The Wilhelm-Baynes I Ching

Bollingen Series XIX (1950)

First attested
1950Published in 1950 by Princeton University Press under the Bollingen Foundation.
Claimed
1924asserted by Richard Wilhelm's original German edition I Ging: Das Buch der Wandlungen published in Jena in 1924

Great translations do not merely convey words, they bridge civilisations and birth new modes of thought.

Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes, The I Ching or Book of Changes (1950).

The monumental translation that introduced the Book of Changes to the Western world.

The Wilhelm-Baynes translation of the I Ching (Book of Changes) is the definitive edition that shaped the Western understanding of Chinese cosmology. Translated from Chinese to German by missionary-scholar Richard Wilhelm with his mentor Lao Naixuan in Qingdao (published 1924), it was translated into English by Cary F. Baynes and published in 1950 in the Bollingen Series by Princeton University Press. Featuring Carl Jung's landmark foreword introducing his principle of synchronicity, this edition framed the ancient classic as a profound psychological mirror of the unconscious.

Light

Masterful cross-cultural synthesis, psychological depth, poetic eloquence, and philosophical integrity.

Shadow

Neo-Confucian bias obscuring the earlier Zhou dynasty bronze-age stratum of the text.

Sources and verification2 sources · 3 links

Primary source

Scholarship

Linked entries

  • Transmitted intoSynchronicityAttested

    Jung's famous foreword to the Wilhelm-Baynes I Ching introduced synchronicity to the English-speaking world.

  • Attributed toConfuciusTraditional

    Traditional Chinese commentary attributes the Ten Wings commentaries of the I Ching to Confucius.

  • IncludesThe Chinese Zodiac and the Sexagenary CycleTraditional

    The Ganzhi stem-branch system is intimately integrated with I Ching hexagram timing.

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