I Ching part of Chinese classics
The I Ching or Yi Jing (Chinese: 易經, Mandarin: [î tɕíŋ] (listen)), usually translated Book of Changes or Classic of Changes, is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC), the I Ching was transformed over the course of the Warring States and early imperial periods (500–200 BC) into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the "Ten Wings". After becoming part of the Five Classics in the 2nd century BC, the I Ching was the subject of scholarly commentary and the basis for divination practice for centuries across the Far East, and eventually took on an influential role in Western understanding of East Asian philosophical thought.As a divination text, the I Ching is used for a traditional Chinese form of cleromancy known as I Ching divination, in which bundles of yarrow stalks are manipulated to produce sets of six apparently random numbers ranging from 6 to 9. Each of the 64 possible sets corresponds to a hexagram, which can be looked up in the I Ching. The hexagrams are arranged in an order known as the King Wen sequence. The interpretation of the readings found in the I Ching has been endlessly discussed and debated over the centuries. Many commentators have used the book symbolically, often to provide guidance for moral decision-making, as informed by Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. The hexagrams themselves have often acquired cosmological significance and been paralleled with many other traditional names for the processes of change such as yin and yang and Wu Xing.The classic: I Ching
In 136 BC, Emperor Wu of Han named the Zhou yi "the first among the classics", dubbing it the Classic of Changes or I Ching. Emperor Wu's placement of the I Ching among the Five Classics was informed by a broad span of cultural influences that included Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, yin-yang cosmology, and Wu Xing physical theory. While the Zhou yi does not contain any cosmological analogies, the I Ching was read as a microcosm of the universe that offered complex, symbolic correspondences. The official edition of the text was literally set in stone, as one of the Xiping Stone Classics. The canonized I Ching became the standard text for over two thousand years, until alternate versions of the Zhou yi and related texts were discovered in the 20th century.
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