The Canon of Supreme Mystery

Yang Xiong, the leading philosopher and poet of the end of Western Han, set out to rival the Book of Changes. Instead of sixty-four hexagrams of six lines he built eighty-one tetragrams of four lines, each with three possible states, mapping the year, the cosmos and human affairs in a new system of numbers. Each tetragram carries nine appraisals in cryptic, beautiful language, followed by commentaries on numbers, divination and the meaning of the Mystery. Mocked in his own day as obscure, it has fascinated readers ever since. This complete new English translation gives the whole received text, through to the closing Announcement of the Mystery. Names are given in modern pinyin and key terms are rendered plainly rather than buried in jargon, so the arguments, stories and debates can be read straight through by anyone curious about Chinese thought.