The I Ching (Yìjīng), often rendered as the “Book of Changes,” is one of the most ancient and influential texts of the Chinese tradition. At its heart it is a divination manual, yet it also functions as a profound philosophical work that shaped both Confucian and Daoist reflections on the nature of change, order, and human conduct. The text is organized around 64 hexagrams, each composed of six lines that are either broken (yin) or unbroken (yang), and each hexagram is accompanied by a judgment and individual line statements that guide interpretation. In practice, these figures and their texts form a symbolic language through which shifting situations in life and the cosmos can be contemplated.

Traditional accounts trace the roots of the I Ching back to mythic antiquity. The culture hero Fu Xi is said to have derived the eight basic trigrams (bagua) by observing patterns in nature—heaven and earth, thunder and wind, water and fire, mountain and lake. These trigrams, when combined in pairs, yield the 64 hexagrams that structure the work. Such legendary narratives do not function as historical reportage so much as they express the sense that the text arises from a deep attunement to the rhythms of the natural world.

Historically, the earliest stratum of the text, often called the Zhouyi (“Changes of Zhou”), emerged in the context of Bronze Age divination. By the Western Zhou period, it likely served as a court divination manual, consulted on matters of governance, warfare, and ritual. Diviners employed techniques such as manipulating yarrow stalks to generate hexagrams, then read the brief, sometimes cryptic judgments and line statements as guidance for action. In this early phase, the work was primarily a technical tool for discerning auspicious and inauspicious courses amid the uncertainties of political and social life.

Over time, the I Ching was reinterpreted and expanded through layers of commentary that transformed it from a specialist’s oracle into a classic of wisdom. The “Ten Wings,” a body of commentarial texts traditionally associated with Confucius and his school, linked the hexagrams to broader ideas of yin–yang, moral self-cultivation, and proper rulership. This process elevated the work into one of the Confucian Five Classics and invited readers to see in its symbols not only predictions but a map of the dynamic interplay between Heaven, Earth, and human affairs. Daoist thinkers, too, drew from its vision of ceaseless transformation and complementary forces, using it as a mirror for aligning human life with the subtle patterns of the Dao.

Seen in this light, the I Ching is less a static book than a living pattern of inquiry. It began as a divinatory text embedded in ritual and political practice, yet through centuries of reflection it came to embody a cosmology of change that speaks to both outer events and inner dispositions. Its hexagrams and commentaries invite a contemplative engagement with the flow of circumstances, encouraging a responsiveness that seeks harmony with the larger order rather than rigid control. In this way, the I Ching stands at the crossroads of divination and philosophy, offering a disciplined way of listening to the movements of change that shape every aspect of existence.