The I Ching (Chinese 易經, yì jing, W.-G. I Ching, auch: I Jing, YI Ching, Yi King; “The Book of Changes”) is based on cosmology and philosophy of ancient China, particularly Daoism (Taoism). Basic ideas behind the I Ching include balance of opposites and acceptance of change. The book describes the world in 64 images which in turn consist sets of six continuous (Yang) or broken (Yin) lines (= one hexagram). The I Ching is treasured both for wisdom and prophecy.
The I Ching’s divination tradition has shamanic roots extending into the third millennium BC. For a long time divination was done without any written text but according to traditional rules and the questioner’s intuition.
The Book of Changes (aka I Ching) contains various texts which were all written relatively late in time: the judgments (short sayings that describe the overall situation of a hexagram), date from the first millennium BC; the Ten Wings, explanatory and commenting texts (3rd and 4th wing: the image; 9th wing: order of the hexagrams), were written around 400-200 BC.
Especially due to their structure (brief sentences, hierarchical order) the Ten Wings are often attributed to Confucius, but this is controversial. Basically two notions regarding the I Ching developed during its eventful history over thousands of years: one explores cosmological and social principles, the other one around the philosopher Wang Bi wants to explore the ideas that are hidden within the images themselves.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching
