Through the Jesuits who traveled to China in the 17th century, Chinese literature also came to the West. Initially, the Yijing was not included, as this book was considered too enigmatic and untranslatable. However, recognizing its importance, some Jesuits began a cautious translation into Latin. Below is an overview of the people who brought the Yijing to the attention of the West.
1600 – Philippe Couplet
The first translation of parts of the Yijing was made by the Flemish Jesuit Philippe Couplet (1623-1692). His work “Confucius Sinarum philosophus” included a translation of hexagram 15, ‘Modesty’. Besides a brief explanation of the content of the Yijing, this was the only part of the Yijing that could be found.
Joachim Bouvet
Around the same time, Joachim Bouvet (†1732) was completely fascinated by the Yijing. As a Jesuit, he found the Yijing interesting because he saw many figures from the Bible in it. Terms like ‘the noble’, ‘the great man’ referred, according to him, to the Messiah. He conducted an in-depth study of the Yijing under the guidance of Emperor Kang Xi, although he never ventured into a translation. It remained a short essay in Latin.
Claude de Visdelou
A contemporary of Bouvet, Claude de Visdelou (1656-1737), was asked by the Pope at an old age how to deal with the figurism advocated by Bouvet and his followers. For this, Visdelou wrote a note about the Yijing in French, including a translation of hexagram 15. This would be the first translation of a piece of Yijing text into a Western language.
1700 – Jean-Baptiste Régis
Around 1700, Joseph de Mailla (1669-1748) made a first preliminary translation of the Yijing. Historical material and explanations from Pierre du Tartre (1669-1724) were added to this. The whole was expanded and edited by Jean-Baptiste Régis (1664-1738) and completed in 1736. However, it was not published until a century later by the German Jules Mohl (1800-1876) as “Y-King antiquissimum Sinarum liber”.
1800 – Thomas McClatchie
It would take relatively long before another translation of the Yijing appeared. In 1876, Thomas McClatchie (1814-1885) published the first English translation of the Yijing. In his time, he was ridiculed because he saw the sexual organs of man and woman in the yin and yang lines of the Yijing. However, the Chinese would not find this strange.
Angelo Zottoli
Shortly after McClatchie’s English translation, a Latin version of parts of the Yijing text by the Jesuit Angelo Zottoli (1826-1902) followed. He translated Hexagram 1 to 6, 15, and 33, and parts of the Ten Wings.
James Legge
Significant progress was made with the translation by the missionary James Legge (1815-1897) in 1882. Through the extensive introduction and abundant annotations, the position of the Yijing in China was finally clearly and in detail explained. However, Legge had no affinity with the subject and refused to see the divinatory value of the book. For him, it was a philosophical book, nothing more.
Paul Louis Felix Philastre
Shortly after Legge’s translation, the French Yijing translation by Paul Louis Felix Philastre (1837-1902) appeared in 1885, which would become the standard French translation.
Monseigneur le Chevalier Charles de Harlez de Deulin
In 1889, another French translation appeared, this time by Charles de Harlez (1832-1899). He considered the Yijing as a dictionary of – yes – 64 words, with the line texts as examples for word usage or explanation of the word. A vision that has hardly found support.
Albert Etienne Jean Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie
In 1892, Albert Terrien de Lacouperie (1845-1894) partially published a version in English: “The oldest book of the Chinese”. Terrien de Lacouperie, like Legge, distinguished between the basic text of the Yijing and the Ten Wings, and he identified different layers in the text, forty years before the Russian sinologist Shchutskii became known for this.
Thomas Kingsmill
A good friend of McClatchie, the English architect Thomas Kingsmill (1837-1910), published the article “The construction of the Yi King” in the journal China Review 1894-1895. It swept the floor with the traditional Confucian views on the Yijing.
1900 – Richard Wilhelm
No one has done more for the popularity of the Yijing in the West than Richard Wilhelm (1873-1930). Since his German translation was published in 1924, it has quickly conquered the world and has been translated into many languages. The Dutch translation is published by Ankh-Hermes Deventer. Worldwide, Wilhelm’s Yijing is still the most used. Like Legge, Wilhelm translated the Yijing including the Ten Wings, but he separated them from the original text, something very un-Chinese but which makes the book more accessible. A biography of Wilhelm is available in the book “Verandering en Duur in de I Tjing”.
Han Boering
For the study of the Yijing in the Netherlands and Belgium, Han Boering (1943-2015) played an essential role: his Yijing translation “De I Tjing voor de 21ste Eeuw”, which leaves out the Confucian underlayer of Wilhelm’s Yijing, contains extensive annotations and offers unique material for further study. The combination with his book “I Tjing Essenties” is Han’s legacy to Dutch Yijing users and is unparalleled in the global Yijing world.