Core text and commentaries

One page of Qian, two layers of text

Open the page for hexagram Qian (乾) and you find two different kinds of writing. The figure, the Judgment (卦辞) and the line statements (爻辞) are the core text (经), the original that gets explained. What follows under "The Judgment says", "The Image says" and "The Wenyan says" is commentary (传), written around the core text.

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Core text and commentary in two columns (the Qian page): the left column is the text that is explained, the right the commentaries that explain it. Every excerpt comes from the Wikisource page for Qian.

In the Wikisource edition of the received text, the Qian page is cut into blocks. First comes a block the page itself labels "Yijing" (易经). That is a Wikisource column label for a block holding only the core text, which is not how this series uses "Yijing"; see names and scope. The block holds the Judgment, "Qian: supreme, prosperous, advantageous, steadfast", the six line statements, and Use Nine (用九), which only Qian has (Kun has Use Six, 用六). After it come three more blocks, opening with "The Judgment says" (彖曰), "The Image says" (象曰) and "The Wenyan says" (文言曰). The Yijing block is core text; the other three are commentary. So the first step in reading is not to understand a sentence but to label it, core text or commentary.

The core text: figure, Judgment and line statements

The core text of Qian has three things: a figure made of six yang lines, one Judgment that speaks to the whole figure, and the line statements, one for each line. All three are the text being explained, and none of them explains itself.

For how two trigrams stack into a figure, see the article on upper and lower trigrams. Words come under the figure, and the Judgment comes first:

Qian: supreme, prosperous, advantageous, steadfast.

The whole Judgment is four words. Nothing in it says why they stand in that order. Initial Nine is just as brief:

On this Qian page the core text is brief and gives no reasons for these lines. So when a sentence on the page gives reasons and has a "because" in its voice, it is probably no longer in the core text but in a commentary.

The commentary: three blocks after the core text on the Qian page

On the Qian page, three blocks of commentary follow the core text in order: the Commentary on the Judgments (彖传), opening with "The Judgment says"; the Commentary on the Images (象传), opening with "The Image says"; and the Wenyan (文言, the Commentary on the Words of the Text), opening with "The Wenyan says". Each explains the block of core text before it.

One sentence from each shows how they hang on the core text.

The Wenyan has a second way of writing. It sets out a sentence of the core text, then asks and answers.

Initial Nine says: "A hidden dragon; do not act." What does that mean? The Master said: "One with a dragon's virtue who lies hidden. ..."

"Hidden dragon; do not act" is Initial Nine's own sentence from the core text, brought into the Wenyan to be questioned. The words inside the quotation marks come from the core text, but the whole passage is commentary. What decides it is which block the sentence sits in and who asks and answers, not whether the wording resembles the core text.

Labelling sentence by sentence: where does each belong?

Any sentence on a hexagram page can be placed in three steps. The same words, "hidden dragon, do not act", turn up in several places and belong to different layers, which makes them the best practice material.

1. 1

   Look at the heading

   Does the sentence fall in the block labelled "Yijing", or under "the Judgment says", "the Image says" or "the Wenyan says"? Sort by that first.

2. 2

   See who is explaining

   Core text is the original that gets explained; commentary is the side that explains it, often in an explaining tone or opening with "what does this mean?". Tone is a cross-check and cannot replace the first step.

3. 3

   Check whether it is only a quotation

   Commentary often sets out a sentence of the core text and then explains it. Core words inside quotation marks do not change the layer they sit in; the outer layer decides.

Run the three steps on "hidden dragon, do not act". In the Yijing block it is the line statement of Initial Nine, and so core text. Under "the Image says", "Hidden dragon, do not act: the yang is below" is a line of the Commentary on the Images explaining it. Under "the Wenyan says" it is set out again to be asked about and answered, and is still commentary. The wording is the same and the places are three. How the core text itself divides into Judgment and line statements, and whether each speaks to the whole figure or to a single line, is covered in the article on the Judgment and line statements.

The Ten Wings: what each one covers, in a line

Only three kinds of commentary appear on the Qian page. Tradition groups the commentary texts as the Ten Wings (十翼), and the Wikisource page for the Yi Zhuan (易传, the Commentaries on the Changes) lists ten. Some come with a hexagram page and some stand on their own.

How each of these is written and read belongs to another article; for now it is enough to be able to put each of them in the commentary layer.