See Also: Yijing(encyclopedia)

Yijing (sh)




or I Ching
(Chinese; "Book of Changes")

Ancient Chinese text, one of the Five Classics of Confucianism.

The main body of the work, traditionally attributed to Wenwang, contains a discussion of the divinatory system used by wizards in the Zhou dynasty. A supplementary section of "commentaries," believed to date from the Warring States period (475-221 BC), is a philosophical exposition that attempts to explain the world and its ethical principles. The book's cosmology, which involves humans and nature in a single system, has made it universally popular.