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Discipline

I Ching

EE JING
Divinatory Disciplines
Origin 1000 BCE to 750 BCE

The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is one of the oldest Chinese classics, at once a divination manual and a work of philosophy. Its structure rests on sixty-four hexagrams, each a stack of six horizontal lines that are either broken, for yin, or unbroken, for yang, and built from the eight trigrams that stand for fundamental forces such as heaven, earth, water, fire, thunder, wind, mountain, and lake. A reading is obtained by generating a hexagram, traditionally by sorting yarrow stalks or casting three coins, with changing lines transforming one hexagram into a second and so mapping a present situation and its tendency. Each hexagram and line carries a judgment and image whose terse, poetic text is interpreted for guidance. Layered with the commentaries known as the Ten Wings, the work became central to both Confucian and Taoist thought and a cornerstone of Chinese cosmology, ethics, and the art of acting in harmony with change.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
1000 BCE to 750 BCE 1Tradition: Zhou Yi and the Ten Wings
Origin Period
300 BCE to 100 BCE 2Tradition: Zhou Yi and the Ten Wings
Place of Origin
China 3
Attributed Author / Compiler
None of the four attributions is sustainable: the Zhou Yi core is anonymous divination material of the early Zhou, and the Ten Wings are a later and separate stratum 1
Attributed Author / Compiler
Tradition ascribes the trigrams to Fu Xi, the hexagram statements to King Wen, the line statements to the Duke of Zhou and the Ten Wings to Confucius 1
Status
Status Today
Living tradition, practised today 1
Learn More
The Oracle, and How a Hexagram Is Obtained

The Book of Changes is a divination manual that became a philosophical classic, and the two functions have been carried together for two and a half thousand years.

Its units are the hexagram: six stacked lines, each broken for yin or unbroken for yang, giving sixty-four possible figures. Each hexagram is read as two trigrams, upper and lower, drawn from the eight three-line figures that stand for heaven, earth, thunder, water, mountain, wind, fire and lake. Each hexagram carries a judgment and an image, terse and often obscure, and each of its six lines carries its own line statement.

A consultation generates a hexagram by a randomising procedure. The older method sorts fifty yarrow stalks through a repeated division that takes some minutes per line; the common shortcut casts three coins six times. Both produce not only a line but its stability: a line may be young or old, and old lines are changing, converting to their opposite and so transforming the first hexagram into a second. The reader interprets the first figure as the present situation, the changing lines as where the pressure lies, and the second as the direction of movement. Consultation with no changing lines is read as a static situation.

The two methods do not produce identical probability distributions, a point noticed and argued about within the tradition and by modern commentators, since yarrow makes changing yang lines rarer than coins do.

What the text supplies is not an answer but an image to think against. Serious practice treats the terseness as the point: the figures are read against the question, and the work is done by the reader rather than by the book.

Layers, and What the Ten Wings Did to It

The Book of Changes is not one book, and separating its layers is the single most useful thing to know about it.

The oldest layer is the Zhou Yi: the sixty-four hexagrams with their judgments and line statements, dating to the Western Zhou period, roughly the early first millennium BCE. Tradition ascribes it to King Wen and the Duke of Zhou. Read on its own, without commentary, it is a divination record, terse, concrete, full of omens, sacrifices, captives, marriages and journeys, and with very little philosophy in it.

The philosophy is the second layer. The Ten Wings, commentaries traditionally ascribed to Confucius and now generally dated to the Warring States and early Han periods, are what turned a diviner's manual into a cosmological work. The Great Treatise among them supplies the account of yin and yang, of change as the fundamental fact, and of the sage who acts in accordance with the moment, ideas that became foundational for both Confucian and Taoist thought and that most readers now take to be what the book is about.

Excavated manuscripts have complicated the picture usefully. A silk text found at Mawangdui in 1973 preserves a different hexagram order and commentaries not in the received edition, which is direct evidence that the tradition was more various than the transmitted canon suggests.

In the West the book arrived largely through Richard Wilhelm's German translation and its English rendering, which carries an explicitly philosophical and psychological reading; Carl Jung's foreword to that edition introduced the notion of synchronicity as a way of accounting for the oracle without causation. That framing has shaped Western use ever since, and it is a twentieth-century framing rather than a Chinese one, which is worth keeping in view when the book is described as ancient wisdom.

Connections

Associated With

64, Numbers

The Book of Changes is organised as sixty-four hexagrams, one for each arrangement of six lines that are each either broken or unbroken.

Source Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in ChinaRichard J. Smith
Cary F. Baynes, Historical Figures
Cleromancy, Disciplines

Casting yarrow or coins is cleromancy with a book attached.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Duke of Zhou, Historical Figures

Why this is disputed. Tradition assigns the line statements of the I Ching's hexagrams to the Duke of Zhou and the judgments to his father, King Wen, but neither attribution appears in anything datable to their own eleventh century BCE. Modern Sinology generally treats the received text as a composite that took shape over a longer period, with the historical figures serving as culture-hero attributions for material whose actual authorship and date of composition remain genuinely debated among scholars working from the text's own internal linguistic and structural evidence rather than from the traditional ascription itself.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
I Ching (Book of Changes), Esoteric Texts
Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Richard Wilhelm, Historical Figures

Belongs to Tradition

Chinese Folk Religion, Religions

Folk practice uses the text as a working oracle generated with three coins or with yarrow stalks, consulted on marriage, business and travel, and at temples where the related bamboo-stick divination serves the same purpose.

Source Mawangdui silk manuscripts of the LaoziLaozi (attributed)
Confucianism, Religions

The Ten Wings commentaries, traditionally ascribed to Confucius, made the manual a classic of the Confucian canon, read for guidance on timely and ethical action; it became one of the Five Classics and part of the imperial examination curriculum.

Source Mawangdui silk manuscripts of the LaoziLaozi (attributed)
Taoism, Religions

The Book of Changes is foundational Taoist material: yin and yang, the eight trigrams and the doctrine of continuous change are the same cosmology Taoist ritual and inner alchemy work with, and the text is read philosophically as much as cast.

Source Mawangdui silk manuscripts of the LaoziLaozi (attributed)

Derived from This

Baguazhang, Disciplines

Baguazhang takes its name and the organisation of its palm changes from the eight trigrams of the Yijing.

Source Lost T'ai-chi Classics from the Late Ch'ing DynastyDouglas Wile
Human Design, Disciplines
Source The I Ching, or Book of ChangesRichard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.)

Discipline Includes

I Ching (Book of Changes), Esoteric Texts

Entity-backed identity for the discipline value this entry already carries, resolved to the live entity it names, phase 3 bucket conversion (docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md, w-bucketconv-divmore-0929). The original fact with its own citation stays on the entry unchanged.

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Wisdom of the Oracle Divination Cards, Oracle Decks
Source Wisdom of the Oracle Divination Cards, A 52-Card Oracle Deck (Penguin Random House listing)Colette Baron-Reid and Jena Dellagrottaglia

Related To

Earlier Heaven Bagua, Sacred Geometry
Later Heaven Bagua, Sacred Geometry
The Ten Wings, Scripture Portions

The Wings are why the I Ching is read as a cosmology and not only consulted as an oracle.

Studied By

Cheng Yi, Figures

His commentary reads the hexagrams as moral and political situations rather than as prognostications.

Jing Fang, Historical Figures

He distributed the hexagrams across the year and attached stems and branches to the lines; that apparatus is the basis of the Liu Yao method still practised.

Joachim Bouvet, Historical Figures

The Figurist reading held that the hexagrams preserved a primitive revelation given to all humanity.

Shao Yong, Historical Figures
Wang Bi, Historical Figures

He swept away the Han correlative apparatus and argued that the images are means to a meaning, which decided Yijing reading for a thousand years.

Works With

Abundance, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
After Completion, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Approach, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Before Completion, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Biting Through, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Breakthrough, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Coming to Meet, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Conflict, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Contemplation, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Darkening of the Light, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Decrease, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Deliverance, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Development, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Difficulty at the Beginning, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Dispersion, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Dui, Bagua Trigrams

The eight bagua trigrams, each hexagram being a pair of them.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Duration, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Enthusiasm, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Fellowship, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Following, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Gathering Together, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Gen, Bagua Trigrams

The eight bagua trigrams, each hexagram being a pair of them.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Grace, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Great Possession, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Great Power, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Great Preponderance, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Great Taming, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Holding Together, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Increase, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Influence, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Inner Truth, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Innocence, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Kan, Bagua Trigrams

The eight bagua trigrams, each hexagram being a pair of them.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Keeping Still, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Kun, Bagua Trigrams

The eight bagua trigrams, each hexagram being a pair of them.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Li, Bagua Trigrams

The eight bagua trigrams, each hexagram being a pair of them.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Limitation, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Modesty, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Nourishment, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Obstruction, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Opposition, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Oppression, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Peace, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Progress, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Pushing Upward, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Qian, Bagua Trigrams

The eight bagua trigrams, each hexagram being a pair of them.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Retreat, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Return, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Revolution, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Small Preponderance, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Small Taming, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Splitting Apart, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Standstill, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Abysmal, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Army, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Arousing, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Cauldron, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Clinging, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Creative, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Family, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Gentle, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Joyous, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Marrying Maiden, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Receptive, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Wanderer, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
The Well, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Treading, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Waiting, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Work on the Decayed, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Xun, Bagua Trigrams

The eight bagua trigrams, each hexagram being a pair of them.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Youthful Folly, I Ching Hexagrams

The sixty four hexagrams of the Zhou Yi.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Zhen, Bagua Trigrams

The eight bagua trigrams, each hexagram being a pair of them.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)
Sources
1. Zhouyi: The Book of Changes
Richard Rutt (trans.), Curzon Press, 1996introduction: the date and character of the Zhou Yi as divination recordView the Source
2. The Five "Confucian" Classics
Michael Nylan, Yale University Press, 2001ch. on the Changes and the formation of the Ten WingsView the Source
3. The I Ching, or Book of Changes
Richard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.), Princeton University Press, 1980
  • The Wilhelm-Baynes edition, with Jung's foreword
    The philosophical and psychological framing familiar in the West comes from this edition, not from the Zhou Yi.
  • Derived from This: Human Design, The sixty-four hexagrams
    The gates of the bodygraph are the hexagrams of the Book of Changes, reassigned within a modern synthesis.
View the Source
Mawangdui silk manuscripts of the Laozi
Laozi (attributed), Ballantine Books, 1989The Mawangdui find of 1973
Quote, The Mawangdui find of 1973
The Mawangdui tomb also yielded a Book of Changes manuscript with a different hexagram order, evidence that the tradition was more various than the received canon.
View the Source
Wisdom of the Oracle Divination Cards, A 52-Card Oracle Deck (Penguin Random House listing)
Colette Baron-Reid and Jena Dellagrottaglia, Hay House, 2016Objects and Practices of This Tradition: Wisdom of the Oracle Divination Cards, Stored tradition-class property on this entity, cited to this source: i-chingView the Source
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