The Book of Changes, a masterpiece of Chinese classical literature

The Book of Changes is an ancient divination book. Referred to as "Yi". One of the important Confucian classics. There are different opinions about its author and the time of writing. Before the Western Han Dynasty, there was no objection to the old saying that Fuxi was a gossip. "Wang Wen was arrested and went to Zhouyi" (Sima Qian's Letter of Appointment). Ma Rong in the Eastern Han Dynasty and Kong in the Tang Dynasty pointed out that most of the remarks were made after the King of Wen, who prophesied and the Duke of Zhou spoke, which revised the previous statement. However, judging from the historical facts reflected in Zhouyi, the ideas expressed, the language features and the relationship with other books, most people think that it was compiled by Oracle officials in the late Western Zhou Dynasty according to the old Oracle inscriptions. As a divination book, Zhouyi has its particularity in form and structure. The book is divided into two parts: classic and biography. "Jing" is covered by gossip, and sixty-four hexagrams are obtained. Six hexagons are divided into yin (-) and yang (-). In the classics, "nine" is yang and "six" is yin. The six hexagrams are arranged from bottom to top, such as □ in the hexagram of Heng, and the six hexagrams are "the sixth day, the second day, the third day, the fourth day, the sixth day and the sixth day" in turn. Each hexagram consists of four parts: hexagram painting, title, hexagram words and figures of speech, such as the hexagram in Tai: "□ (hexagram painting). Ty (title) From small to large, auspicious and constant (hexagrams). On the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, Mao Ru was pulled out to collect, collect and be auspicious. 92 ... (bad words). " Gua is relatively simple and is generally used to explain the meaning of the topic. Once is the main part of each hexagram. Each hexagram has six hexagrams, and each hexagram is generally arranged in chronological order or logical level of content. There are two kinds of divinatory words: divinatory words and non-divinatory words. Divination characters are records of divination contents and results; Non-swearing is the author's theoretical explanation. Non-swearing is not very important in the book, but it is very important in expressing the author's thoughts and opinions. The taiji diagram is selected from the Book of Changes.

Zhou people occupied a wide range of divination, including sacrifice, war, production, business travel, marriage, floods and droughts. Therefore, the old hexagrams collected in Zhouyi widely reflected the social reality at that time. We can see the continuous development of production in fishing, hunting, animal husbandry, agriculture, commerce and other departments; There are also social contradictions, especially the struggles within the nobility, such as "a leopard cannot change his spots" (Ge). Frequent wars; The marriage legacy of primitive society; Scientific knowledge such as lightning and hygiene, and so on. It also permeates the author's dialectical philosophy and his political proposition of ruling the country by virtue and opposing bondage and oppression.

Zhouyi also has a certain position in the history of China literature development. Compilers organize scattered and simple old hexagrams into a centralized and hierarchical hexagrams through selection, sorting and processing. Except for several groups of opposing hexagrams, we need to look at them together. Some scattered hexagrams are different, and most of them say the same thing. For example, the hexagrams in the Palace Classic describe what travelers see on the way, much like a thrilling traveler's diary. The hexagram "Ben" describes the marriage of the couple, describing the preparations before departure, the situation on the way and the gifts for the woman's family in order, which is very clear. In Divination of Well, the author also used narrative techniques. From the time when the owner of the old city was forced to move away, he wrote about the destruction of the city under the rule of the owner and the hardships of the people in the city, and then wrote about the improvement of living conditions after the arrival of the new owner, until the diet in the city changed completely, which was in sharp contrast with the past. Although due to the limitation of the form of divination books, many incoherent words are inserted, which is not very compact, but this narrative is a great progress compared with Oracle Bone Inscriptions's brevity and even a few words, which reflects the evolution of China literature from divination quotations to narrative articles.