Divination Disclosure, Cosmological Unfolding and Human Transcendence: The Religious Dimension of “Manifestation” (Xian 顯) in the Yijing

This study tries to fill the gap on the lack of a systematic analysis of the concept “manifestation” (xian 顯) in the Yijing. The idea of revealing the invisible dao permeates the Yijing text, but contemporary scholarship tends to subordinate xian to other categories such as image (xiang 象), word (ci 辭), or the complementary dynamics of yin-yang 陰陽 and substance-function (ti-yong 體用). This brings up a fundamental question: does xian have a consistent logic, as is often asserted, that links the practical, cosmic and human dimensions of the Yijing? And the study says it does. It understands three intertwined perspectives: the xian of divination, the xian of Heaven and Earth, and the xian of transcendence. Therefore, this study describes the necessary evolution from the revelation of divination to cosmological ground to human achievement. The xian of divinatory affairs explains how subtle and imperceptible cosmic principles are translated and manifested into readable hexagram judgments through the Yijing. This mechanism has its deeper ground in the xian of Heaven and Earth, which shows that the cosmos itself functions in terms of the mutual implication of xian and hidden. But the cosmological manifestation is still external; it is not human realization itself. The xian of transcendence ends the argument by showing that the ultimate meaning of xian is realized only when human beings internalize it and embody it through virtuous conduct. These three perspectives together form a coherent framework for understanding the Yijing’s connection of the transcendent dao and the empirical human world. They also show us the transcendence and immanence of the Heavenly dao in the human world, that sharing the xian and hidden of Heaven and Earth, and participating in their achievements and realization are possible through self-cultivation.