The I Ching or the Yi Jing 易經, also called ‘The Book of Changes’, is apocalyptic in the sense of revelation or divination; it defines the hexagram and outfits it with advice which prophesies good fortune and misfortune, as well as well-being and calamity; it dismisses people’s doubts, enlightens people’s wisdom and guides people to make correct decisions and take right action. During the past millennia in China, no matter if it was a king’s scheme to manage the country or an ordinary commoner’s concerns in respect to his household affairs, the I Ching provided instruction to all of them without discrimination.

The hexagram was originally used for divination; it is alleged that the hexagram was invented by Fu Xi 伏羲 (a legendary Chinese ruler credited with introduction of farming, fishing and animal husbandry). In the beginning, it existed only in the form of symbols and lasted for thousands of years. The hexagram emerges with the various phenomena through the images displayed by its symbols and people are enlightened by virtue of these phenomena.

Actually the text of the I Ching known to us nowadays should be called Zhou Yi 周易: the Yi of Dynasty Zhou. Yi; 易 is a combined character of the sun 日 and the moon 月, and is signified as the change between Yang (the masculine) and Yin (the feminine). It is alleged that the texts of 64 hexagrams were defined in writing by Zhou Wen Wang 周文王* (a duke and the father of King Wu of Zhou 周武王 who was the founder of Dynasty Zhou approx. 1120 B.C. to 770 B.C.) when he was imprisoned by King Zhou 紂 of the Shang dynasty at You Li 羑里, and the texts of their lines were provided in writing by Zhou Gong Dan 周公旦* (another son of Zhou Wen Wang) after the Zhou dynasty was established. Due to the fact that Zhou Yi was accomplished in the times of turmoil, it is teeming with the texts of cautioning mankind against impending disasters and advice of how to pursue good fortune and evade misfortune. Apart from Zhou Yi, it is alleged that there were another two versions: Lian Shan Yi 連山易 and Gui Cang Yi 歸藏易, but both had been out of print**.

Confucius 孔子 (551 B.C. to 479 B.C.) started to study Zhou Yi after he was fifty years old. He engaged himself in exposition and argumentation on Zhou Yi till he passed away at the age of seventy-three. As Confucius put his thoughts into Zhou Yi, the I Ching (i.e. Zhou Yi integrated with Confucian commentaries) thereafter became a kind of philosophy for human life, i.e. a conduct code from self-cultivation to household management, from administering the government to pacifying the word. It has dominated the mode and the trend of the Chinese society till now.

The following commentaries were allegedly composed by Confucius*. Totally there are seven commentaries expressed in ten parts; therefore they are called Ten Wings, which provide a guidance for Chinese intellectuals in studying and using the I Ching.

Xu Gua Zhuan 序卦傳 (the commentary on the sequence of 64 hexagrams): It unfolds the course of 64 hexagrams stepping onto the stage of the I Ching, one after another, in following the Wen Wang's sequence.

Tuan Zhuan 彖傳 (the commentary on the hexagram text): Tuan in Chinese signifies ‘to bite off’, in other words, ‘to clinch a deal’ like making the judgment for a hexagram. It explains the name, the phenomenon and the text of each hexagram; it also includes some remarks made by Confucius. In compliance with the two volumes of the I Ching, it is divided into two chapters and constructs two wings.

Xiang Zhuan 象傳 (the commentary on the image) in two chapters: It is made individually for every hexagram and their lines. The one of the hexagram is deemed to give advice on how a person should behave himself according to the images presented by the hexagram. The other one for the line is mainly to explain the cause or effect of the concerned line according to its possessing characters.

Xi Ci Zhuan 繫詞傳 (the commentary on the text tagging) in two chapters: Xi Ci signifies 'to tag the text onto the hexagram', i.e. it is a commentary on how the text is provided to each hexagram and its lines. It also explains the doctrine of the I Ching and the principles of Yi, as well as the reasons that the I Ching is so great and profound.

Wen Yan 文言 (the remarks on the hexagram Qian and Kun): Qian and Kun are the threshold of the I Ching, from which the other 62 hexagrams evolve, one after another. Therefore additional remarks are given to these two important hexagrams and their lines.

Shuo Gua Zhuan 說卦傳 (the commentary on the trigram): It elaborates the formation of the trigram and describes the image of each trigram.

Za Gua Zhuan 雜卦傳 (the commentary on the coupled hexagrams): It manifests the feature of each hexagram by comparing a hexagram with its reversed or changed hexagram.

The I Ching’s study in general is categorized into two major groups. One is to study its meaning and the code of conduct, while the other is to study its images and line characteristics (i.e. the virtue and ability of the line, the interrelationship among the lines). They can be studied independently but most often they are used for counter-proofs.

The I Ching is one of the nine books 四書五經 used by the imperial examination in ancient China. It had been particularly prevailing during the Ming dynasty (1368 A.C. to 1644 A.C.) mainly due to the concept of loyalty to the king. The I Ching also reflects some traditional relationships between the male and the female in old China, especially male superiority and female inferiority. Although these aspects may be out of date, its norms can still be applied to our daily life while we view the current social structure in the forms of the employer and the employer, as well as the gentleman and the villain.

It is alleged that in the times of the Han dynasty (206 B.C. to 220 A.C.), the concept of the ‘five elements’ (i.e. metal, wood, water, fire, and earth) was adopted and converted into the hexagram. Wen Wang Gua 文王卦 (the hexagram of Wen Wang) was thus developed afterward, and gradually other Chinese fortune-telling methods, such as Ba Zi 八字 and Zi Wei Dou Shu 紫微斗數, were created accordingly.

Generally speaking, the hexagram nowadays used for divination is mainly divided into three systems, the two conventional ones are either to read the divination according to the text of the I Ching, or based on the image of the trigram and the characteristics of the line; the third one is Wen Wang Gua which transforms all the lines into the five elements and is read from their mutual reactions.

In addition to the conduct code and the divination, the concept of I Ching is also widely applied to Chinese daily life, from architecture to medicine etc. For instance, in the most famous Forbidden City in Beijing, all the roofs are in yellow while the one of the book storing house is black; this is because yellow is the color of the center, and black is the color of water which can protect the book storing house from fire. With regard to medication, the method to deal with each organ is based on its inherent quality; for instance, the heart refers to fire, it is forbidden to take ginseng (a plant used to enhance health by warming the internal body system) for a person who has hypertension, and so forth.

There are many papers in discussing the hexagram, Zhou Yi, or the I Ching in respect of the principle, the meaning and the application. This e-book is mainly aimed to provide a basic but clear understanding of what the I Ching means from Confucian perspective, what the texts intend to tell us and why from the analyses of the image and the line characteristic, as well as from some relevant backgrounds in those particular times, and what enlightenment we might obtain from the reference material of divination. By virtue of these, I hope you are able to savor the immense wisdom of the I Ching.

Remarks*: To say it more precisely, Zhou Yi and Ten Wings are collective works; Zhou Wen Wang, Zhou Gong Dan and Confucius may be regarded as the representative features of these creations.

Remarks**: The inscription of the hexagrams at the bamboo slip unearthed from pre-Qin tomb at WangJiaTai, Hubei Province, China, in 1993 has proved the existence of Cui Cang Yi.