I have no specific thoughts about the I Ching, but recall that a major subject of discussion in my Chinese Characters class at Berkeley, c. 60 years ago, was a vigorous debate on whether translating Chinese is 3, 5, or 10 % Perspiration, with the rest being Inspiration -- and that's ordinary literary text -- with no-one holding that it's less than 90% Inspiration. Lao Tzu would, I think, be likely to be closer to 1% literal. (Well... yes, I may be exaggerating for effect... but perhaps not too excessively.)
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Date: 2010-06-11 09:00 pm (UTC)