The source of the Book of Changes

When it comes to Chinese studies, I can't help but mention the Book of Changes, which is almost supreme in China's traditional culture. It is not only the first classic of the Five Classics of Confucianism, but also a classic of Taoism, which simply uses the Taiji diagram of the Book of Changes as a symbol. However, because it is ancient and difficult, many people "talk about color change" and are afraid of hitting a nail. The Book of Changes is actually very difficult, but it is the first unavoidable in the study of Chinese studies. I was forced to chew this hard bone 30 years ago because I wrote a book of changes in ten minutes, and then it was much easier to enter other fields. Therefore, I often advise friends who are interested in Chinese studies not to bypass the "Kunlun Mountain" of the Book of Changes.

Generally speaking, the Book of Changes was created by Fuxi, one of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors. According to historical research, Fuxi lived between 3000 and 5000 BC. Two thousand years later, at the end of Shang Dynasty, Jichang, one of the "Nine Marquis" in Zhou Wang, invented or perfected sixty-four hexagrams and wrote them. Ji Chang was able to create sixty-four hexagrams because he was imprisoned in the imperial prison in Iraq (yǒu) (now Tangyin, Henan), and because he really had nothing to do, he pondered in his mind every day and superimposed the eight diagrams into sixty-four hexagrams. So Sima Qian said in Historical Records that "Xibo was arrested? In the Book of Changes, he played the Book of Changes and said that Xibo "benefited from the Eight Diagrams in the Book of Changes as sixty-four hexagrams".

Why was King Wen detained? This is an extremely famous and bloody story in history: Zhou Wang is famous for its cruelty. Because he heard that Wang Wen could pinch and calculate, he killed Wang Wen's son, chopped it into pulp and cooked it into broth, and asked someone to send the broth to Wang Wen to drink, to see if he could figure out whether it was made of his son's meat. It is said that King Wen worked it out, but he didn't dare not drink it to save his life, so Zhou Wang thought that King Wen was not as magical as the legend, so he let him go.

Later, King Wen got up and defeated Zhou Wang, wiped out the Shang Dynasty and established the Zhou Dynasty. After the death of King Wen, his son Ji Fa acceded to the throne, that is, Zhou Wuwang. King Wu inherited the business of King Wen and wrote an elegy for the sixty-four hexagrams.

About 300 years later, a generation of sage Confucius inherited the career of Zhou Wenwang and Zhou Wuwang, and made ten proofreading notes on Zhouyi.

That's what historians say. According to the research of cultural scholars, many inventions and creations of human beings in ancient times are often attributed to a famous person with a surname. We might as well make a guess. In ancient times, the ancients in China asked their ancestors or ghosts for advice when they met important things, that is, divination. The result of divination always records two different situations at the beginning, positive or negative. There are men, victory, sky, south, summer, sun, daytime, smooth work and so on. The negative ones are women, defeat, land, north, winter, month, night, unfavorable work, etc. These situations are ever changing. For the convenience of recording, the ancients in China invented two symbols, one is Yin and the other is Yang. Yang is represented by a long bar, and Yin is represented by two points or two short bars. These two symbols are called yang and yin.

One shade represents two states, two shades represent four states, and two intermediate states are added, such as Xia Dong, Spring and Autumn, North and South, and East and West. Later, with the addition of three Yang's, there are eight different states, which can represent more things, such as northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest, thus resulting in eight diagrams.

Historical records and archaeological discoveries prove that as early as 4,000 years ago in the Shang Dynasty, there was a special person or class in China called "Ren Zhen". "Ren Zhen" has a high status. They were "metaphysical advisers" of the chiefs or kings at that time, witchcraft teachers, and the media for representing the tribes or kings to talk with the heavens and the earth or ancestors. They also mastered the professional knowledge and means to record, record and explain the profound meaning of divination results. Our understanding of the history of the Shang Dynasty today is based on the unearthed tortoise shells or animal bones engraved with very profound words. This is the earliest Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and there are some symbols that we still can't understand. "Ren Zhen" should be the earliest and most professional ancient metaphysician and knowledge official who mastered divination methods and ancient Chinese characters, and King Xibowen should be the supreme leader of the leading high-level Ren Zhen team in Shang Zhouwang period. Easy occupation should be one of the main ways or means for him to decide things.

The third generation great man who made the greatest contribution to Yi is Confucius. According to Sima Qian, Confucius "read the Book of Changes" in his later years and sighed: "If God gives me a few more years to live, I can master the Book of Changes!" Confucius, a great cultural man, was resolute in everything else, and only the Book of Changes had a pious attitude close to fear. It can be seen that the Book of Changes occupies a prominent position in the long list of China's 5,000-year cultural heritage.