You are welcome to The I Ching!
I am glad to welcome you on a site, devoted to a great monument of the Chinese culture "Canon of Changes" (which is more known as "Book of Changes", "I Ching") and to the online divination based on it.
What is I Ching?
The I Ching or "Yì Jīng", also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest
of the Chinese classic texts. The book contains a divination system comparable to Western geomancy or the West African Ifá system; in Western
cultures and modern East Asia, it is still widely used for this purpose.
In China the “I Ching” had two different purposes. The first one was as a compendium of ancient cosmic principles.
The second purpose was a divination based on the text. As a divination the “I Ching” text was used by fortunetellers and roadside oracles at markets and fairs.
Mainly it was used for the illiterate peasants. The educated Confucian elite hold an entirely different opinion - the person’s future is a result of his personal virtues.
The Confucian educated persons actually used I Ching as a work for divination quite rare.
There are actually few references to the I Ching as a divination text in the works of the countless literati of ancient China.
This situation is clarified by a great number observers of traditional Chinese society, such as
S. Wells Williams “The Middle Kingdom”.
Williams tells us about the “I Ching” :
”There are hundreds of fortuntellers in the streets of Chinese towns, and their answers (more or less founded on this cabala) to the questions of
their perplexed clients indicate fortune-teller’s influence among the illiterate; while the scholars conceded divination to be futile.
(The Middle Kingdom, vol. 1, p. 632)
Good luck in all your endeavors
God bless you!!! |