Zhou Yi: I Ching

The Zhou Changes (also known as The Book of Changes) is the foremost of the Confucian "Five Classics" and one of China's oldest divinatory and philosophical texts. The work is composed of two parts: the jing (classic), consisting of the sixty-four hexagrams and their line texts, and the zhuan (commentaries), including the "Ten Wings" such as the Tuan Zhuan, Xiang Zhuan, Xici, and Wenyan, which elucidate the underlying principles. Its thought has profoundly influenced Chinese philosophy, religion, literature, and the tradition of divination, earning it the epithet "the great source of all classics, the origin of the Great Way."

The Zhou Changes takes the transformation of yin and yang as its core, holding that all things in the universe are in a state of constant change, and that human beings should "exhaust principle and fully realize their nature, so as to arrive at fate," grasping the proper time and position as well as the Mean amid change. The sixty-four hexagrams symbolize various situations in heaven, earth, and human affairs—such as the vigorous strength of Qian, the gentle compliance of Kun, the difficult beginnings of Zhun, and the transitions between success and failure in Jiji and Weiji—providing the Chinese people with a symbolic language for understanding the world and navigating life.

Traditionally, the authorship of the classic and its commentaries has been debated. It is generally believed that the hexagram and line texts accumulated over a long period, while the commentary sections are largely attributed to Confucius and his later followers. Wang Bi's annotated edition influenced the tradition of Changes interpretation from the Wei-Jin period onward; in the Song dynasty, Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi, among other Neo-Confucians, developed a philosophy of mind and nature from the Changes. The vast corpus of commentaries on the Changes throughout the ages forms one of the most extensive traditions of exegesis in Chinese intellectual history.

As the fountainhead of the Chinese philosophy of change, The Zhou Changes is both a classic and a system of symbols. Reading this book allows one to understand how concepts such as yin and yang, hexagram images, and time and position have shaped the Chinese worldview, and to experience the spiritual source of "ceaseless self-renewal and the virtue of bearing all things with great capacity."