I Ching

The I Ching, also called the Yijing, meaning "Book of Changes" or "Classic of Changes," is an ancient Chinese book used for making decisions. It is one of the oldest Chinese classics and started as a way to tell the future during the Western Zhou period, around 1000 to 750 BC. Over time, it became more than just a tool for predicting the future. It grew into a book about the way the world works, with many thoughtful writings added to it.

People use the I Ching by using special tools, like bundles of yarrow stalks, to create sets of numbers. These numbers help create pictures called hexagrams, which are found in the book. Each hexagram gives advice or thoughts about life and making choices. Many wise people have talked about what the I Ching means, often connecting its ideas to big thoughts about life, like balance and how things change.

The divination text: Zhou Yi

The I Ching, also known as the Zhou Yi, is an ancient Chinese book used for making predictions. It began as a simple guide for deciding the future during the Western Zhou period, around 1000 to 750 BC. Over time, it grew into a deeper book that people studied for its ideas about the world.

The book uses special pictures called hexagrams, made of six lines that can be broken or whole. Each picture has a name and a short message, plus messages for each line. These were used to help people understand what might happen next. Even today, many people still use the I Ching to think about their choices and the world around them.

The classic: I Ching

In 136 BC, Emperor Wu of Han named the Zhou yi "the first among the classics", calling it the Classic of Changes or I Ching. This decision was influenced by many cultural ideas including Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, yin-yang cosmology, and Wuxing physical theory. Though the Zhou yi itself did not contain cosmological ideas, the I Ching came to be seen as a small model of the universe, offering complex and symbolic meanings.

The I Ching was officially written in stone as one of the Xiping Stone Classics and remained the standard text for over two thousand years. It was later joined by ten commentaries called the Ten Wings. These commentaries, written at a different time and in a different language, added deep philosophical meaning to the I Ching. The most important of these is the Great Commentary, which explains the I Ching as a reflection of the universe and a guide to understanding change. The Ten Wings helped make the I Ching important to scholars, especially during the Han period.

Hexagrams

Main article: Hexagram (I Ching)

For a more comprehensive list, see List of hexagrams of the I Ching.

In the classic I Ching, the hexagrams are arranged in a special order called the King Wen sequence. This name comes from King Wen of Zhou, who started the Zhou dynasty and changed how people understood these shapes. The sequence often pairs hexagrams with ones that look like they are turned upside down. Some hexagrams do not change when turned over, so they are paired differently.

There is another way to arrange the hexagrams that was found in 1973 at Mawangdui. This method groups them based on the top part of each shape. The oldest known writing of these shapes, found in 1987 and kept in the Shanghai Library, seems to use the King Wen sequence. It is not clear if the order of these shapes mattered to the people who first wrote about them. Giving numbers to the hexagrams is something people started doing more recently.

Yin and yang are shown by broken and solid lines: yin is broken (⚋) and yang is solid (⚊). By combining three lines of yin and yang in different ways, we get eight trigrams. These are Qian (乾, ☰), Dui (兌, ☱), Li (離, ☲), Zhen (震, ☳), Xun (巽, ☴), Kan (坎, ☵), Gen (艮, ☶), and Kun (坤, ☷).

When we combine these trigrams in different ways, we end up with 64 hexagrams.

The following table numbers the hexagrams in King Wen order.

Interpretation and influence

See also: Influence of the I Ching

The I Ching is one of the most well-known Chinese books in the world. It has been very important in East Asia for both Confucian and Daoist traditions. In the West, it has interested many famous thinkers and writers.

During the Eastern Han period, people interpreted the I Ching in different ways. Some focused on finding connections between nature and the book's symbols, while others looked more at its moral lessons. Over time, new ways of understanding the I Ching developed.

In later Chinese history, important figures like Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi helped shape how people read the book. In Japan and Korea, the I Ching also had a big influence on their thinking and culture.

In Europe, thinkers like Gottfried Leibniz saw the I Ching as proof of universal ideas like binary numbers. The book continued to inspire people in modern times, affecting areas from science to music and literature. Today, scholars study the I Ching with new methods, trying to understand its history and meaning in deeper ways.

Translations

The I Ching has been translated into many Western languages many times. The first full translation into a Western language was in Latin, done by a French missionary in the 1730s and published in Germany in the 1830s.

The most well-known translation was done by Richard Wilhelm in German in 1923, and later translated into English in 1950. This version became very popular, especially during the 1960s. Other important translations have been made over the years, each bringing new ideas and discoveries to the text. Some of the most used English translations include those by James Legge, Richard Wilhelm, John Blofeld, and many others.