The Ten Wings

The Ten Wings (Shiyi, 十翼) are the ten classical commentaries appended to the core text of the [[i-ching-wilhelm-baynes|Yijing]] — traditionally attributed to Confucius and his school, in historical fact a composite product of the late Warring States and early Han periods — that transform the divinatory manual of sixty-four hexagrams into the cosmological and ethical text of the Confucian canon. They include the Tuan (Commentary on the Judgments), the Xiang (Commentary on the Images), the Xici (Great Treatise), the Wenyan (Commentary on the Words), the Shuogua (Discussion of the Trigrams), the Xugua (Sequence of the Hexagrams), and the Zagua (Miscellaneous Notes).

For the reception of the Yijing in the West through Richard Wilhelm‘s translation, the Ten Wings are the philosophical apparatus through which the hexagrams acquire their discursive depth: the Xici in particular articulates the cosmology of yin-yang, the doctrine of the Tao as the source of change, and the ethical reading in which the hexagrams are configurations of the Way rather than mere oracular formulas. See i-ching-wilhelm-baynes and wang-bi.

Relationships

• i-ching-wilhelm-baynes
• hexagram
• wang-bi