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I
Ching can be pronounced Eee Ching, Yee Ching depending on
the dialect. The word Ching is taken to mean book in fact
it really means "intelligent scroll"
similar to the one on the left.
I (Eee) roughly means "how to deal with disaster"
so I Ching means "Intelligent scroll
how to deal with disaster" or it's more common
translation is "Book of Changes".
The origins of I Ching are thought to be over 7,000 years
old; the early attempts at fortune telling were somewhat crude
the bones of animals would be placed on a fire until they
cracked. If the cracks in the bones formed an unbroken  (Yang)
line this was a positive answer to the question posed, if
the cracks were broken  (Yin)
line the answer was negative.
We take a little jump foreword in time to Around 2860 B.C.
the legendary emperor of China Fu Hsi (xi) is said to have
discovered a mythical turtle emerging from the river LO, bearing
on it's back an arrangement of numbers from 1 to 9, which
was the key to unlocking the Pa Kua. This arrangement is known
as the Lo Shu or the magic square. |
Fu Hsi used these markings to symbolise
the natural world as heaven, earth, fire, water, mountain, lake,
wind, and thunder. He laid out these eight symbols in an eight-sided
map known as Pa Kua map. This arrangement is referred to as the
early heaven sequence.
Fu Hsi paired the eight tri-grams according to their opposites.
Heaven is paired with earth, fire with water, mountain with lake,
and wind with thunder. Fu Hsi observed how these pairs act upon
each other. He arranged the tri grams in this early heavenly sequence
with the opposites across from each other.
The eight tri-grams: water, earth, thunder, wind,
heaven, lake, mountain, and fire represent the primal energies of
the universe. Each tri-gram is composed of three lines.
broken stroke symbol
which indicate the 'passive' force, it is called 'Yin'
continuous stroke
symbol which indicate the 'active' force, it is called 'Yang'
The middle line is added to the eight tri-grams
represents humanity between heaven above and earth below.
1600 years after Fu Hsi, King Wen rearranged the sequence to represent
interactive cycles of growth and decay. King Wen's Pa Kua arrangement.
Was based on environmental changes at that time. King Wen's arrangement
is referred to as the later heaven sequence this can be seen below.
King Wen rearranged the trigrams, and brought them together to form
the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching. He gave each hexagram its name
and wrote the Judgements that expound their fundamental meanings.
The table below shows how each Hexagram is created using the original
trigrams.
| |
Chien |
Chen |
Kan |
Ken |
Kun |
Sun |
Li |
Tui |
Chien |
1 |
34 |
5 |
26 |
11 |
9 |
14 |
43 |
Chen |
25 |
51 |
3 |
27 |
24 |
42 |
21 |
17 |
Kan |
6 |
40 |
29 |
4 |
7 |
59 |
64 |
47 |
Ken |
33 |
62 |
39 |
52 |
15 |
53 |
56 |
31 |
Kun |
12 |
16 |
8 |
23 |
2 |
20 |
35 |
45 |
Sun |
44 |
32 |
48 |
18 |
46 |
57 |
50 |
28 |
Li |
13 |
55 |
63 |
22 |
36 |
37 |
30 |
49 |
Tui |
10 |
54 |
60 |
41 |
19 |
61 |
38 |
58 |
We will try one example just too give you the idea after all
this is a Feng Shui site not an I Ching site.
Here goes lets take the two trigrams CHEN and CHIEN >hex
number 34 >Hexagram =TA CHUANG.
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