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I CHING

THE BOOK OF CHANGES

James Legge, translator (1882)

Scanned at www.sacred-texts.com, 1998

The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is the most widely read of the five Chinese Classics. The book was traditionally written by the legendary Chinese Emperor Fu Hsi (2953-2838 B.C.). It is possible that the the I Ching originated from a prehistoric divination technique which dates back as far as 5000 B.C. Thus it may be the oldest text at this site. Futher commentaries were added by King Wen and the Duke of Chou in the eleventh century B.C.

An I Ching interpretation is performed by making six binary decisions (a hexagram). This is called 'casting the I Ching'. These are written down as a stack of six solid or broken lines. This was traditionally done either by tossing yarrow stalks or coins, although there is no reason why the hexagrams can't be generated by some other means (such as a computer program).

There are actually four possible values for each of the lines; the two on/off values, and a line which changes from on to off or vice versa. Thus one cast of the I Ching can generate several different hexagrams, which adds depth to the interpretation. The sophistication of this method has not escaped modern interpretation, and the four-valued logic has been compared to the biochemistry of DNA amino acids. How a Neolithic shamans' divination technique presaged the basic logic of the human genome is one of the ageless mysteries.

I The Khien Hexagram 2,358 bytes

II The Khwan Hexagram 2,423 bytes

III The Kun Hexagram 2,660 bytes

IV The Mang Hexagram 2,444 bytes

V The Hsu Hexagram 2,108 bytes

VI The Sung Hexagram 2,431 bytes

VII The Sze Hexagram 2,072 bytes

VIII The Pi Hexagram 2,440 bytes

IX The Hsaio Khu Hexagram 2,358 bytes

X The Li Hexagram 2,062 bytes

XI The Thai Hexagram 2,566 bytes

XII The Phi Hexagram 2,318 bytes