Whats the difference between Yijing and I Ching?

'Yijing' is the more modern pinyin transliteration of the two Chinese characters, 'yi' (change) and 'jing' (book or classic) that used to be represented in the old Wade-Giles system as 'I Ching'. Mandarin (putonghua) pronunciation of both – since they are merely alphabetic variants of the same Chinese characters – is 'ee jing' rather than 'eye ching'. Some diehards still refer to the text as 'Yi King', which often reflects that their interest stems from the works of Aleister Crowley, who used the James Legge translation (Peking was always pronounced Beijing in China).

Similarly, 'dao' is the pinyin equivalent of 'tao' and more accurately reflects how it is pronounced. The Daodejing for instance is the Tao Te Ching. Dao is the same character as the Japanese 'do' in judo, kendo, meaning 'way'. The Japanese Samurai code of bushido for example means 'way of the warrior' – in Chinese bushido is wushi dao, a 'wushi' these days being a person good at martial arts (wu as in King Wu, the martial king, and shi as in 'army', the tag of hexagram 7). 'Dao' is the character on the right of the three at the top of this page, the other two being 'yi' and 'jing'. By 'Yijing Dao' I do indeed intend to imply a martial arts approach to Yijing.

On this website pinyin is favoured, but where Wade-Giles was used in the original reviews and book titles this has been retained.