Page 6 - Robert W. Smith - Pa kua_ Chinese boxing for fitness & self-defense-North Atlantic Books (2003)

I

Beginnings and Background

A. THE NAME AND THE PHILOSOPHY
Pa-kua ( ), pronounced "ba-gwa," is one of the three branches
of the nei-chia (internal family or system) of Chinese boxing—the
other two are t'ai-chi and hsing-i. The name as well as the ra-
tionale derive from the system of philosophy growing out of the
/ Ching (Book of Changes)—3,000 years old, but timeless. Origi-
nally a manual of oracles, the Book of Changes evolved to ethical
enumerations, eventually becoming a book of wisdom, one of the
Five Classics of Confucianism. It became a common source for
both Confucian and Taoist philosophy. The central theme of the
book, as well as the system of boxing, is continuous change. While
the book's basic idea, as Richard Wilhelm has said,* is the con-
tinuous change and transformation underlying all existence, the
boxing absorbs this idea into a system of exercise and defense.
Originally the Book of Changes was a collection of linear signs
to be used as oracles. In its most rudimentary sense these oracles
confined themselves to the answers "yes" and "no." Thus a "yes"
was written in a single unbroken line ( ) and "no" in a single
broken line ( ). Time brought a need for differentiation and
amplification which required additional lines. Thus the eight tri-

* The Richard Wilhelm translation of the Book of Changes, with a foreword by
C. G. Jung, will delight those desiring to read the work. It is in two volumes and pub-
lished by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (reprinted in 1960). The Book of Changes
has proved so fascinating for some that one European scholar learned Chinese (that
disease and not a language) merely to read it. To the Chinese its study is not a thing
to be taken lightly. Only those advanced in years regard themselves as ready to learn
from it. Confucius himself is said to have been seventy years old when he first took
up the Book of Changes.

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