Biànhuà, meaning 'transformation' or 'metamorphosis', was a keyword developed in both Daoism and Chinese Buddhism. Daoists used biànhuà to describe things transforming from one type to another, such as from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Buddhist translators used biànhuà for Sanskrit nirmāṇa 'manifest through transformations', such as the nirmāṇa-kaya 'transformation body' of a Buddha's reincarnations.

Terminology

In the morphology of the Chinese language, Chinese: Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化; pinyin: biànhuà; trans. "change, esp. in form or character', 'variation', 'transformation', 'metamorphosis', 'reincarnation" is categorized as a "synonymic compound" whose parts are synonyms, e.g., Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text艱難; jiannan; "difficult; hard"; compounds Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text艱; jian; "difficult; arduous" and Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text難; nan; "difficult; troublesome".^[1]

For the Old Chinese etymologies, Axel Schuessler^[2] has Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變; biàn < *prans "to change" cognate with Tai plian "to change" and perhaps Written Tibetan sprul-ba or ˈpʰrul-ba "juggle; appear; change; transform"; and huà < hŋrôih Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text化; "to transform' change, e.g., from a fish into a bird; people through education; raw food through cooking", cognate with e < *ŋôi Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text吪; "to move; act; change", with possible Tibeto-Burman etymological links to Kinnauri skwal "to change" or Khaling kʰwaal "to shift; move". Walter Simon^[3] proposed the Sino-Tibetan etymological link between Chinese biàn "change; transform" and Tibetan language sprul "juggle; perform tricks of illusion; change", and noted that the Chinese and Tibetan Buddhists chose these words to translate the Sanskrit technical vocabulary meaning "change; illusory transformation", such as, both sprul-sku and Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化身; bianhuashen translate nirmāṇa-kaya "transformation body".

In Modern Standard Chinese usage, Category:Articles containing simplified Chinese-language text变; Category:Articles containing traditional Chinese-language text變; biàn means "change; become, change into; transform; perform (magic/etc.)"; and Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text化; huà means "change, transform, convert; melt; dissolve, thaw; digest, remove; burn up, incinerate; disguise; [religion] die, pass away".^[4] Some common chengyu; "four-character idioms" based upon biànhuà are: Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化多端; biànhuàduōduān; "changeable" (with "many kinds"), Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化莫測; biànhuàmòcè; "changeable; unpredictable" (with "unmeasurable"), Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化無常; biànhuàwúcháng; "constantly changing; unending changes" (with "changeable"), and Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text千變萬化; qiānbiànwànhuà; "ever-changing (esp. tides and fortunes)" (with "1000" and "10,000").

The modern Chinese character 變Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text for biàn is classified as a radical-phonetic graph, combining the semantically significant "strike" radical 攴Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text or 攵Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text at the bottom with the phonetic indicator luan 䜌Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text (from 言Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text "words" between two 糸Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text "silk threads") at the top. Bian was first recorded on Zhou dynasty bronze script; "The meaning of the drawing is uncertain, but it contains two hanks of silk, and Xu Shen [in his ca. 100 CE Shuowen Jiezi] said that it meant 'to bring into order', as in spinning or reeling".^[5] The modern character 化Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text for huà is classified as a compound-ideograph, combining the "person" radical 亻Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text or 人Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text on the left and "spoon" radical 匕Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text on the right. However, in earlier bronze script and oracle script forms of 化Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text, the right side was originally a 人Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text "person" upside-down, depicting "a person who flips, changes".^[6]

Chinese has a rich lexicon of words meaning "change", including biàn, huà, Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text反; fǎn; "turn over; return; counter; oppose", Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text還; huán; "go/come back; give back; return; repay", Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text易; yì; "change" (as in the Yìjīng), and Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text移; yí; "shift; adapt; modify; adjust". There are so many that, as Joseph Needham notes, "the exact meaning of which are sometimes difficult to differentiate".^[7]

Semantically distinguishing between biàn and hua is multifaceted. Compare these explanations.

The exact difference between [biàn] and huà is perhaps more uncertain [than fǎn "reaction" and huán "return"]. In modern Chinese usage, [biàn] tends to signify gradual change, transformation or metamorphosis; while huà tends to mean sudden and profound transmutation or alteration (as in a rapid chemical reaction)—but there is no very strict frontier between the words. [Biàn] could be used of weather changes, insect metamorphosis, or slow personality transformations; huà may refer to the transition points in dissolving, liquefying, melting, etc., and to profound decay. [Biàn] tends to be associated with form (xing) and huà with matter ([zhi]). When a snowman melts, the form changes ([biàn]) as the snow melts (huà) to water. In the Sung dynasty, [Cheng Yi] explained biàn as implying inward change with full or partial conservation of the external Gestalt or form, and huà as fundamental change in which the outward appearance is also altered.^[7]

Huà 化Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text denotes a fundamental and essential change—a transformation. However, sometimes one also encounters the word [biàn], denoting external, momentary, or apparent change. A locus classicus for this distinction is in the [Guanzi] ...: "The exemplary man ([shengren]) changes ([biàn]) in accordance with the times without transforming [the essence of his being]" ... This in turn permits us to understand the passage in the [Huangdi neijing suwen] ...: "When the beings take rise (sheng Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text生 ...), this is called huà (transformation); when the beings have reached their full development [極Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text] ... [and consequently have taken on a different appearance], this is called [biàn] (change).^[8]

biàn has the sense of alteration among states of being (for example, from a yin to a yang state, or vice versa) or of variation within defined parameters. It differs from huà 化Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text, "transformation", in implying alternation or variation rather than fundamental and lasting change. The change from a caterpillar to a butterfly, for example, which is both substantive and irreversible, is a frequently cited instance of huà in the earlier literature. By contrast, a change that involves the realignment of constituent parts in a dynamic system (and that may be or is regularly reversed), such as that from day to night and back again, would be considered an instance of biàn.^[9]

Wing-Tsit Chan lists biànhuà "transfiguration and transformation" as a basic Chinese philosophical concept.^[10] biànhuà has very diverse meanings, from basic "change and transformation" to "universal life" or "creation", even referring to the Daoist "science of metamorphosis" and generically "supernatural powers obtained by either magical practices or meditation exercises".^[11]

Early usages

The (c. 4th century) encyclopedic Guanzi text uses biànhuà 5 times (3 in the Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text心術; Xinshu; "Mind Techniques" chapters). Where the Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text形勢; Xingshi; "Conditions and Circumstances" chapter says "The Way brings about the transformation of the self", the corresponding Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text形勢解; "Explanation" chapter elucidates "The Way is the means by which the self is transformed so a person will adhere to correct principles."^[12]

The ancient Yijing or Book of Changes has 12 usages of biànhuà describing the manifestation of everything in heaven and on earth. All occur in the (c. 3rd century BCE) Ten Wings commentaries, and none in the (c. 7th century BCE) core hexagram and line statements.

For hexagram 1 Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text乾; Qian; "The Creative", the "Commentary on the Decision" (Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text彖傳傳) says:

• The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony; this is what furthers and what perseveres.^[13]

Kong Yingda's sub-commentary^[14] distinguishes biàn and huà: "'Alternation' refers to afterwards changing from a former state, it has gradually changed. This is called 'alteration'. 'Transformation' refers to existence in one moment and absence of existence in the next, it has suddenly changed. This is called 'transformation'."

Biànhuà occurs most often (8 times) in the "Appended Judgments Commentary" (Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text繫辭傳) or "Great Commentary" (Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text大傳). Three contexts mention the work of divine sages.

• The holy sages were able to survey all the confused diversities under heaven. They observed forms and phenomena and made representations of things and their attributes [which became the basis for the Yijing]... Through observation and discussion they [the holy sages] perfected the changes and seasons.^[15]
• The Master [presumably Confucius] said: Whoever knows the tao of the changes and transformations, knows the action of the gods".^[16]
• Heaven creates divine things; the holy sage takes them as models. Heaven and earth change and transform; the holy sage imitates them.^[17]

In written Japanese, 変化Category:Articles containing Japanese-language text can be pronounced henka "change (state)" (in Kan-on reading) or the Buddhist henge 変化Category:Articles containing Japanese-language text "incarnation" (Go-on reading). The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (2001) notes both pronunciations were first recorded during the Nara period; henge 変化Category:Articles containing Japanese-language text "A god, Buddha, spirit, etc. that temporarily appearing in human form, or such a thing. Avatar. Reincarnation" (神仏, 天人などが仮に人間の姿になって現われること. また, そのもの. 神仏の化身 (けしん). 権化 (ごんげCategory:Articles containing Japanese-language text).; c. 810-824 Nihon Ryōiki); and henka 変化Category:Articles containing Japanese-language text "A change from one nature, state, etc. to another, or, such changeability" (ある性質, 状態などが他の性質や状態に変わること, または, 変えることCategory:Articles containing Japanese-language text.; 827 Keikokushū).

Daoist usages

The Daoist idea of biànhuà, "that the certainty that the world is in flux leaves open the possibility that things may transform from one type to another",^[18] can be traced from the Zhuangzi through the Shangqing School.

The (c. 3rd century BCE) Zhuangzi was the first Daoist text to explain biànhuà. The word occurs five times (all in the Outer Chapters), referring to the ability of things to change from one category to another. For instance,

Spring and summer precede, autumn and winter come after—such is the sequence of the four seasons. The myriad things evolve and develop; even twisted little shoots have their own special shapes—such are the gradations of fullness and decline, the flow of transformation and evolution [biànhuà]. (13)^[19]

The Zhuangzi text begins with a parable about interspecific metamorphosis.

In the darkness of the Northern Ocean, there is a fish named K'un. The K'un is so big that no one knows how many thousands of tricents [three hundred paces] its body extends. After it metamorphoses [huà] into a bird, its name becomes P'eng. The P'eng is so huge that no one knows how many thousands of tricents its back stretches. Rousing itself to flight, its wings are like clouds suspended in the sky. (1)^[20]

The Zhuangzi uses the closely related word Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text物化; wuhua; "transformation of things" ten times, most famously in the story of Zhuangzi dreaming he was a butterfly.

Once upon a time Chuang Chou dreamed that he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting about happily enjoying himself. He didn't know that he was Chou. Suddenly he awoke and was palpably Chou. He did not know whether he was Chou who had dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that he was Chou. Now, there must be a difference between Chou and the butterfly. This is called the transformation of things. (2)^[21]

A Zhuangzi passage explains change in the sense of evolutionary continuity.

In seeds there are germs [Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text幾]. When they are found in water they become filaments. When they are found at the border of water and land they become algae. When they germinate in elevated places they become plantain. When the plantain is found in fertile soil it becomes crow's foot. The crow's foot's roots become scarab grubs and its leaves become butterflies. The butterflies soon evolve into insects that are born beneath the stove. They have the appearance of exuviae and are called "house crickets:" After a thousand days the house crickets become birds called "dried surplus bones." The spittle of the dried surplus bones becomes a misty spray and the misty spray becomes mother of vinegar. Midges are born from mother of vinegar; yellow whirligigs are born from fetid wine; blindgnats are born from putrid slimebugs. When goat's-queue couples with bamboo that has not shooted for a long time, they produce greenies. The greenies produce panthers; panthers produce horses; horses produce men; and men return to enter the wellsprings of nature [Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text機]. The myriad things all come out from the wellsprings and all reenter the wellsprings. (18)^[22]

Liu An's (c. 139 BCE) Huainanzi uses biànhuà 17 times. For instance, this hunchback story about Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text子求; Ziqiu; "Master Seek", adapted from the Zhuangzi (6)^[23] description of Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text子輿; Ziyu; "Master Chariot".

Ziqiu had lived for fifty-four years when an injury made him hunchbacked. The arch of his spine was higher than his forehead; his chin pressed down on his chest; his two buttocks were on top; his rectum pointed to the sky. He crawled over to peer at himself in a well: "Amazing! That which fashions and transforms us! How has it turned me into this crumpled thing?" This shows that from his viewpoint, alterations and transformation [biànhuà] are the same. (7)^[24]

The Huainanzi describes transformations in nature:^[25] "Now the frog becomes a quail, [and] the water scorpion becomes the dragonfly. These give rise to what is not their own kind. Only the sage understands their transformations." To know the biànhuà of things is the hallmark of spiritual knowledge.^[26]

While the Daodejing text does not use biànhuà, its (c. 2nd century CE) commentary attributed to Heshang Gong (Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text河上公; 'Riverbank Elder') uses the word twice, explaining the transformations of dragons and spirits. The text and commentary for Section 26 (重德Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text) says:

Gravity is the root of lightness.

If a prince is not grave, then he is not honoured. If asceticism is not taken seriously, then the spirits are lost. The blossoms and leaves of the herbs and trees are light, therefore they are perishable. The root is heavy, therefore it is lasting.

Quietness is the master of motion.

If a prince is not quiet, then he loses his dignity. If the ascetic is not quiet, then he endangers himself. The dragon is quiet, therefore he is able to transform [biànhuà]. The tiger is restless, therefore he strives for heavenly faults.^[27]

Section 39 (Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text法本) says:

The spirits acquired unity. Thereby they are magic-endowed.

This means: The spirits acquired unity. Thereby they are able to change [biànhuà] and to become formless.

The valley-streams acquired unity. Thereby they are filled out.

This means: The valley-streams acquired unity. Therefore they may be filled without ceasing to exist.^[28]

The (c. 2nd century CE) Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text老子變化經; Lǎozǐ biànhuà jīng; "Scripture of the Transformations of Laozi", which is preserved in a fragmentary (612 CE) Dunhuang manuscript discovered in the Mogao Caves, uses biànhuà to describe the many historical reincarnations of Laozi 老子Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text, deified as Laojun (Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text老君; "Lord Lao"). This text says Laozi "can make himself bright or dark, disappear and then be present, enlarge or diminish himself, coil up or extend himself, put himself above or below, can be vertical or horizontal, (and) can go forward or backward."^[29] In every generation, this Master of Emperors cosmically "transforms his own body" in order to teach humanity, through the incarnate power of the Dao, he assumes numerous identities, and leaves behind adapted writings with his teaching.^[30] The transformations of Laojun began with the first mythical ruler Fu Xi, included Gautama Buddha, the Yellow Emperor's teacher Guangzhengzi (Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text廣成子; "Master Broadly Complete") (mentioned in the Zhuangzi), and ended with a 155 CE manifestation in the Sichuan region.

Mark Csikszentmihalyi distinguishes between early Daoist discussions that tended to emphasize the way in which biànhuà applies to human beings in the same way it does to the natural world,^[31] and later Daoism that stressed the potential for the adept to harness biànhuà, particularly in the eschatological picture of the Shangqing tradition.

Like Laozi, the diverse spirits of the Shangqing tradition are able to transform themselves, and the adept had to be able to identify their different manifestations. Adepts, in turn, might use biànhuà to transform themselves. The Shangqing text Shenzhou qizhuan qibian wutian jing 神州七轉七變舞天經Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text (Scripture of the Divine Continent on the Dance in Heaven in Seven Revolutions and Seven Transformations; CT 1331) describes methods for transforming into clouds, light, fire; water, and dragons.^[18]

Isabelle Robinet notes that "the powers of metamorphosis had always been a key characteristic of the immortals, but these powers came to be even more central in Shangqing where they were synonymous with deliverance and salvation."^[32]

Biànhuà was employed by both Daoist mystics and Fangshi magicians. The Daoist adept practices metamorphosis both internally through meditation on colored breaths and gods within the body, and externally using magic to change the appearances of things.^[33] Ge Hong's (c. 320 CE) Baopuzi explains these extraordinary powers of Daoists. Describing the multilocation technique called fenxing "divide/multiply the body", Ge Hong says his uncle Ge Xuan could be in several dozen places at once: "When guests were present there could be one host speaking with the guests in the house, another host greeting guests beside the stream, and still another host making casts with his fishing line, but the guests were unable to distinguish which was the true one."^[34] Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text隱形; Yǐnxíng; "invisibility" is another manifestation of biànhuà. The Baopuzi says: "What is it that the arts of transformation cannot do? May I remind my readers that the human body, which is normally visible, can be made to disappear. Ghosts and gods are normally invisible, but there are ways and means to make them visible. Those capable of operating these methods and prescriptions will be found to abound wherever you go."^[35]

Several centuries after Chinese Buddhists borrowed the Daoist meaning of biànhuà or huà "manifest through transformation; incarnate", early Tang dynasty Daoists elaborated the Buddhist doctrine about a Buddha's "three bodies" (see below) into a theory that the True Body of the Dao, the Supreme Truth, assumes different metaphoric "bodies" in order to manifest as specific deities, including those in the Laozi bianhuajing. The (late 8th century) Daoist Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text三論元旨; sānlùn yuánzhǐ explains that: "The saint responds to all things, but his essence is distinct from them. Therefore, since his transcendent root is immobile, he is called the "true body" [Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text真身; zhēnshēn] and since he propagates the form of the Law, he is called the "responsive body" [Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text應身; yīngshēn].^[36] This text further contrasts the True Body with the "transformation body" [Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text化身; huàshēn or biànhuàshēn, used for nirmāṇa-kāya] and the "trace body" [Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text跡身; jishen], in the sense that all teachings are traces of truth.^[37]

Buddhist usages

Early Buddhist translators chose Chinese Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化; biànhuà as the equivalent for Sanskrit nirmāṇa "transformation; supernatural manifestation; reincarnation".

Charles Muller's Digital Dictionary of Buddhism^[38] defines biànhuà as basically meaning "transformation of things", and distinguishes four senses:

1. (Skt. nirmāṇa) The transformation of myriad forms in manifesting appearances, especially the mutation of buddhas and bodhisattvas, e.g. 變化人Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text becoming men; also 變化土Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text the land where they dwell, whether the Pure Land or any impure world where they live for its enlightenment.
2. To transform, change, change into, become. To manifest through supernormal power.
3. The mind that discriminates all objects as having inherent existence (sixth and seventh consciousnesses).
4. The third of the four kinds of reality-bodies of the Buddha, according to Yogâcāra.

Monier Monier-Williams's Sanskrit-English Dictionary^[39] translates nirmāṇa निर्माणCategory:Articles containing Sanskrit-language text as "measuring, measure, reach, extent", "forming, making, creating", "(Buddhist literature) transformation", "essence, essential/best part of anything" (sāra), and "unconformity, impropriety, unbecomingness" (asamañjasa).

The common Buddhist term Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化身; biànhuàshēn or Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text化身; huàshēn; "transformation-body; manifested-body" (translating nirmāṇakāya) refers to one of the Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text三身; sanshen (trikāya) "three bodies [of a buddha]" doctrine, along with the Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text法身; fǎshēn; 'dharma-body', 'truth-body' (dharmakāya), and Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text報身; bàoshēn; 'reward-body', 'bliss-body' (saṃbhogakāya संभोगकायCategory:Articles containing Sanskrit-language text). Contexts describing Buddhas manifesting as animals and humans use the related terms Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化人; bianhuaren; "magically manifested human body" (nirmita), Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化土; bianhuatu; "transformation land where the inhabitants reincarnate" (nirmāṇa-kṣetra निर्माण क्षेत्रCategory:Articles containing Sanskrit-language text), and *Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化生; bianhuasheng; "birth by transformation; miraculous materialization" (upapāduka उपपादुकाCategory:Articles containing Sanskrit-language text) .

Besides Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化; biànhuà, Buddhist translators used other Chinese biàn compounds for Sanskrit words dealing with supernatural manifestations.^[40] This semantic complex includes Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變現; bianxian (with "appearance") translating both vikurvaṇa विकुर्वणाCategory:Articles containing Sanskrit-language text "manifestation through transformation" and prātihārya प्रातिहार्यCategory:Articles containing Sanskrit-language text "miraculous"; and Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text神變; shenbian (with "god; divine") translating prātihārya "supernatural/miraculous powers; magical feats" and vikurvana "manifestation; transformation".

Victor Mair traced the historical semantics of Chinese bian before and after the (c. 2nd-3rd century) introduction of Buddhism, when it started being used as to translate Sanskrit nirmāṇa meaning "discontinuity or break with reality (illusion)".^[41] The pre-Buddhist concept of Chinese biàn referred to "change (from one state to another)", through which one thing becomes another thing. The post-Buddhist concept extended bian to mean "strange" in the sense of "transformation from nothing to something; magically creative power to conjure". The early "strange incident; supernatural transformation" sense of biàn became popular during the early Tang dynasty period, for instance, the (c. 668) Fayuan Zhulin "Pearl Grove in the Garden of the Dharma" used biànhuà "[miraculous] transformation" to describe strange incidents.

Later usages

The Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi's interpretations of the Chinese classics, which scholars and officials from the 12th to 19th centuries considered to be canonical, differentiated between two types of "change": sudden, transformational bian and gradual, evolutionary huà.

For instance, Zhu explained an ambiguous Yijing statement within the Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text繫辭傳; Xici zhuan; "Commentary on the Appended Phrases", "That which transforms things and fits them together is called change [化而裁之謂之變Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text]; that which stimulates them and sets them in motion is called continuity",^[42] with a lunar analogy: "[The progression] from the first day to the thirtieth day [of a lunar month] is huà (transformation). Having reached this thirtieth day, concluded and made one month, the next day belongs to the next month. This is pien (change)."^[43] This "change" distinction also applied to lines in the Yijing hexagrams, which are either unbroken, solid Yang lines or broken, open Yin ones: "Pien is from a yin [line] to a yang [line]. [It] changes suddenly. Therefore, it is called "change" (pien). [The change] from yin to yang naturally grows to become sudden. This is called change. From yang to yin, it gradually goes on vanishing and wearing out."^[44]

Zhu Xi used the biàn/huà distinction to explain a difficult passage in the Doctrine of the Mean – "When moved, it is change; when changed, it is transformed [Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text動則變，Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變則化]" – "When changed, its old conventions have already been altered, but there still are traces. When transformed, they have completely vanished and transformed, and there are no longer any traces."^[45]

Biànhuà continues to be a linguistically productive word, as evident in Chinese technical neoloigisms like bianhuali; "paradigm", Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化球; bianhuaqiu; "breaking ball", Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化語; bianhuayu; "inflective language", and Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text變化盲視; bianhuamangshi; "change blindness".

See also

• Bianwen (transformation texts) 變文Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text "transformation texts", an early vernacular literary form in Chinese literature
• 變化 Change, an album by the Singaporean singer Derrick Hoh
• Huashu 化書Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text "Book of Transformations", a 10th-century Daoist classic about internal alchemy, subjectivity, and spiritual transformation

References

• Erkes, Eduard (1945). "Ho-Shang-Kung's Commentary on Lao-tse (part I)". Artibus Asiae. 8 (2/4): 121–196. doi:10.2307/3248186. JSTOR 3248186.
• Kim, Yung Sik (2000). The Natural Philosophy of Chu Hsi (1130-1200). American Philosophical Society. ISBN 9780871692351.
• T'ang Transformation Texts: A Study of the Buddhist Contribution to the Rise of Vernacular Fiction and Drama in China. Translated by Mair, Victor H. Harvard University Asia Center. 1989.
• Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu. Translated by Mair, Victor H. Bantam Books. 1994. ISBN 9780553374063.
• The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China. Translated by Major, John S.; Queen, Sarah; Meyer, Andrew; Roth, Harold D. Columbia University Press. 2010. ISBN 9780231142045.
• Robinet, Isabelle (August 1979). "Metamorphosis and Deliverance from the Corpse in Taoism". History of Religions. 19 (1). The University of Chicago Press: 37–70. doi:10.1086/462835. S2CID 162324813.
• Robinet, Isabelle (1993). Taoist Meditation: The Mao-Shan Tradition of Great Purity. SUNY Press. ISBN 9780791413609.
• Alchemy, Medicine and Religion in the China of A.D. 320: The Nei Pien of Ko Hung. Translated by Ware, James R. MIT Press. 1966. ISBN 9780262230223.
• Wilhelm, Richard; Baynes, Cary (1967) [1950]. The I Ching or Book of Changes (3rd ed.). Princeton University Press.

Footnotes

Further reading

• Graham, Angus C. (1993), Yin-Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking, Institute of East Asian Philosophies.
• Soothill, William Edward and Lewis Hodous (1937), A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms: with Sanskrit and English Equivalents and a Sanskrit-Pali Index, Kegan Paul.

External links

• Bianhua, About.com