The Chinese, in any event, were convinced from the earliest times of which we have record that the “yi” and its milfoil-generated hexagrams were exceedingly ancient. It is harder to dig up and identify three thousand year old stalks of grass. We know about other types of divination because they were done on bones and we dug up the bones. “If the Shang practiced milfoil divination, it would not be surprising that we would not know about it. These were “thrown” in various sequences to determine numerical results, and these allowed the diviner to construct a “hexagram” (a term explained below).

The “yi”’s system of divination relies on the use of milfoil stalks, a kind of jointed grass. Typically, divination was done by putting hot pokers to ox bones and tortoise shells, and then reading the resulting cracks. The Shang Dynasty royal house, which was overthrown in 1045 B.C., relied heavily on divination practices to reinforce systems of ritual practice, and to some degree also to reach decisions concerning war, hunting, illness, etc. Robert Eno of Indiana University wrote: “ There is no doubt that the “Yijing” (sometimes called the “Zhouyi”, or just the “yi”) is the product of a long tradition of divination lore there is doubt about most everything else. QI AND QI GONG: POWER, QI MASTERS, BUSINESS AND MEDITATION ĬHINESE TEMPLES AND RITUALS ĭr.

RELIGION, DIVINATION AND BELIEFS IN SPIRITS AND MAGIC IN ANCIENT CHINA RELATED ARTICLES IN THIS WEBSITE: FOLK RELIGION, SUPERSTITION, FUNERALS TAOISM RELIGION IN CHINA CONFUCIANISM CLASSICAL CHINESE PHILOSOPHY BUDDHISM IN CHINA įOLK RELIGION IN CHINA: QI, YIN-YANG AND THE FIVE FORCES There are the hexagrams themselves, the names of the hexagrams, the words immediately appended after the names, and then a set of commentaries on the hexagram as a whole. Robert Eno of Indiana University wrote: “The “yi” is a layered text: it integrates numerous easily distinguished strata, each of which is likely the creation of a different author. When the eighth month comes there will further misfortune.'ĭr. Four broken lines over two solid lines can mean 'Approach has supreme success. These days the interpretations are not so black and white. In the old days the solid lines meant yes and a broken lines meant no. Each hexagram has a description and symbolic meaning, which are revealed using interpretations written hundreds of years before the Book of Changes appeared. The 64 hexagrams are created by combining two groups of trigrams - each composed of eight trigrams, which in turn are each composed of combinations of three divided lines and undivided lines. Yijing divinations involve reading 64 hexagrams made of divided lines (yin) and undivided lines (yang) in accordance with sticks thrown by a fortuneteller. The translation of Yijing by Princeton University Press is 740 pages. Yijing is also regarded as a major treatise of the Chinese belief that philosophy and aesthetic theory is based on intuitive insight. It has been attributed to Confucius and is regarded as a Confucian text but in reality it predates Confucius and was incorporated into Confucianism when it became more mystical.

The Yijing (I Ching or 'Book of Changes') is a book of divination that first appeared during the Age of Philosophers.

I ching trigrams explained