History of the I Ching

Origin of the Book of Changes

Nov 17, 2008

The I Ching originated in China several thousand years ago. The traditional history of the I Ching begins with King Wen, a feudal lord during the Shang dynasty.

According to tradition, Wen was a loyal servant of the Shang dynasty, who tried to protect his people from the excesses of the Emperor, now known as the Tyrant of Shang.

The Origin of the Hexgrams

Wen tried to advise the Emperor, and convince him to change some of his policies. Eventually, the Tyrant of Shang had him imprisoned for inciting rebellion.

While he was imprisoned, he spent a lot of time meditating and thinking. Most of the time, he spent considering the eight trigrams discovered by Fu Xi:

He realized that by combining two trigrams, he could create a new set of symbols. He combined the trigrams to create a total of 64 hexgrams. He understood each hexgram to be about a different situation or stage of life. He arranged them in two sequences, the Upper and Lower Canon, that he thought best followed the cycles of time and human society.

He gave names to each hexgram, and wrote a description, normally called the decision that explains the meaning of each trigram in terms of how the hexgram suggests a person should act in the situation the hexgram is depicts ('Favorable to proceed', or 'Unfavorable to proceed' are common phrases in the decisions.)

Eventually, Wen was released and went home to Zhou. Most traditions suggest that prior to his imprisonment he had been loyal to the Shang Emperor, other sources say that he had been planning rebellion already. In either case, after he was freed he began preparing to overthrow the Emperor.

The Rebellion against Shang

King Wen did not live to overthrow Shang. Instead he spent the rest of his life gathering advisers and supports. Perhaps the most important of these was Jiang Ziya, who became the foremost military leader of the rebellion, and the first prime minister of the Zhou dynasty.

During and after this time, King Wu's brother, who became known as the Duke of Zhou, expanded on the hexgrams by studying the Yao, or the lines that form the hexgrams, and writing a decision for each line. Many of the decisions seem to describe various events in the lives of Wen and King Wu, and the course of the overthrow of Shang

The Founding of Zhou

The Tyrant of Shang killed himself when defeat became inevitable, and Wu became the first Emperor of the Zhou dynasty. He named his father, Wen, king posthumously. Many concepts central to China's history, religion and philosophy came out of this time - the Divine Mandate of Heaven, which tells how an Emperor's right to rule is made obvious by heaven, is believed to have been designed as propaganda to support the new emperor's legitmancy.

The writings of King Wen, and the Duke of Zhou which became the I Chingwere given an official status in the new dynasty, which was maintained, to a greater and lesser degree, until the 1960's.

Confucious and the I Ching

Approximately 600 years years after the fall of the Shang Dynasty, a man know as K'ung-fu-tzu, or Master Kung (Confucious is the latinized version) forever changed China and Chinese philosophy. He also changed the I Ching.

Confucious studied the I Ching extensively, and on his death bed is said to have wished for another 50 years of life so he could study the I Ching and become free of flaws. However, in addition to studying the I Ching, Confucious wrote about, and his commentaries, called the Ten Wings, have since become considered a crucial part of the I Ching.

The Importance of the I Ching Today

The I Ching, and the hexgrams it is based on, is the foundation of Chinese philosophy. Both Confucianism and Taoism are firmly rooted in its teachings. It continues to shape the world today: Western science has benefited from the I Ching as well. Some sources say that the I Ching inspired the mathematician Leibnitz to create the binary system that runs our computers, and several scientists have found correlations between the I Ching and the genetic code. It has been used to teach psychology, understand the nature of time and existence, and create music, and probably a great deal more.

References

The copyright of the article History of the I Ching in Eastern Philosophy is owned by Jessica Burde. Permission to republish History of the I Ching in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.