi deficiency. ↩

37. 林黛玉 – Lín Dàiyù. Major character in Dream of the Red Chamber. See Wikipedia. ↩

38. 薛宝钗 – Xuē Bǎochāi. Another major character in Dream of the Red Chamber. See Wikipedia. ↩

39. 尤二姐 – Yóu Èrjiě. Tragic character in Dream of the Red Chamber who commits suicide. ↩

40. 太极图 – Tàijí tú. Circular symbol representing the concept of yin and yang in perfect balance. See Wikipedia. ↩

41. 子张 – Zǐzhāng. Courtesy name of a prominent disciple of Confucius, Zhuansun Shi. See Wikipedia. ↩

42. 董仲舒 – Dǒng Zhōngshū. Han dynasty philosopher who promoted Confucianism as the official ideology of the imperial state. See Wikipedia. ↩

43. 春秋繁露 – Chūnqiū Fánlù. Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals attributed to Dong Zhongshu. See Wikipedia. ↩

44. 甲骨卜卦 – Jiǎgǔ bǔguà. Literally oracle bone divination. Earliest known form of Chinese divination using turtle shells or ox bones. See Wikipedia. ↩

45. 蓍草 – Shīcǎo. Yarrow stalks were used in a complex mathematical process to generate hexagrams for Book of Changes divination. See Wikipedia. ↩

46. 系辭 – Xìcí. One of the ten commentaries on the Book of Changes in Ten Wings. See Wikipedia. ↩

47. 乾凿度 – Qián Záo Dù. Ancient Chinese text discussing Book of Changes numerology. See Baidu Baike (Chinese). ↩

48. 刘牧 – Liú Mù. Song dynasty scholar who developed numerological interpretations of the Book of Changes. ↩

49. 河图 – Hé Tú. Literally the River Chart. Legendary diagram said to have risen from the Yellow River, set out as an arrangement of numbers by Song dynasty scholars. ↩

50. 朱熹 – Zhū Xī. Prominent Neo-Confucian philosopher of the Song dynasty. See Wikipedia. ↩

51. 洛书 – Luò Shū. Literally the Luo Writing. Legendary diagram said to have risen from the Luo River, set out as an arrangement of numbers by Song dynasty scholars. See Wikipedia (Chinese). ↩

52. 五行 – Wǔxíng. Literally five movements. Usually translated as Five Phases, a fivefold conceptual scheme comprising the agents: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. See Wikipedia. ↩

53. 五音 – Wǔyīn. Five Tones of traditional Chinese music: gong, shang, jiao, zhi, and yu. See Wikipedia. ↩

54. 风水 – Fēngshuǐ. Literally wind and water. Sometimes translated as Chinese geomancy, a traditional Chinese practice of arranging buildings and objects to harmonise with natural forces. See Wikipedia. ↩

55. 吕氏春秋 – Lǚshì Chūnqiū. Literally Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals. Encyclopedic Chinese classic from the late Warring States period compiled under the patronage of Qin Chancellor Lü Buwei. See Wikipedia. ↩

56. 叶洪生 – Yè Hóngshēng. Taiwanese scholar and martial arts fiction critic. See Wikipedia (Chinese). ↩

57. 论剑 – Lùn Jiàn. Literally discussing sword. Scholarly work analysing martial arts fiction by Ye Hongsheng. See Douban (Chinese). ↩

58. 黄裳 – Huáng Sháng. Song dynasty official who, in Jin Yong’s novels, compiled the Nine Yin Manual. ↩

59. 杨兴安 – Yáng Xīng’ān. Contemporary scholar of Chinese literature. ↩

60. 月云 – Yuèyún. Literally moon and cloud. Autobiographical short story by Jin Yong. See Wikipedia (Chinese). ↩

61. 严晓星 – Yán Xiǎoxīng. Author and editor. See Baidu Baike (Chinese). ↩

62. 帝君九阴经 – Dìjūn Jiǔyīn Jīng. Literally the Divine Lord’s Nine Yin Classic. Daoist scripture. ↩

63. 山海经 – Shānhǎi Jīng. Literally the classic of mountains and seas. Chinese classic text of geography and mythology. See Wikipedia. ↩

64. 三国 – Sānguó. Three Kingdoms period from 220 to 280 CE. See Wikipedia. ↩

65. 葛玄 – Gě Xuán. Prominent Daoist master of the Three Kingdoms period. See Wikipedia. ↩

66. 西汉 – Xīhàn. First period of the Han dynasty from 202 BCE to 9 CE. See Wikipedia. ↩

67. 觉远 – Juéyuǎn. Shaolin monk in The Heavenly Sword and the Dragon Sabre, keeper of the monastery’s scripture library, known for his guileless, bookish earnestness. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

68. 齐东野语 – Qídōng yěyǔ. Literally eastern Qi wild tales. Chinese idiom that means words with no basis. Idiom comes from the story of Mengzi looking down on peasants because of their groundless claims. ↩

69. 王莽 – Wáng Mǎng. Han dynasty official who briefly usurped the throne from 9 to 23 CE. See Wikipedia. ↩

70. 光武帝 – Guāngwǔ Dì. First emperor of the Eastern Han dynasty. See Wikipedia. ↩

71. 古文经学 – Gǔwén jīngxué. School of classical studies that based interpretations on pre-Qin versions of texts. See Wikipedia (Chinese). ↩

72. 扬雄 – Yáng Xióng. Han dynasty scholar and poet. See Wikipedia. ↩

73. 太玄经 – Tàixuán Jīng. Literally supreme mystery book. It is a divination guide Yang Xiong modelled after the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia. ↩

74. 稷下学宫 – Jìxià xuégōng. Jixia Academy, an influential centre of learning in the state of Qi during the Warring States period. See Wikipedia. ↩

75. 亢龙有悔 – Kànglóng Yǒuhuǐ. Literally the soaring dragon has regrets. First stance of the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

76. 履霜坚冰至 – Lǚ shuāng jiānbīng zhì. From the Book of Changes, warning that small dangers presage larger ones. ↩

77. 丰 – Fēng. Abundance hexagram, number 55 from the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia. ↩

78. 损 – Sǔn. Diminishing hexagram, number 41 from the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia. ↩ ↩²

79. 复 – Fù. Returning hexagram, number 24 from the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia. ↩

80. 谦 – Qiān. Humbling hexagram, number 15 from the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia. ↩

81. 否 – Pǐ. Obstruction hexagram, number 12 from the Book of Changes. See Wikipedia. ↩

82. 阳九 – yáng jiǔ. Literally nine yang. Traditional term for prolonged drought disasters; paired with 阴九 (yīn jiǔ) for flood disasters. Often written 阳九之厄 (yáng jiǔ zhī è) and 阴九之厄 (yīn jiǔ zhī è). ↩

83. 曹植 – Cáo Zhí. Son of Cao Cao, Prince of the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period, and an accomplished poet. See Wikipedia. ↩

84. 钱谦益 – Qián Qiānyì. Prominent Ming-Qing dynasty scholar and poet. See Wikipedia. ↩

85. 慈光寺 – Cíguāng Sì. Ciguang Monastery on Mount Huang, the subject of a poem by Qian Qianyi. ↩

86. 三纲 – Sān gāng. Three Fundamental Bonds in Confucianism: ruler-minister, father-son, and husband-wife relationships. See Wikipedia. ↩

87. 葛仙公 – Gě Xiāngōng. Literally immortal lord Ge. Another name for the Daoist master Ge Xuan. See Wikipedia. ↩

88. 柳宗元 – Liǔ Zōngyuán. Tang dynasty writer and philosopher. See Wikipedia. ↩

89. 天对 – Tiānduì. Literally the heavenly response. Poem by Liu Zongyuan. See Baidu Baike (Chinese). ↩

90. 湛若水 – Zhàn Ruòshuǐ. Ming dynasty Neo-Confucian philosopher. See Wikipedia. ↩

91. 交南赋 – Jiāonán Fù. Rhapsody on Jiaonan, the far southern land of Annam, by Zhan Ruoshui. ↩

92. 后汉书·仲长统传 – Hòuhàn Shū · Zhòngcháng Tǒng Zhuàn. Biography of Zhongchang Tong in the Book of the Later Han, the history by Fan Ye that covers the history of the Han dynasty from 6 to 189 CE, one of the Twenty-Four Histories. See Wikipedia and Wikisource (Chinese). ↩

93. 远游 – Yuǎnyóu. Literally the far-off journey. Poem by Qu Yuan anthologised in the Songs of Chu. See Wikipedia. ↩

94. 楚辞 – Chǔ cí. Collection of poems by Qu Yuan from the Warring States period. See Wikipedia. ↩

95. 稽康 – Jī Kāng. Wei dynasty poet and philosopher from the Three Kingdoms period, one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. See Wikipedia. ↩

96. 琴赋 – Qín Fù. Rhapsody on the Qin, Ji Kang’s rhapsody on the qin zither. See Baidu Baike (Chinese) and Wikisource (Chinese). ↩

97. 唐 – Táng. Dynasty ruled by the Han Chinese under the House of Li from 618 to 907 CE. See Wikipedia. ↩

98. 清 – Qīng. Dynasty ruled by the Manchu people from 1644 to 1912. See Wikipedia. ↩

99. 辟邪剑法 – Bìxié jiàn fǎ. Martial arts technique in Laughing in the Wind. ↩

100. 葵花宝典 – Kuíhuā bǎodiǎn. Martial arts technique in Laughing in the Wind. ↩

101. 独孤九剑 – Dúgū jiǔjiàn. Literally Dugu’s nine swords. Martial arts technique in Laughing in the Wind. ↩

102. 降龙十八掌 – Xiánglóng Shíbā Zhǎng. Most powerful palm technique in the jianghu, Hong Qigong’s signature technique. Martial arts technique in Demi-gods and Semi-devils. ↩

103. 凌波微步 – Língbō wēibù. Literally the gentle steps treading ripples. Allowing movement without leaving traces on any surface. Martial arts technique in Demi-gods and Semi-devils. ↩

104. 冲灵剑法 – Chōnglíng jiànfǎ. Literally Chong and Ling’s swordplay. Martial arts technique in Laughing in the Wind. ↩

105. 桃谷六仙 – Táogǔ liù xiān. Literally the six immortals of the peach valley. Six characters in Laughing in the Wind. ↩

106. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German Idealist philosopher. See Wikipedia. ↩

107. Friedrich Engels, a German philosopher and revolutionary. See Wikipedia. ↩

108. Karl Marx, a German philosopher and revolutionary. See Wikipedia. ↩

109. 知其白守其黑 – Zhī qí bái shǒu qí hēi. Famous saying from the Dao De Jing about understanding opposites. ↩

110. 公孙龙 – Gōngsūn Lóng. Pre-Qin logician known for his paradoxes. See Wikipedia. ↩

111. 黑格尔 / 马克思 – Hēigé’ěr / Mǎkèsī. In Chinese, Hegel’s name begins with 黑 hēi, black, and Marx’s with 马 mǎ, horse: the pun is Jin Yong’s. ↩

112. 侯外庐 – Hòu Wàilǔ. Historian. See Wikipedia (Chinese). ↩

113. 任继愈 – Rèn Jìyù. Historian. See Wikipedia. ↩