What is it?

Pronounced "Ee Jing", I Ching, the Book of Changes is about 5,000 years old, and as such, is one of the oldest available sources of spiritual wisdom. 

Legend suggests that the first Chinese Emperor, Fu Hsi, was responsible for the original creation of I Ching, although there are different stories concerning where he found his inspiration.  The most poetic and inspiring concerns a dragon-like creature that climbed from the water near him as he was meditating one day.  He noticed the lines on the creatures scales, and decided these were to help him in his quest for knowledge.  He set about drawing diagrams representing the patterns on the scales of this creature, believing that the diagrams would be sufficient to encompass all wisdom.

I Ching symbols are composed of lines representing Yin (female) or Yang (male) properties.  The original I Ching, as produced by Emperor Fu Hsi, consisted of eight symbols each made up of three lines (called 'trigrams' ), each line of which could be either 'Yin' - the female power, or gentleness, or 'Yang' - the male power, or strength.  Mathematics scholars will realise that there are eight combinations of Yin and Yang in three lines (2³ = 8).

In the year 1143BC, King Wen, whilst under sentence of death, placed the eight tri-grams in pairs to produce the sixty-four 'hexagrams' (six-lined symbols) with which we are now familiar (again, 8² = 64).  His son, the Duke of Chou, added a commentary on each line in each hexagram and on the symbolism (known as the Hsiang Chuan, or the 'Image' of a hexagram).  This produced 384 commentaries (64 x 6 = 384) that still form an essential part of I Ching.

Centuries later, Confucius added more commentary, known as the 'Ten Wings'.  The commentary states that "Change has an absolute limit: This produces two modes: The two modes produce four forms, the four forms produce eight tri-grams; the eight tri-grams determine fortune and misfortune."

Over the centuries, I Ching continued to be recognised, and even given religious significance, before it came to France in the early 19th century.  In the early 20th century, a German translation of I Ching was completed and published by Richard Wilhelm (who had lived in China for many years). This translation still forms the basis of many of the published I Ching texts.

This 'Introduction to I Ching' does not attempt to recreate the 384 'commentaries', but aims to provide a useful summary of the 64 hexagrams: at least sufficient for beginners to explore the usefulness of this ancient wisdom.

Copyright: ©1998 Fraser Muir-Matheson

I Ching 'Background' and I Ching 'script' Copyright: C.S. Chow & IChing1@aol.com

Permission to use Background and I Ching 'script' provided by IChing1@aol.com