Background Information The I Ching, also known as the Book of Changes, was part of the Five Classics of Confucianism. It was supposedly invented by the legendary chinese emperor, Fuxi, who the Chinese believed created humanity, along with other accomplishments. The text is ancient and traced back to approximately 1050 BCE (which dynasty?). The I Ching was a divination method that strongly embodied the yin and yang concepts; the chinese used it to explain the metaphysical principles of the world through a system of order. [explain how it works, what trigrams are, etc) The I Ching combines destiny with numbers and patterns. The chinese used trigrams- or figures of three lines- as the basis of interpreting the divine messages. They used a chart with trigrams lined at the top and side; by combining trigrams to create hexograms, certain numbers were represented. There were sixty four sections in all Significance …show more content…
The chinese were strongly connected to nature, as shown in the I Ching; The eight trigrams symbolize heaven, earth, thunder, wind, water, fire, mountains, and water again. The I Ching often gave cryptic answers to questions asked, so open-ended questions were needed above yes or no one's. The I Ching was such a significant part of chinese daily life and culture, especially since for a long period of time, it was used for the civil service exams for government