Yijing as a Global Classic

This book scrutinizes Richard Wilhelm’s enormous contributions and multifarious legacies in the translation and globalization of the Yijing . It brings together a group of leading scholars from Europe, United States, Mainland China, Hong Kong, as well as Bettina Wilhelm (Richard Wilhelm’s granddaughter), comprised of two parts and twelve chapters. Part I “The Making of I Ging and I Ching ” examines the complex process through which Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930), a German Protestant missionary-cum-sinologist to China, published a German translation of the I Ging: Das Buch der Wandlungen in 1924, a monumental event for the global dissemination and reception of the Yijing . Becoming a classic in its own right, Wilhelm’s I Ging was subsequently re-translated into more than ten other European languages and versions, including the influential English re-translation I Ching (1950) by Cary F. Baynes. Part II “The Reception and Impact of I Ging and I Ching ” investigates how the Wilhelm-Baynes translation phenomenally transformed the Yiing into a “book of wisdom” and “global classic” for Western audience. The Chinese canonical text has transcended cultural borders, strikingly well-received, and made a lasting impact on the Western society and culture, including literature, music, theatre, and popular culture and discourse. By propelling the cutting-edge research in the thriving field of the “Global Yijing ”, this groundbreaking volume will have profound interdisciplinary implications for Yijing scholarship, Religious Studies, and Translation Studies.