Shchutskyyulian Konstantinovich. Yulian Shchutsky - Chinese classical book of changes I-Ching Shchutsky yu k Chinese classical

From the book by Yu.K. Shutsky
"Chinese Classical Book of Changes I-Ching"

This introduction is addressed to the non-Sinologist reader. It is necessary as a kind of guide to the work proposed below; it should orient the reader in questions without which the “Book of Changes” itself will not be understood and, moreover, it will not be clear why the author undertook the translation and study of the monument, so little on the speaker's first glance to the modern reader. In addition, it is in this introduction that the basic terminology of the monument should be presented and explained, which will be constantly used below and without which it is impossible to do without in a special work on the “Book of Changes.” We undertook this work because, while studying materials on the history of Chinese philosophy, we were constantly faced with the need to preface the study of each philosophical school with preliminary studies of the “Book of Changes” - the main and starting point of the reasoning of almost all philosophers of ancient China.

The Book of Changes ranks first among the classic books of Confucianism and in bibliographic reviews of Chinese literature. This is understandable, since bibliology and bibliography in feudal China were created by people who received a traditional Confucian education. The bibliographers of old China unshakably believed in the tradition (not primordial, but quite old), which dated the creation of the “Book of Changes” to such ancient times that no other classical book could compete with it in chronological primacy, although in fact the “Book of Changes” is not at all the most the oldest of the monuments of Chinese writing, and this has been established by Chinese philology.

However, regardless of tradition, regardless of Confucianism, the “Book of Changes” has every right to take first place in Chinese classical literature, so great is its significance in the development of the spiritual culture of China. She exerted her influence in a variety of areas: in philosophy, and in mathematics, and in politics, and in strategy, and in the theory of painting and music, and in art itself: from the famous plot of ancient painting - “8 horses” - to the incantatory inscriptions on an amulet coin or an ornament on a modern ashtray.

Not without annoyance, but also not without pleasure, we must give the “Book of Changes” undoubtedly first place among other classical books and as the most difficult of them: the most difficult both to understand and to translate. The Book of Changes has always enjoyed the reputation of being a dark and mysterious text, surrounded by a vast, sometimes highly dissenting literature of commentators. Despite the grandeur of this two-thousand-year-old literature, understanding some passages of the “Books of Changes” still seems to be almost insurmountable difficulties - the images in which its concepts are expressed are so unusual and alien to us. Therefore, let the reader not complain about the writer of these lines if some places in the translation of this monument do not turn out to be clear upon first reading. We can only console ourselves with the fact that in the Far East, the original “Book of Changes” is not understood as simply as other Chinese classic books.

In order to help the reader as much as possible, we will dwell here on the plan of our work, on the external description of the content of the “Book of Changes” and on its most important technical terminology.

Our work is divided into three parts: the first of them sets out the main data achieved in the study of this monument in Europe, China and Japan. The second part is a condensed presentation of the data we obtained during the study of thirteen main problems associated with the “Book of Changes.” The third part is devoted to translations of the book.

The text of the “Book of Changes” is heterogeneous both in terms of its constituent parts and in terms of the written signs themselves in which it is expressed. In addition to the usual hieroglyphs, it also contains special icons consisting of two types of traits, xiao. One type consists of entire horizontal features: they are called yang (light), gan (intense), or most often, according to the symbolism of numbers, ju (nines). Another type of features are horizontal features interrupted in the middle: they are called yin (shadow), zhou (pliable), or most often, according to the symbolism of the numbers lu (six). Each icon contains six of these traits, placed in a wide variety of combinations. According to the theory of the “Book of Changes”, the entire world process is an alternation of situations arising from the interaction and struggle of the forces of light and darkness, tension and compliance, and each of these situations is symbolically expressed by one of these signs, of which there are only 64 in the “Book of Changes”. They are seen as symbols of reality and are called gua (symbol) in Chinese. In European sinological literature they are called hexagrams. Hexagrams, contrary to the norm of Chinese writing, are written from bottom to top, and in accordance with this, the counting of features in a hexagram begins from the bottom. Thus, the first line of the hexagram is considered to be the bottom one, which is called the initial one, the second line is the second from the bottom, the third is the third from the bottom, etc. The top line is not called the sixth, but rather the top (shan). The features symbolize the stages of development of a particular situation expressed in the hexagram. The places from the bottom, initial, to the sixth, top, which are occupied by features, are called wei (positions). Odd positions (initial, third and fifth) are considered positions of light - yang; even (second, fourth and top) - positions of darkness - yin. Naturally, only in half of the cases does the light line end up in the light position and the shadow line in the shadow position. These cases are called the "relevance" of traits: in them the force of light or darkness "finds its place." In general this is considered a favorable arrangement of forces, but is not always considered the best. Thus we get the following diagram:

Thus, a hexagram with complete “appropriateness” of features is the 63rd, and a hexagram with complete “irrelevance” of features is the 64th.

Already in the most ancient comments to the “Book of Changes” it is indicated that eight symbols of three traits, the so-called trigrams, were originally created. They received certain names and were attached to certain circles of concepts. Here we indicate their styles and their main names, properties and images.

From these concepts we can conclude how the theory of the “Book of Changes” considered the process of emergence, being and disappearance. The creative impulse, plunging into the environment of meon - performance, acts, first of all, as an excitement of the latter. Then comes his complete immersion in meon, which leads to the creation of the created, to its abiding. But since the world is a movement, a struggle of opposites, the creative impulse gradually recedes, the creative forces are clarified, and then, by inertia, only their cohesion remains for some time, which ultimately leads to the disintegration of the entire current situation, to its resolution.

Trigram table

№	Name	Property	Image
1	qian (creativity)	fortress	sky
2	kun (performance)	dedication	Earth
3	zhen (excitement)	mobility	thunder
4	kan (dive)	danger	water
5	gen (stay)	inviolability	mountain
6	sun (refinement)	penetration	wind (tree)
7	li (clutch)	clarity	fire
8	blow (permission)	joyfulness	water

Each hexagram can be considered as a combination of two trigrams. Their mutual relationship characterizes this hexagram. Moreover, in the theory of the “Book of Changes” it is generally accepted that the lower trigram refers to the inner life, to the advancing, to the created, and the upper - to the external world, to the retreating, to the collapsing, i.e.

External, receding, collapsing
Internal, advancing, creating

In addition, the hexagram is sometimes considered as consisting of three pairs of lines. According to the theory of the Book of Changes, there are three cosmic potencies operating in the world - heaven, man, earth:

Human
Earth

There is also a symbolism developed in the fortune-telling practice of Yijingists for individual positions of the hexagram.

In society:

Commoner;
Servant;
Nobleman;
Courtier;
Tsar;
A perfect man.

In the human body:

Feet;
Shins;
Hips;
Torso;
Shoulders;
Head.

In the animal's body:

Tail;
Hind legs;
Back of the body;
Front part of the body;
Forelegs;
Head.

There were other ways of considering the structure of hexagrams, but a complete listing of them is unnecessary for our purposes. Therefore, we limit ourselves to only the following instructions.

In the upper and lower trigrams, similar positions are closely related to each other. Thus, the first position stands in relation to analogy to the fourth, the second to the fifth and the third to the sixth.

Further, they believed that light gravitates toward darkness just as darkness toward light. Therefore, in the hexagram, whole features correspond to interrupted ones. If the correlative positions (1-4, 2-5, 3-6) are occupied by different features, then it is considered that there is “a correspondence” between them; in the case of homogeneity of features in correlative positions, there is “no correspondence” between them.

When analyzing the hexagram, special attention is paid to the second and fifth positions. Each of them is (in the lower or upper trigram) central, i.e. one in which the qualities of the trigram are revealed in the most perfect and balanced way.

In addition, when analyzing a hexagram, it is generally accepted that light or shadow traits become more important if they are in the minority. Thus, in the hexagram, the only shadow second feature “controls” the remaining features and is the center of gravity for them.

The second part of the text of the “Book of Changes” is written in the usual Chinese characters and represents an interpretation of hexagrams as a whole, the relationship of their constituent trigrams and individual features. This, in fact, is the text of the “Book of Changes”. It is heterogeneous, belongs to different authors and was created at different times.

In this text, we, first of all, distinguish between the main text and the commentaries adjacent to it, which have long since become fused with the main text, so that the subsequent very abundant commentary literature developed around the main text and the commentaries attached to it.

The main text includes the following twelve components.

The name of the hexagram, gua-min, was later attributed to the names of its constituent trigrams.
A fortune-telling formula expressed using four terms (qualities), the so-called side, these terms: yuan (beginning), heng (insight, development), li (auspiciousness, determination) and zheng (perseverance, being). These terms are present in whole or in part or absent.
Aphorisms about hexagrams in general, gua-tsy, they are more or less developed. Sometimes they include “four qualities” or one of the four main mantic predictions (happiness, unhappiness, repentance, regret), which, apparently, are a later insertion into the text, as well as explanatory words like “there will be no blasphemy”, “praise” there will be no”, “nothing favorable”, etc.
Aphorisms with individual features, yao-tsy, in language and type, they are very close to text III and include the same terms. All other texts (V-XII) are ancient commentaries, compiled much later than the main text.
Commentary on text III, tuan-zhuan. In this commentary, the hexagram is examined from the perspective of its constituent trigrams, traits, etc., and text III is explained on this basis.
A large commentary on images, yes Xiang-zhuan, where the hexagram is considered from the point of view of the images of the trigrams that make it up, and an indication of the ethical order is given. Like the entire “Book of Changes,” texts V and VI on the verge of the 30th and 31st hexagrams are mechanically divided into the first and second parts.
Small commentary on images, xiao xiang-zhuan. It is completely different both in its tasks and in language from the previous one and represents commentary additions to the aphorisms of text IV. The explanations in it are given mainly in relation to the technique of fortune-telling, are based on the structure of the hexagram and have nothing to do with the philosophical understanding of the “Book of Changes”. The origin of this text is relatively recent.
Commentary on aphorisms, xi-zhuan, or dach-zhuan - “Big commentary”; it is a kind of treatise that sets out the foundations of the philosophical concept of the “Book of Changes” (ontology, cosmology, epistemology and ethics), the technique of fortune telling from the Book and a kind of cultural history of China in ancient times. They were included in the monument relatively late, but are undoubtedly the most interesting for the history of Chinese philosophy. It is also mechanically divided into two parts.
Interpretation of trigrams, shogua zhuan. The text consists of two unequal parts. The first, much smaller, in its nature, language and theme is adjacent to text VIII and ended up in text IX, apparently due to a copyist error. The second, larger part, contains individual characteristics of trigrams, a classification of them and objects of the world into trigram categories. The character of the text of this part is completely different from the first and strongly resembles the mantic speculations of the first Han commentators.
Interpretation of the order of hexagrams, xugua-zhuan. The text is very different from all other texts in the Book of Changes. It develops and argues the sequence of arrangement of hexagrams in the “Book of Changes”. This text deserves more attention than it usually receives. Only Cheng I-chuan (11th century) developed it even more consistently and turned it into small introductions to each hexagram. This text is very valuable as material for the history of thinking methods in China.
Different judgments about hexagrams, zagua-zhuang. This is something like a continuation, or rather, the remnants of the second part of text IX. It doesn't have much value.
Glossa, in Chinese wenyan-zhuan, which explains the terms of the text of the first two hexagrams. It is a very motley text, full of repetitions, apparently composed of the oldest quotations of the oral Mantic tradition along with later interpretations of terms. Essentially, this text is lost in a sea of similar commentary glosses, and it would have gone unnoticed if a long-standing but unfounded rumor had not connected it with the name of Confucius.

In different editions of the “Book of Changes” these texts are arranged differently, but, in general, two systems of text arrangement have been preserved. Firstly, a more ancient system, in which texts I, II, III and IV do not come one at the end of the other, but like this: the 1st hexagram, the related text I, II, III and IV, and then text XII, relating to her; after this the 2nd hexagram, related text I, II, III, IV and XII; then the 3rd hexagram with the same sequence of texts (except XII), etc. After the texts of the 64th hexagram, texts V, VI and VII, VIII, IX and XI are placed one after another. Secondly, a later system of arrangement of texts, which differs from the first only in that texts V, VI and VII are arranged in hexagrams, with texts V and VI placed immediately after text IV, and text VII placed under the corresponding individual aphorisms of text IV. This system is already attested in commentary literature of the 3rd century. n. e. Such a difference in the arrangement of texts already indicates that for a long time, commentary schools have noticed the heterogeneity of the text of the Book of Changes. As a document, texts I, II, III and IV are valuable, as more developed commentaries - texts V, VI, VIII and X. The remaining texts contribute little to the understanding of the “Book of Changes” and are in many ways inferior to later commentaries. In this work, the main attention is paid to the main text and only secondary attention to commentaries V, VI, VIII and X.

The main text of the “Book of Changes” is initially a fortune-telling, and subsequently a philosophical text, formed from materials of agricultural folklore in the territory of the Jin or Qin fiefs between the 8th and 7th centuries. BC e.

A philological translation of the main text without interpretative notes is little understandable to a European reader, just as the main text taken without commentary is little or completely incomprehensible to a Chinese or Japanese reader who is not specially prepared to read this text. However, a sinologist, regardless of his nationality, who knows the system of the “Book of Changes,” can certainly understand its main text both in the original and in translation. What makes it understandable? Knowledge of its system, the ability to find an explanation of one place in a number of other places. So, when reading the main text, you need to keep the following in mind.

1. Each hexagram is a symbol of one or another life situation that unfolds over time. Each aphorism under the hexagram represents a brief description of this situation mainly or as a whole. Each aphorism, with its individual features, represents a specific characteristic of a particular stage in the development of a given situation. It is necessary to take into account that, due to the level of technology of thinking and the language of the authors, such characteristics are almost never expressed in the form of precise concepts. The element of the “Book of Changes” is the element of imagery. Instead of talking about the appropriateness of collective action, the Book of Changes says: “When a reed is plucked, other stems follow it, as it grows in a bunch. Resilience to happiness. Development". Instead of talking about the futility of the action taken, the Book of Changes says: “The insignificant man will have to be powerful; the noble man will have to perish. Longevity is terrible. When a goat butts a fence, the horns will get stuck in it,” etc.

In addition, in the main text there are standardized images, a kind of formula, such as: “The ford across the great river is favorable,” i.e. the situation predisposes to some large enterprise. Or: “A meeting with a great man is favorable” - indicating possible help from a powerful person.

2. As stated above, aphorisms, with individual features, tell about the consistent development of the situation. Moreover, the first position characterizes only the very beginning of this process, when it has not yet been identified with all its typicality. The second position characterizes the apogee of the internal development of a given situation in the same way as the fifth position characterizes its maximum disclosure to the outside. The third position characterizes the moment of crisis, the transition from internal to external. Therefore, if you read all the aphorisms of the third positions in a row, then, despite all their sometimes laconicism, their common feature emerges - the danger of the situation. For example: “Waiting in the mud. The arrival of the robbers is approaching” (hex. 5); “There may be a cartload of corpses in the army. Misfortune" (hex. 7); “And the crooked one can see! And the lame may advance! But if you step on a tiger's tail so that it bites you, then there will be misfortune. The warrior still acts for the sake of the great sovereign” (hex. 10); “The rafters are sagging. Misfortune" (hex. 28); “The bound fugitive will be sick and in danger. He who keeps servants and maidservants has happiness” (hex. 33), etc., etc. The fourth position characterizes the beginning of the external manifestation of this process. Therefore, it is just as little typical as the first. However, it is benefiting from the approaching fifth position. Therefore, the aphorisms of the fourth position are not as gloomy as the previous ones. The fifth position has already been indicated in connection with the second. The sixth position represents the completion or redevelopment of the process of a given situation, in which it either loses its typicality or turns into its opposite. The latter is especially characteristically expressed in hexagrams 11 and 12.

3. It is always necessary to keep in mind that the main text is closely related to hexagrams, trigrams and the traits that make them up. Therefore, in order to think about the meaning of a particular aphorism, it is absolutely necessary to consider it taking into account their symbolism, indicated in the introduction to this work.

4. The connection of aphorisms with each other, their change must be considered as a concretization of the seven main provisions of the “Book of Changes”, inherited from this real text by all commentators, despite all their differences indicated above. These seven provisions stand out most clearly from the Xi Zhuan, but with sufficient reflection one can be convinced that they, as a kind of overtones, are also inherent in the main text. Here they are in general terms:

The world represents both variability and immutability, and, moreover, their immediate unity;
This is based on a polarity that runs through the entire world, the antipodes of which are as opposite to each other as they gravitate toward each other: in their relations, the world movement is manifested as rhythm;
Thanks to rhythm, what has become and what has not yet come are united into one system, according to which the future already exists in the present, as “sprouts” of upcoming events;
Both theoretical understanding and practical implementation of this are necessary; and if a person’s activity is normalized in this way, then he is harmoniously included in his environment;
Thus, the conflict between internal and external is eliminated, and they only develop each other by the fact that the internal is determined by the external and creates in the external;
At the same time, the person pays sufficient attention to both himself and the society around him, and, content with his position, finds the possibility of the highest form of creativity: creativity of good, and not the fulfillment of any rules of common morality;
Thus, thanks to the consistent unity of abstractions and concreteness, complete flexibility of the system is achieved.

It may seem that these provisions are expressed in too modern language. However, it is the task of the author of this study to make as clear as possible to the reader what is not clear to him in the form of the original text. If you arm yourself with these instructions and start reading the translation proposed below, then it is unlikely that the “Book of Changes” will be so understandable - of course, only if the reader pays active attention to the text. Passive reading of the “Book of Changes”, as entertaining fiction, is an idle waste of time.

Continuation of the book by Shchutsky Yu.K. “The Chinese Classical Book of Changes I-Ching” is posted in the section “Interpretations by Various Authors /

Yulian Konstantinovich Shchutsky- orientalist; Doctor of Philology, professor,born August 23, 1897. INIn 1922 he graduated from Petrograd University in the department of Chinese studies. This is followed by intensive research and teaching work in various scientific and educational organizations.In 1935 he received the degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences without defense. Doctoral dissertation: “The Chinese classical “Book of Changes.” Experience in philological research and translation” (finished in 1935, published in 1960). Shchutsky began his study of Taoism in 1922 by translating and commenting on Ge Hong’s treatise (IV century) “The Teacher Embracing Simplicity” (“Baopu Tzu”). He studied in detail the fundamental categories of "Tao" and "Te", their relationship, Taoist-Buddhist syncretism, problems of the classical text "Le Tzu". In 1924-1925 he began teaching the course “Introduction to Daology” at Leningrad University.In 1937 he prepared a monographic study of the “Book of Changes” (“I Ching”), which lies at the basis of Chinese philosophical thought. He viewed the worldview of the “Book of Changes” as a complete system. I was ready to begin a series of monographic studies on the philosophers Lao Tzu, Le Tzu, Zhu an Tzu and Wang Yang-ming. In the history of Russian philosophy, Shchutsky remained as the founder of “Yijing studies” and a pioneer in the study of Taoism.

Yulian Konstantinovich ShchutskyHe knew the Japanese and Chinese languages perfectly, down to dialects, as well as the languages of other peoples of the East. Many European languages as well as Latin. I was on a business trip to Japan, where I lived at a Buddhist temple.

From left to right: Konrad, Vasiliev, Alekseev, Shchutsky. Konrad, friend and neighbor of Academician Alekseev, was arrested in 1938. Sinologists Boris Aleksandrovich Vasiliev and Yulian Konstantinovich Shchutsky, Alekseev’s best students, were arrested in 1937 and both were shot

V. M. Alekseev and Yu. K. Shchutsky. 1925

I look into myself with countless eyes
Planets and moons and icy stars,
And I rush into myself with all-colored rays,
I am building a bridge not made by hands into the soul.
Either burned by lightning, or by candles,
I was fading and the grapes were pouring
Done with swords and speeches.
The past is a comet's tail behind me...
And rejoicing from the vastness of the world,
I fall and fly into the sun,
And the past is my comet-gunpowder
Explodes into sheaves of which
The melted double of the soul rises,
Like the echo of the thunder of cherubic choirs.
Everything was. Everything is given. But everything is on the decline.
Built by wisdom, the world fell to dust.
And the will of matter was enchanted by the pipes,
Sounding like thunder in the Divine worlds.
And the demon of decay, clothed in rough
And the deceitful cloak of substances, which has forgotten about the gifts,
Scares us children by showing his teeth,
And the coldness of spaces gives birth to fear in souls.
But remember that minds live in your mind
All the stars and all the planets, all the suns, earths and moons.
Patiently study the consonances of matter,
And in the harmonious choir of stars, form words for them.
Touch the paths of the planets like silver strings -
And the Light will then explode the plains of darkness.

ShchutskyYu. K.

In 1937, Shchutsky brilliantly defended his doctoral dissertation on the monograph “The Chinese Classical Book of Changes,” completed two years earlier. A August 3, 1937Yulian KonstantinovichShutsky was arrested and convicted under the infamous 58article.Shchutskywas declared a member of the "anarcho-mystical terrorist" organization "Order of the Templars" and on the night of February 17-18, 1938was shot.

Thus the life of an outstanding scientist was cut short...But his unsurpassed work lives on. The Book of Changes in its significance for both Chinese and world culture is on a par with the Bible, Avesta, Aristotle's Code...
This is an extremely important historical monument, reflecting the worldview of the ancient Chinese both in philosophical and ideological terms, and in everyday life.

Yulian Konstantinovich Shchutsky was born on August 10 (23), 1897 in Yekaterinburg. His father was a forester who graduated from the Forestry Academy in Poland, his mother taught French and music. Yu.K. Shchutsky received his higher education in St. Petersburg (Petrograd, Leningrad), where his family moved in 1913. In 1915, he graduated from a real school ("Shelter of the Prince of Oldenburg") and entered the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute in the economics department, however in 1917 he left it and transferred first to the Practical Oriental Academy, and then, a year later, to Petrograd University, from which he graduated in 1922 from the department of Chinese studies of the ethnological and linguistic department of the faculty of social sciences, where he studied Chinese under the guidance of such luminaries Russian oriental studies, such as V.M. Alekseev (1881-1951), N.I. Conrad (1891-1970), O.O. Rosenberg (1888-1919).

From his student days, Yu.K. Shchutsky began research and translation activities, as a result of which already in 1923, together with V.M. Alekseev, he published “Anthology of Chinese Lyrics of the 7th-9th centuries,” based on his diploma work “Anthology Tan." Reviewing this publication in 1924, N.I. Konrad wrote: “In our popular sinological literature, Y.K. Shchutsky’s book is undoubtedly an exceptional event, we have never had anything equal to it, and one can only rejoice for fate of the new Russian sinological school, which has a representative who was able to begin his printed service to his chosen cause." In 1922, Yu.K. Shchutsky was the first in the West to begin translating the extensive and very complex philosophical treatise of the Taoist-alchemist Ge Hong “Bao Pu Tzu” (III-IV centuries). The translation of ch. 1 monument in the manuscript of his report “Confession of Tao by Ge Hong” (1923) and lengthy remarks about it by V.M. Alekseev. While still a student, in 1920, Yu.K. Shchutsky began working at the Asian Museum of the Academy of Sciences, where he worked his way up from a 3rd category researcher to a scientific curator of the museum, and then after the reorganization of the museum in 1930 into the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences The USSR became a scientific specialist and, from 1933, the scientific secretary of the Chinese cabinet of the institute. In 1936-1937 he collaborated at the State Hermitage. On the recommendation of V.M. Alekseev, in 1928, Yu.K. Shchutsky was sent by the Academy of Sciences to Japan to purchase Japanese and Chinese books and become familiar with the research activities of Japanese sinologists. He spent four and a half months in Japan, living in Osaka at a Buddhist temple. Yu.K. Shchutsky conducted scientific, pedagogical and teaching activities. Immediately after graduating from the university, in the fall of 1922, on the recommendation of his constant patron V.M. Alekseev, he was enrolled as a 2nd category research fellow at the Department of Chinese Philology of the Research Institute for the Comparative Study of Literatures and Languages of the West and East named after A.N. Veselovsky at Petrograd University. There in 1924, upon presentation of the article “Main problems in the history of the text “Le Tzu””, later published in “Notes of the College of Orientalists at the Asian Museum of the USSR Academy of Sciences” (1928), and on the basis of a more than favorable memorandum by V.M. Alekseeva Yu.K. Shchutsky passed the qualification commission, receiving the right to teach sinology disciplines at universities as an assistant professor. From that time on, he taught various sinological courses of both theoretical and practical nature at the Leningrad University, the Leningrad Institute of History, Philosophy and Linguistics, the Leningrad Institute of Living Oriental Languages (Leningrad Oriental Institute named after A. S. Enukidze). In accordance with his main scientific specialization, Yu.K. Shchutsky taught mainly the history of Chinese philosophy and the Chinese language. Being a born polyglot and constantly engaged in appropriate self-education, Yu.K. Shchutsky gradually mastered almost the entire range of languages associated with Chinese hieroglyphs, not to mention the main European languages. By the end of his life, he had access to a very wide linguistic range: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese (Annamese), Manchu, Burmese, Siamese (Thai), Bengali (Bengali), Hindustani, Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, German, French, English, Polish, Dutch and Latin. Having not had the opportunity to visit China, but knowing the Beijing dialect of Chinese perfectly, Yu.K. Shchutsky also mastered its Guangzhou (Cantonese, or South Chinese) dialect. For the first time in Russian oriental studies, he introduced the teaching of the Guangzhou dialect and the Vietnamese language, creating a textbook for the latter (1934). Together with B.A. Vasiliev (1899-1946), another outstanding student of V.M. Alekseev, he also wrote a Chinese language textbook (baihua) in 1934. Yu.K. Shchutsky was a member of the temporary commission on the romanization of Chinese writing under the All-Union Central Committee of the New Alphabet and constantly participated in the work of a group for the study of syntax at the Leningrad Research Institute of Linguistics. The most significant result of his linguistic research was the article “Traces of stadiality in Chinese hieroglyphs” (1932).

On February 11, 1935, Yu.K. Shchutsky received the title of professor. The presentation written for this purpose in October 1934 by Academician V.M. Alekseev (“Note about Yu.K. Shchutsky”) has been preserved. In February 1935, V.M. Alekseev also compiled the “Note on the scientific works and scientific activities of Sinologist Professor Yulian Konstantinovich Shchutsky,” published below, in which he proposed to crown him with the academic degree of Doctor of Oriental Sciences honoris causa. This proposal was not implemented, but on June 15, 1935, Yu.K. Shchutsky was awarded the degree of candidate of linguistics without defending a dissertation. On June 3, 1937, as a doctoral dissertation, he brilliantly defended the monograph “The Chinese Classical Book of Changes,” completed two years earlier. Research, translation of the text and appendices, the official review of which was given by the same V.M. Alekseev. This deep and scrupulous review, which is of independent scientific interest, is a valuable addition to the work of Yu.K. Shchutsky, so we considered it appropriate to include it in this publication. The second official opponent was corresponding member (later full member) of the USSR Academy of Sciences N.I. Konrad, whose assessment of this work is also presented below.

After defending his dissertation, Yu.K Shchutsky’s manuscript was submitted for publication to the Leningrad branch of the Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where the future academician D.S. Likhachev, who was then working there, was to become its editor. However, on August 3, 1937 in the village. Pitkelovo, Leningrad Region, Yu.K. Shchutsky was arrested and then, under the notorious article on counter-revolutionary agitation and propaganda (Article 58, §10-11), sentenced to “distant camps and a long term without the right of correspondence.” In the “thaw” certificate of posthumous rehabilitation, the last year in his life is indicated as 1946, and in the “Bio-Bibliographical Dictionary of Soviet Orientalists” - 1941. However, behind the euphemistic presentation of the sentence, there was an execution on the night of February 17-18, 1938. Sufficient grounds for this barbaric action were his stay in Japan (1928), contacts with Japanese scientists and the publication of a scientific article in Chinese in a Japanese journal (1934), open recognition of oneself as an anthroposophist, etc. "crimes". On November 28, 1937, the manuscript of Yu.K. Shchutsky’s monograph was returned from the publishing house to the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences) at the request of its scientific secretary. In the archives of the institute, unlike the main part of the handwritten legacy of the tragically deceased scientist, it remained safely until the end of the 50s. In 1960, after the rehabilitation of the author and thanks to the efforts of N.I. Conrad, who acted as the editor of the monograph, it was published, immediately received high praise from the scientific community and took its place as one of the pinnacles of Russian Chinese studies.

Shchutsky Yu K Chinese Classical Book of Changes I-Ching

Yu K Shchutsky

Yu.K.Shchutsky

Chinese Classical Book of Changes I-Ching

Introduction

We undertook this work because, while studying materials on the history of Chinese philosophy, we were constantly faced with the need to preface the study of each philosophical school with preliminary studies of the “Book of Changes” - the main and starting point of the reasoning of almost all philosophers of ancient China.

Not without annoyance, but also not without pleasure, we must give the “Book of Changes” undoubtedly first place among other classical books and as the most difficult of them: the most difficult both to understand and to translate. The Book of Changes has always enjoyed the reputation of being a dark and mysterious text, surrounded by a vast, sometimes highly dissenting literature of commentators. Despite the grandeur of this two-thousand-year-old literature, understanding some passages of the “Books of Changes” still presents almost insurmountable difficulties - the images in which its concepts are expressed are so unusual and alien to us. Therefore, let the reader not complain about the writer of these lines if some places in the translation of this monument do not turn out to be clear upon first reading. We can only console ourselves with the fact that in the Far East, the original “Book of Changes” is not understood as simply as other Chinese classic books.

The text of the “Book of Changes” is heterogeneous both in terms of its constituent parts and in terms of the written signs themselves in which it is expressed. In addition to the usual hieroglyphs, it also contains special icons consisting of two types of traits, xiao. One type consists of entire horizontal features: they are called yang (light), gan (intense), or most often, according to the symbolism of numbers, ju (nines). Another type of features are horizontal features interrupted in the middle: they are called yin (shadow), zhou (pliable), or most often, according to the symbolism of the numbers lu (six). Each icon contains six such traits, placed in a variety of combinations, for example: , etc. According to the theory of the “Book of Changes”, the entire world process is an alternation of situations arising from the interaction and struggle of the forces of light and darkness, tension and compliance, and each of these situations is symbolically expressed by one of these signs, of which there are only 64 in the “Book of Changes”. They are seen as symbols of reality and are called gua (symbol) in Chinese. In European sinological literature they are called hexagrams. Hexagrams, contrary to the norm of Chinese writing, are written from bottom to top, and in accordance with this, the counting of features in a hexagram begins from the bottom. Thus, the first line of the hexagram is considered to be the bottom one, which is called the initial one, the second line is the second from the bottom, the third is the third from the bottom, etc. The top line is not called the sixth, but rather the top (shan). The features symbolize the stages of development of a particular situation expressed in the hexagram. The places from the bottom, initial, to the sixth, top, which are occupied by features, are called wei (positions). Odd positions (initial, third and fifth) are considered positions of light - yang; even (second, fourth and top) - positions of darkness - yin. Naturally, only in half of the cases does the light line end up in the light position and the shadow line in the shadow position. These cases are called the "relevance" of traits: in them the force of light or darkness "finds its place." In general this is considered a favorable arrangement of forces, but is not always considered the best. Thus, we get the following scheme: Positions Names Predisposition

6 Upper Darkness

5 Fifth Light

4 The Fourth Darkness

3 Third Light

2 Second Darkness

1 Initial Light

Thus, a hexagram with complete “appropriateness” of features is the 63rd, and a hexagram with complete “irrelevance” of features is the 64th.

1. _______ 2. ___ ___ 3. _______ 4. ___ ___

_______ _______ _______ _______

5. _______ 6. ___ ___ 7. _______ 8. ___ ___

_______ _______ ___ ___ ___ ___

___ ___ _______ ___ ___ ___ ___

Sign Name Property Image 1 qian (creativity) fortress sky 2 kun (fulfillment) dedication earth 3 zhen (excitement) mobility thunder 4 kan (immersion) danger water 5 gen (stay) inviolability mountain 6 sun (refinement) penetration wind (wood) 7 li (coupling) clarity fire 8 blow (resolution) joyfulness pond

Each hexagram can be considered as a combination of two trigrams. Their mutual relationship characterizes this hexagram. At the same time, in the theory of the “Book of Changes” it is generally accepted that the lower trigram refers to the inner life, to the advancing, to the created, and the upper - to the external world, to the retreating, to the collapsing, i.e.

External, receding, collapsing

Internal, advancing, creating

In addition, the hexagram is sometimes considered as consisting of three pairs of lines. According to the theory of the Book of Changes, there are three cosmic potencies in the world: heaven, man, earth:

There is also a symbolism developed in the fortune-telling practice of Yijingists for individual positions of the hexagram. In society: 1. Commoner; 2. Servant; 3. Nobleman; 4. Courtier; 5. King; 6. The perfect person. In the human body: 1.Feet; 2. Shins; 3. Hips; 4. Torso; 5. Shoulders; 6. Head. In the animal's body: 1. Tail; 2. Hind legs; 3. Back of the body; 4. Front part of the body; 5. Front legs; 6. Head.

There were other ways of considering the structure of hexagrams, but a complete listing of them is unnecessary for our purposes. Therefore, we limit ourselves to only the following instructions.

Further, they believed that light gravitates toward darkness just as darkness toward light. Therefore, in the hexagram, whole features correspond to interrupted ones. If the correlative positions (1-4, 2-5, 3-6) are occupied by different features, then it is considered that there is a “correspondence” between them; in the case of homogeneity of features in correlative positions, there is “no correspondence” between them.

In addition, when analyzing a hexagram, it is generally accepted that light or shadow features become more important if they...

On his father's side he was descended from the Jagiellon-Czartoryski family. My father was a forestry scientist. Mother is a music teacher. After finishing the orphanage of the Prince of Oldenburg, he entered the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute in the economics department. In 1914 he visited Germany, France and Switzerland. Since 1920 he worked at the Asian Museum of the USSR Academy of Sciences (since 1930 - the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences). In 1921 he graduated from the ethnological and linguistic department of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Petrograd University in the department of Chinese studies.

He studied and later taught at the Leningrad Oriental Institute, V. M. Alekseev later singled him out as one of the three best students of the institute. In the early 1920s he was a member of one of the Petrograd anthroposophical circles. In May 1923, I read the report “Confession of Tao by Ge Hong” in the category of India and the Far East of the RAIMK. In the 1924-1925 academic year, he began teaching the course “Introduction to Daology” at Leningrad State University.

In 1920, he began working at the Asian Museum of the Academy of Sciences, where he worked his way up from a 3rd category researcher to a scientific curator of the museum, and then, after the reorganization of the museum in 1930 into the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, he became a scientific specialist and sec. 1933 - Scientific Secretary of the Chinese Cabinet of the Institute.

In 1928, on the recommendation of V.M. Alekseeva Yu.K. Shchutsky was sent by the Academy of Sciences to Japan to acquire Japanese and Chinese books and become familiar with the research activities of Japanese sinologists. He spent four and a half months in Japan, living in Osaka at a Buddhist temple. Together with B. A. Vasiliev (1899-1946), another outstanding student of V. M. Alekseev, he wrote a textbook of the Chinese language (baihua) in 1934.

He was a member of the temporary commission for the romanization of Chinese writing under the All-Union Central Committee of the New Alphabet and constantly participated in the work of a group for the study of syntax at the Leningrad Research Institute of Linguistics. The most significant result of his linguistic research was the article “Traces of stadiality in Chinese hieroglyphs” (1932).

In 1936-1937 was an employee of the State Hermitage, where N.V. Alabyshev worked in the numismatics department until 1933.

Proficient in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Manchu, Burmese, Thai, Bengali, Hindustani, Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, German, French, English, Polish, Dutch and Latin. For the first time in Russia, he introduced the teaching of the Guangzhou (Cantonese) dialect of Chinese and Vietnamese. Together with B. A. Vasiliev(1899-1938) wrote a textbook on the Chinese language. After the death of Shchutsky, Vietnamese studies ceased to exist in the USSR for a long time.

Known mainly for his classical translation and interpretation of the Book of Changes, one of the canons of the Chinese Pentateuch. Shchutsky defended his research on the “Book of Changes” two months before his arrest as a doctoral dissertation. His translation and research of the “Book” (published in 1960) is recognized as one of the most fundamental sinological works of the 20th century. In 1979 the book was translated into English and published in the USA and England.

In August 1937, he was arrested on charges of “espionage” and sentenced to death. Executed in February 1938. His co-author B. A. Vasiliev was arrested on September 6, 1937, charged on November 19 and executed on November 24 in Leningrad “on the same day as a number of other orientalists.” A number of Soviet-era publications indicate the wrong date of death - 1941 or 1946. He was on the staff of the Institute of Oriental Studies until 1943.

Ofitserskaya street (now Dekabristov street), building 9, apt. 2. On March 21, 2015, a memorial sign was installed on this house “