THE
YIH KING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
Charles Gould published his book Mythical Monsters in London, England, in 1886
(W. H. Allen & Co.). He discussed mythical creatures, and attempted to
demonstrate that there some legendary animals indeed existed. The author’s main
emphasis was on the Orient, and dragons, sea serpents and the Chinese phoenix
that populated ancient folklore of China.
An ancient Chinese book of mysterious origins (the Yih King) mentioned by Gould
(as quotations from a comprehensive Chinese encyclopedia the Yuen Klei Lei Han,
completed in 1710 CE) contained information about dragons and other very
curious matters, whose meaning was not clear to most Chinese (or just those who
possibly did not possess the necessary training). This book escaped the mass
burning of Chinese historical books and records ordered by Emperor Shihuangdi
in 213 BCE. According to the French researcher Monsieur de la Couperie (Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society), the Yih King is the oldest of the Chinese
classics and a mysterious book that requires prolonged attention to make it
reveal its secrets.
Those Chinese who had studied in Europe in the XIX century and who knew the Yih
King, had claimed that information about electricity, steam power, astronomical
laws, spheroid nature of Earth and many other sciences and matters were
contained in the ancient book. There were secrets that the Chinese scholars
hoped to unveil after applying to the study of their classics a thorough knowledge
of modern sciences. Charles Gould, however, refused to accept the idea that
there could be a possible connection “between their rude notions and our
sciences”. “It is not a mysterious book of fates and prognostics, wrote Gould,
but a valuable collection of documents of old antiquity…Perhaps Emperor
Shihuangdi, who made sure the mysterious book was not to be burned with other
collections of documents of old antiquity during as his atrocious policies
demanded, knew how to read the book and unveil the secrets contained on its
pages. Perhaps his magic mirror and the eternal illumination of the tomb were
some of the secrets he unveiled.
What was the importance of the Book of Changes to Shihuangdi?
The Yih King (I Ching), or Book of Changes, may be one the oldest sacred texts
in the world. It is one of our greatest treasures of wisdom on Earth. It is a
most obscure, complex, and mysterious work of mental and moral philosophy and
divination.
The book was written around 2850 BCE. It is the most widely read of the five
Chinese Classics. The book has been of great interest to many people. One of
them was dispatched to the Orient by a great French king.
Jean-Baptiste Regis was a Jesuit who was sent to China in 1698 at the age of
thirty-five on a mission to study science and religion. He spent close to forty
years in the Orient, and was instrumental in preparing the general map of
China. Chinese Emperor K'ang-hi (1662-1722) was quite friendly to the Jesuits,
and a number of important Chinese books and sources were open to them. Regis
was one of a number of French Jesuits in the country; King Louis XIV sent a
group of them there and they were engaged in astronomical observations and
Chinese geographical, cartographical, and topographical research. They had
received special training by scientists at the Paris Observatory, and used
state-of-the art instruments. The Jesuits made a number of scientific
expeditions throughout China, Tibet, Mongolia, Siberia and Manchuria; measured
the Great Wall, and made excellent maps. Those who knew China well regarded
their map of China to be a masterpiece. No matter how enticing, I will not
describe the exploits of the French King’s missionaries in China. What is
important here is that Jean-Baptiste Regis appreciated ancient Chinese books,
and translated the Yih King. Julius Mol, in Stuttgart, edited the translation
in 1864. The first volume contained Prologomena, a valuable and fascinating
introduction to the classics of China.
Jean-Baptiste Regis died in Beijing in 1738. He played the most active role in
making the map of China, a land that was still a mystery to Europeans in the
XVII century. We really do not know what he learned in the Yih King, and how
much it helped him in his endeavors on behalf of his order and the French King.
I suspect the knowledge gained by Jean-Baptiste Regis is not lost, but is
guarded.
In pre-dynastic times, the mythical Five Emperors (Wu Ti) ruled China. The Five
Emperors ruled in succession during the "golden age of antiquity"
(prior to 2357 BCE) and have usually been considered sages and cultural heroes,
if not semi-divine beings, by the Chinese. Hence we find that these Five
Emperors; Fu Hsi (One who subdues Animals), Shen Nung (the Divine Farmer),
Huang-Ti (the Yellow Emperor), Shao Hao, and Chuan Hsu, have each been credited
with many inventions as far as 5,000 years ago. In August of 2001, FATE
Magazine published my article about the Yellow Emperor, a legendary giver of
knowledge.
The author of the Yih King is the legendary Chinese Emperor Fu Hsi (2953-2838
BCE).
This legendary Emperor Fu Hsi (Fuxi) divined the truth of the Eight Trigrams.
From the simplicity of yang and yin, light and dark (or, mathematically, 1 and
0), Emperor Fu Hsi conceived of eight possibilities.
The mathematician and philosopher (as well as emperor) Fu Hsi is actually the
first documented practitioner of binary combinatorial analysis. Attributed to
Fu Hsi are combinations of throws, organized into trigrams. There are eight
trigrams to which Fu Hsi assigned human and natural attributes.
Fu Hsi paired the eight trigrams according to their opposites. Heaven is paired
with earth, fire with water, mountain with lake, and wind with thunder. The
Emperor observed how these pairs act upon each other. He arranged the trigrams
in this early heavenly sequence with the opposites across from each other.
The eight trigrams: water, earth, thunder, wind, heaven, lake, mountain, and
fire represent the primal energies of the universe. Each trigram is composed of
three lines. The broken stroke symbol that indicates the “passive” force; this
is called ”Yin”. The continuous stroke symbol that indicates the “active”
force; it is called “Yang”. Grouping pairs of trigrams into hexagrams can make
a total of sixty-four combinations.
Chinese King Wen produced the current groupings, based on patterns of trigram
attributes, during his years spent as a political prisoner around 1150 BCE.
King Wen attached judgments, i.e. rules, pronouncements, and hints, to each
hexagram.
Confucius wrote additional text consisting of imagery that involves the trigram
attributes that interact within each hexagram.
In Yih King (I Ching), lines, half lines, circle, and points represent abstract
ideas. In Chinese literature, one of the sixty-four figures formed of six parallel
lines (continuous or broken), forming the basis of the Yih King. The hexagrams
were seen as the symbolic representations of various situations and
circumstances one may encounter. To underscore the importance of the book, one
need to understand that one cast of the I Ching can generate several different
hexagrams, which adds depth to the interpretation. This four-valued logic has
been compared to the biochemistry of DNA amino acids.
The Yih King’s significance in Chinese traditional culture, science, philosophy,
and medicine is unsurpassed. It became the vessel of all archetypical
possibility, but its primary function is that of divination.
The Book of Changes is the classic textbook of the art of divination. In
addition to the Yih King, divining blocks, drawing lots, temple oracles, and
astrology are common forms of divination throughout the Orient.
Confucius (K'ung-tzu, 551-479 BCE.), or most likely one of his disciples, wrote
appendices to the Yih King, and this passage, written around 500 B.C., describes
his philosophy on numbers:
“The numbers belonging to heaven are five, and those belonging to earth are
five. The numbers of these two series correspond to each other, and each one
has another that may be considered its mate. The heavenly numbers amount to 25,
and the earthly to 30. The numbers of heaven and earth together amount to 55.
It is by these that the changes and transformations are effected and the
spirit-like agencies kept in movement."
There are several translations of the Yih King into English. One of the oldest
is
The Yih-king: A new translation from the original Chinese, by Le Chevalier
Charles Joseph de Harlez. The author, de Harlez, was Professor in the
University of Louvain, Belgium. His book was translated into English from the French
by J. P. Val d'Eremao, and published in the Oriental University Institute,
1896.
What wonderful discoveries are in store for Chinese archeologists when they
survey the mysterious Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in?
Paul Stonehill
Author of
The Soviet UFO Files (1998)
Co-author of
UFO-USSR (2005)
rurcla@hotmail.com
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