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SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture
The Canon of Supreme Mystery by Yang Hsiung: A Translation with Commentary of the T'ai hsüan ching by Michael Nylan
Translation of the first grand synthesis of classic Chinese thought.
This is a translation, with a commentary and a long contextualizing introduction, of the only major work of Han (206 B.C. to 220 A.D.) philosophy that is still available in complete form. It is the first translation of the work into a European language and provides unique access to this formative period in Chinese history. Because Yang Hsiung’s interpretations drew upon a variety of pre-Han sources and then dominated Confucian learning until the twelfth century, this text is also a valuable resource on early Chinese history, philosophy, and culture beyond the Han period.
The T’ai hsüan is also one of the world’s great philosophic poems comparable in scale and grandeur to Lucretius’ De rerum naturum. Nathan Sivin has written that this is one of the titles on the short list of Chinese books every cultivated person should read.
Han thinkers saw in this text a compelling restatement of Confucian doctrine that addressed the major objections posed by rival schools including Mohism, Taoism, Legalism and Yin-Yang Five Phase Theory. Since this Han amalgam formed the basis for the state ideology of China from 134 B.C. to 1911, an ideology that in turn provided the intellectual foundations for the Japanese and Korean states, the importance of this book can hardly be overestimated.
This publication has been supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency.
This is a translation, with a commentary and a long contextualizing introduction, of the only major work of Han (206 B.C. to 220 A.D.) philosophy that is still available in complete form. It is the first translation of the work into a European language and provides unique access to this formative period in Chinese history. Because Yang Hsiung’s interpretations drew upon a variety of pre-Han sources and then dominated Confucian learning until the twelfth century, this text is also a valuable resource on early Chinese history, philosophy, and culture beyond the Han period.
The T’ai hsüan is also one of the world’s great philosophic poems comparable in scale and grandeur to Lucretius’ De rerum naturum. Nathan Sivin has written that this is one of the titles on the short list of Chinese books every cultivated person should read.
Han thinkers saw in this text a compelling restatement of Confucian doctrine that addressed the major objections posed by rival schools including Mohism, Taoism, Legalism and Yin-Yang Five Phase Theory. Since this Han amalgam formed the basis for the state ideology of China from 134 B.C. to 1911, an ideology that in turn provided the intellectual foundations for the Japanese and Korean states, the importance of this book can hardly be overestimated.
This publication has been supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency.
680 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2014
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About the author
Michael Nylan
27 books11 followersMichael Nylan is a professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work includes The Art of War and China’s Early Empires with Michael Loewe, Yang Xiong and the Pleasures of Reading and Classical Learning in China, The Five “Confucian” Classics, Lives of Confucius with Thomas A. Wilson, and several essays on feminism and Confucianism.
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October 19, 2025
I won't repeat the description of the book from Goodreads since it's a nice summary. I'll just focus on my personal impressions. Disclaimer: I am not a scholar of Chinese history nor do I speak the language. I'm just an interested civilian who has read Chinese classics like the Lao Zi and the I Ching in English translation for many years.
I say this since the first important fact is that this work is intended for an specialist audience. Dr Nylan, presently a faculty member at UC Berkeley, is an expert in early Chinese history. Within "CSM"s 680 pages, there are 160 pages of exhaustive footnotes, a 24 page bibliography, and a 79 page introduction. Almost every line of the translation is referred to later Chinese commentators, alternate readings and nuances of the translation are discussed in detail throughout. Dr. Nylan is very candid in her introduction, explaining that the original is very difficult to express in an English translation. Not only are the the inherent differences in the Chinese and English languages, but it is the Chinese of 2000 years ago, and the book is basically mystical poetry which has its own challenges of interpretation. To that end, she thanks many collaborators and contributors, chief among which are the eminent Sinologists Nathan Sivin and Paul Serruys.
She has also produced a companion book, "The Elemental Changes", 390 pages, intended for a more general audience, which I will discuss in a separate review showing the primary differences between it and the "Canon". In a nutshell, the translation of the basic material is the same in both editions; the only difference is the scholarly apparatus.
Having read many English translations of the I Ching, I do find the "Canon" as a carefully structured, coherent and powerful system of images. As a production of a single great mind, it has a unity which is very different from the I Ching, whose antecedents are in ancient Chinese prehistory, and grew piecemeal over the centuries. I don't think Yang Xiong had in mind a "replacement" for the I Ching, but rather a kind of "reimagining."
I want to address one issue I learned about, in all places, Amazon reviews. It's minor in a sense but it does speak to an editing/proofreading problem that is unfortunate, considering the pedigree of Dr Nylan and her collaborators. And strangely enough, not noticed by any of the academic reviewers, but only an anonymous Amazon reviewer.
The Canon is based on a set of "tetragrams", corresponding to the I Ching's 64 hexagrams. The difference is that the tetragrams have four lines each, not six, and each line instead of being solid or having two segments, can be solid, or have two or three segments, referred to as "heaven", "earth", and "man" or "human" lines. Therefore there are 81 tetragrams in total. Using "0", "1", and "2" for the Canon lines, tetragrams are built up in a logical series where tetragram #1 is 0 0 0 0, #2 is 0 0 0 1, #3 is 0 0 0 2, #4 is 0 0 1 0, #5 is 0 0 1 1, #6 is 0 0 1 2, and so on where you are basically counting by ones in Base-3 notation. The problem is that #5 is given in the table on p. 80, as well as on the tetragram detail on p. 113 as 1 0 1 0 which actually represents 31. Similar errors also occur for the drawings of tetragrams 10, 13, 17 and 52. I'll put a spreadsheet showing the problem on my website someday but if you use this text for divination, be aware that some of the drawings are wrong. The same error is duplicated in The Elemental Changes, unfortunately.
One more comment: I see a listing for another translation of this work called "The Canon of Grand Triad" by Alexander Goldstein. There are no reviews yet but the Description indicates that that translation is intended to focus on the divinatory aspects of the work rather than the historical/literary. I see it listed as a Nook book on the BN website, no listing on the Amazon one.
I say this since the first important fact is that this work is intended for an specialist audience. Dr Nylan, presently a faculty member at UC Berkeley, is an expert in early Chinese history. Within "CSM"s 680 pages, there are 160 pages of exhaustive footnotes, a 24 page bibliography, and a 79 page introduction. Almost every line of the translation is referred to later Chinese commentators, alternate readings and nuances of the translation are discussed in detail throughout. Dr. Nylan is very candid in her introduction, explaining that the original is very difficult to express in an English translation. Not only are the the inherent differences in the Chinese and English languages, but it is the Chinese of 2000 years ago, and the book is basically mystical poetry which has its own challenges of interpretation. To that end, she thanks many collaborators and contributors, chief among which are the eminent Sinologists Nathan Sivin and Paul Serruys.
She has also produced a companion book, "The Elemental Changes", 390 pages, intended for a more general audience, which I will discuss in a separate review showing the primary differences between it and the "Canon". In a nutshell, the translation of the basic material is the same in both editions; the only difference is the scholarly apparatus.
Having read many English translations of the I Ching, I do find the "Canon" as a carefully structured, coherent and powerful system of images. As a production of a single great mind, it has a unity which is very different from the I Ching, whose antecedents are in ancient Chinese prehistory, and grew piecemeal over the centuries. I don't think Yang Xiong had in mind a "replacement" for the I Ching, but rather a kind of "reimagining."
I want to address one issue I learned about, in all places, Amazon reviews. It's minor in a sense but it does speak to an editing/proofreading problem that is unfortunate, considering the pedigree of Dr Nylan and her collaborators. And strangely enough, not noticed by any of the academic reviewers, but only an anonymous Amazon reviewer.
The Canon is based on a set of "tetragrams", corresponding to the I Ching's 64 hexagrams. The difference is that the tetragrams have four lines each, not six, and each line instead of being solid or having two segments, can be solid, or have two or three segments, referred to as "heaven", "earth", and "man" or "human" lines. Therefore there are 81 tetragrams in total. Using "0", "1", and "2" for the Canon lines, tetragrams are built up in a logical series where tetragram #1 is 0 0 0 0, #2 is 0 0 0 1, #3 is 0 0 0 2, #4 is 0 0 1 0, #5 is 0 0 1 1, #6 is 0 0 1 2, and so on where you are basically counting by ones in Base-3 notation. The problem is that #5 is given in the table on p. 80, as well as on the tetragram detail on p. 113 as 1 0 1 0 which actually represents 31. Similar errors also occur for the drawings of tetragrams 10, 13, 17 and 52. I'll put a spreadsheet showing the problem on my website someday but if you use this text for divination, be aware that some of the drawings are wrong. The same error is duplicated in The Elemental Changes, unfortunately.
One more comment: I see a listing for another translation of this work called "The Canon of Grand Triad" by Alexander Goldstein. There are no reviews yet but the Description indicates that that translation is intended to focus on the divinatory aspects of the work rather than the historical/literary. I see it listed as a Nook book on the BN website, no listing on the Amazon one.
Displaying 1 of 1 review