Compilation of the Zhouyi (Core of the I Ching)
- Date
- c. 9th century BCE
- Category
- Culture, arts & philosophy
- Region
- North China (Western Zhou)
- Era
- Ancient Civilizations
- Significance
The oldest layer of the I Ching — the Zhouyi or 'Changes of Zhou' — took shape in the Western Zhou as a divination manual: sixty-four hexagrams, each built from six broken or unbroken lines, paired with terse oracular statements used to interpret the results of casting yarrow stalks.
Modern scholarship places the assembly of this core text in roughly its received form during the Western Zhou, with the sinologist Edward Shaughnessy arguing for the last quarter of the 9th century BCE. Initially a practical guide for prognostication, the Zhouyi was later overlaid during the Warring States and early imperial eras with philosophical commentaries (the 'Ten Wings') that reinterpreted it as a cosmology of change, yin and yang, and the patterned transformations of nature. Incorporated into the Confucian Five Classics, the I Ching became one of the most influential and widely interpreted books in East Asian intellectual history, shaping divination, philosophy, ethics and even early conceptions of natural order across China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam.
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Empires active in c. 9th century BCE
- Neo-Assyrian Empire911 BCE – 609 BCE
- Zhou Dynasty1046 BCE – 256 BCE
- Kingdom of Kush1070 BCE – 350 CE
- Phoenician City-States1200 BCE – 539 BCE
- Elamite Kingdom2700 BCE – 539 BCE
Related culture, arts & philosophy events
- Composition of the early Upanishadsc. 800–500 BCE
- Oracle-Bone Script: Earliest Attested Chinese Writingc. 1250 BCE
- Olmec colossal heads carved at San Lorenzoc. 1200 BCE
- Merneptah Stele: earliest mention of 'Israel'c. 1208 BCE
- Tomb of Fu Hao: An Undisturbed Shang Royal Burialc. 1250 BCE
- Great Hypostyle Hall and temple-building at Karnakc. 1290–1213 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
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