Origin Western Zhou: the hexagram and line statements are dated to about the ninth century BCE. The Ten Wings commentaries were added between the Warring States and Han periods.
The sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching are the six-line figures, each built from two trigrams, that make up the Book of Changes. The core text is among the oldest in the Chinese canon, with the hexagram and line statements dating to the Western Zhou period and the philosophical commentaries known as the Ten Wings added later. Each hexagram carries a name, a judgement, an image and six line texts, consulted by casting yarrow stalks or coins.
Facts
Origins
Origin PeriodWestern Zhou: the hexagram and line statements are dated to about the ninth century BCE. The Ten Wings commentaries were added between the Warring States and Han periods. 1 Place of OriginChina, in the Zhou royal domain 1 Structure
StructureEach hexagram is six lines read from the bottom up, each broken (yin) or unbroken (yang), analysed as two of the eight trigrams stacked, and carries a name, a judgement and six line statements. 2 Overview
Size of the Traditional SetSixty-four hexagrams: every combination of six lines each broken or unbroken, so 2 to the sixth power 1 Comparison
Cultural Origin Era of Origin Learn More
The Sixty-Four Figures of the I Ching
The sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching are six-line figures, each built from two of the eight trigrams stacked one above the other. Each line is either broken (yin) or unbroken (yang), and each hexagram has a name, an image, and a body of text, the judgement and the line statements, that make up the Book of Changes.
The core text is among the oldest in the Chinese canon, with the hexagram and line statements dating to the Western Zhou period, around the early first millennium BCE; the philosophical commentaries known as the Ten Wings were added later and shaped how the book was read.
Divination and Philosophy
The I Ching is consulted by generating a hexagram, traditionally by sorting yarrow stalks, later by tossing coins, and reading the text for the figure obtained, with changing lines pointing to a second hexagram. But it is at once a divination manual and a work of cosmology and ethics, and Confucian and Taoist thinkers alike read it as a map of change and of the way of things.
The atlas gives each hexagram its structure, name, image and core meaning. The eight trigrams that compose the hexagrams are treated in their own category, and the same sixty-four figures underlie the modern Human Design gates and Gene Keys.
All I Ching Hexagrams
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Sources
1. Zhouyi: The Book of Changes
Richard Rutt (trans.), Curzon Press, 1996introduction, on the structure of the ZhouyiView the Source 2. The I Ching, or Book of Changes
Richard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.), Princeton University Press, 1980introduction, on the structure of the bookView the Source 3. Wikipedia: I Ching
WikipediaI Ching, lead sectionQuote, I Ching, lead section
The I Ching was originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000-750 BC).
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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Essays About This Entity (1 essay)
Three Continents Independently Built Divination on Powers of Two
Sixty four hexagrams, the largest and most completely mapped of the four
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