He then gave each hexagram a description regarding its own nature, thus Gua Ci (卦辭 guà cí, "Explanation of Hexagrams"). At the time of Shang's last king, Zhou Wang, King Wen of Zhou deduced the hexagram and discovered that the hexagrams beginning with Force (乾 qián) revealed the rise of Zhou. Gui Cang may be literally translated into "return and be contained," which refers to earth as the first hexagram itself indicates. Lian Shan, meaning "continuous mountains" in Chinese, begins with the hexagram Bound (艮 gèn), which depicts a mountain (::|) mounting on another and is believed to be the origin of the scripture's name.Īfter the Xia Dynasty was overthrown by the Shang Dynasty, the hexagrams were re-deduced to form Gui Cang (《歸藏》 Gūi Cáng also called Gui Cang Yi), and the hexagram Field (坤 kūn) became the first hexagram. By the time of Yu (禹 Yǔ), trigrams had been developed into hexagrams (六十四卦 lìu shí sì gùa), which were recorded in the scripture Lian Shan (《連山》 Lián Shān also called Lian Shan Yi). In this respect he is seen as an early culture hero, one of the earliest legendary rulers of China (traditional dates 2852 BCE- 2738 BCE), reputed to have had the trigrams (八卦 bā gùa) revealed to him supernaturally. Traditionally it was believed that the principles of the I Ching originated with the legendary Fu Hsi (伏羲 Fú Xī). The translation of the title into English used to be Book of Changes, though a slightly more accurate name, Classic of Changes, appears more frequently in recent use. ( 易一名而含三義:易簡一也;變易二也;不易三也。 commented on by Zheng Xuan (鄭玄 zhèng xúan) in his writings Critique of I Ching (易贊 yì zàn) and Commentary on I Ching (易論 yì lùn) of Eastern Han Dynasty)ĭue to the profound ideas conveyed by the title itself, it is practically impossible to arrive at an unbiased translation which could preserve the original concepts intact. Everything in the universe seems to be capricious, yet among the changing tides there is, always, a persistent principle-a central rule-that does not vary in space and time.
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