|
I Ching
The ''I Ching'' or ''Yijing'' ( ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. The ''I Ching'' was originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC). Over the course of the Warring States period, Warring States and early imperial periods (500–200 BC), it transformed into a Religious cosmology, cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the Ten Wings. After becoming part of the Chinese Five Classics in the 2nd century BC, the ''I Ching'' was the basis for divination practice for centuries across the Far East and was the subject of scholarly commentary. Between the 18th and 20th centuries, it took on an influential role in Western understanding of East Asian philosophical thought. As a divination text, the ''I Ching'' is used for a Chinese form of cleromancy known as I Ching divination, ''I Ching'' div ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Ching Divination
''I Ching'' divination is a form of cleromancy applied to the ''I Ching''. The text of the ''I Ching'' consists of sixty-four hexagrams: six-line figures of '' yin'' (broken) or '' yang'' (solid) lines, and commentaries on them. There are two main methods of building up the lines of the hexagram, using either 50 yarrow stalks or three coins. Some of the lines may be designated "old" lines, in which case the lines are subsequently changed to create a second hexagram. The text relating to the hexagram(s) and old lines (if any) is studied, and the meanings derived from such study can be interpreted as an oracle. Methods Each hexagram is six lines, written sequentially one above the other; each of the lines represents a state that is either or , and either ''old'' (moving or changing, represented by an "X" written on the middle of a ''yin'' line, or a circle written on the middle of a ''yang'' line) or ''young'' (static, unchanging). The usual methods for consulting the ''I Chin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guicang
''Guicang'' (歸藏, "Return to the Hidden") is a divination text dating to the Zhou dynasty, which was once circulated alongside the ''I Ching''. The text of ''Guicang'' was rediscovered in a rural bog in 1993; it had been lost for over two thousand years. ''Guicang'' contains the sixty-four hexagrams and stories relating to each of them. For example, Hexagram 54 of the ''I Ching'', "Returning Maiden," is accompanied by the story of how the maiden Chang'e Chang'e ( ; ), originally known as Heng'e (), is the goddess of the Moon and wife of Hou Yi, the great archer. Renowned for her beauty, Chang'e is also known for her ascending to the Moon with her pet Yu Tu, the Moon Rabbit and living in the Mo ... stole the medicine of immortality from Xi Wangmu and, upon returning home, used the hexagrams to determine that she should flee to the moon. Footnotes I Ching Taoist texts Confucian texts Chinese classic texts Chinese books of divination Chinese folk religion {{ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Song Dynasty
The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period#Ten Kingdoms, Ten Kingdoms, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song frequently came into conflict with the contemporaneous Liao dynasty, Liao, Western Xia and Jin dynasty (1115–1234), Jin dynasties in northern China. After retreating to southern China following attacks by the Jin dynasty, the Song was eventually conquered by the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The History of the Song dynasty, dynasty's history is divided into two periods: during the Northern Song (; 960–1127), the capital was in the northern city of Bianjing (now Kaifeng) and the dynasty controlled most of what is now East China. The #Southern Song, 1127–1279, Southern Song (; 1127–1279) comprise the period following ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hexagrams
, can be seen as a compound polygon, compound composed of an upwards (blue here) and downwards (pink) facing equilateral triangle, with their intersection as a regular hexagon (in green). A hexagram (Greek language, Greek) or sexagram (Latin language, Latin) is a six-pointed geometric star figure with the Schläfli symbol , 2, or . The term is used to refer to a compound figure of two equilateral triangles. The intersection is a regular hexagon. The hexagram is part of an infinite series of shapes which are compounds of two n-dimensional simplex, simplices. In three dimensions, Compound of two tetrahedra, the analogous compound is the stellated octahedron, and in four dimensions the compound of two 5-cells is obtained. It has been historically used in various religious and cultural contexts and as decorative motifs. The symbol was used as a decorative motif in medieval Christian churches and Jewish synagogues. In the medieval period, a Muslim mystical symbol known as the Seal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rites Of Zhou
The ''Rites of Zhou'' (), originally known as "Officers of Zhou" (), is a Chinese work on bureaucracy and organizational theory. It was renamed by Liu Xin to differentiate it from a chapter in the '' Book of History'' by the same name. To replace a lost work, it was included along with the ''Book of Rites'' and the '' Etiquette and Ceremonial'' becoming one of three ancient ritual texts (the "Three Rites") listed among the classics of Confucianism. In comparison with other works of its type, the Rite's ruler, though a sage, does not create the state, but merely organizes a bureaucracy. It could not have been composed during the Western Zhou. With a vision based on Warring States period society, Mark Edward Lewis takes it as closely linked to the major administrative reforms of the period. He and Michael Puett compare its system of duties and ranks to the "Legalism" of Shang Yang, which is not to say that they had any direct relation. Authorship The book appeared in the mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bamboo And Wooden Slips
Bamboo and wooden strips ( zh, s=简牍, t=簡牘, first=t, p=jiǎndú) are long, narrow strips of wood or bamboo, each typically holding a single column of several dozen brush-written characters. They were the main media for writing documents in China before the widespread history of paper, introduction of paper during the first two centuries AD. (Silk was occasionally used, for example in the Chu Silk Manuscript, but was prohibitively expensive for most documents.) Strips of wood or bamboo vary primarily in length. For bamboo manuscripts, the strips can go from as short as 9 cm to as long as 45 cm. The width is more consistently around 0.6 cm. The writing proceeds vertically, from right to left. Strips were bound together with hemp, silk, or leather and used to make a kind of folding book, called ''jiǎncè'' or ''jiǎndú''. The binding process usually takes place after the writing, with a few exceptions. The earliest surviving examples of wood and bamboo sli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shanghai Museum
The Shanghai Museum is a municipal public museum of ancient Chinese art, situated on the People's Square in the Huangpu District, Shanghai, Huangpu District of Shanghai, China. It is funded by thShanghai Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau Rebuilt at its current location in 1996, it is famous for its large collection of rare cultural pieces. History The museum was founded in 1952 and was first open to the public in the former Shanghai Racecourse club house, now at 325 West Nanjing Road. The founding collections came principally from three sources: a batch of artifacts gathered by the Communist 3rd Field Army during the civil war from accidental finds and confiscations of private property and brought to Shanghai upon the Communists' conquest of the city; artifacts confiscated by the customs service; items sold by private collectors due to political pressure during political purges and purchased by the government. The former Shanghai Municipal Museum was also merged into the new ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Xuan Of Zhou
__NOTOC__ King Xuan of Zhou, personal name Ji Jing, was king of the Chinese Zhou dynasty; his reign has been reconstructed to be 827/25782 BC. He worked to restore royal authority after the Gonghe Regency. He fought the "Western Barbarians" (probably Xianyun) and another group on the Huai River to the southeast. In the ninth year of his reign, he called a meeting of all the lords. Later he intervened militarily in succession struggles in the states of Lu (state), Lu, Wey (state), Wey and Qi (state), Qi. Sima Qian said "from this time on, the many lords mostly rebelled against royal commands." According to Zhang Shoujie's annotation ''Correct Meanings'' () to Sima's ''Shiji'', quote: King Xuan is said to have killed the innocent Du Bo and according to tradition was himself killed by an arrow fired by Du Bo's ghost. His son King You of Zhou, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Shaughnessy
Edward Louis Shaughnessy (born July 29, 1952) is an American sinologist, scholar, and educator, known for his studies of early Chinese history, particularly the Zhou dynasty, and his studies of the ''Classic of Changes'' (''I Ching'' 易經). Life and career Edward Shaughnessy was born on July 29, 1952. He attended the University of Notre Dame as an undergraduate student, graduating in 1974 with a B.A. in theology, after which he spent several years studying Chinese in Taiwan and Japanese in Kyoto, Japan. He then went to Stanford University for graduate study in Asian languages, earning his Ph.D. in 1983 with a dissertation entitled "The Composition of the ''Zhouyi''". After receiving his Ph.D., Shaughnessy joined the faculty of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, where he is currently the Lorraine J. and Herrlee G. Creel Distinguished Service Professor of Early Chinese Studies. Shaughnessy's wife, Elena Valussi, is an It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Bronze Inscriptions
Chinese bronze inscriptions, also referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, comprise Chinese writing made in several styles on ritual bronzes mainly during the Late Shang dynasty () and Western Zhou dynasty (771 BC). Types of bronzes include ''zhong'' bells and '' ding'' tripodal cauldrons. Early inscriptions were almost always made with a stylus into a clay mold, from which the bronze itself was then cast. Additional inscriptions were often later engraved onto bronzes after casting. The bronze inscriptions are one of the earliest scripts in the Chinese family of scripts, preceded by the oracle bone script. Terminology For the early Western Zhou to early Warring States period, the bulk of writing which has been unearthed has been in the form of bronze inscriptions. As a result, it is common to refer to the variety of scripts of this period as "bronze script", even though there is no single such script. The term usually includes bronze inscriptions of the preced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wuxing (Chinese Philosophy)
( zh, c=五行, p=wǔxíng), usually translated as Five Phases or Five Agents, is a fivefold conceptual scheme used in many traditional Chinese fields of study to explain a wide array of phenomena, including terrestrial and celestial relationships, influences, and cycles, that characterise the interactions and relationships within Science and technology in China, science, Traditional Chinese medicine, medicine, Confucianism, politics, Taoism, religion and social relationships and education within Chinese culture. The five agents are traditionally associated with the classical planets Mars, Mercury (planet), Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn as depicted in the #Etymology, etymological section below. In ancient Chinese astronomy and Chinese astrology, astrology, that spread throughout East Asia, was a reflection of the seven-day planetary order of Fire (wuxing), Fire, Water (wuxing), Water, Wood (wuxing), Wood, Metal (wuxing), Metal, Earth (wuxing), Earth.), they are Wood, Fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yin And Yang
Originating in Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (, ), also yinyang or yin-yang, is the concept of opposite cosmic principles or forces that interact, interconnect, and perpetuate each other. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary and at the same time opposing forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts and the parts are as important for the cohesion of the whole. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of primordial qi or material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang, force and motion leading to form and matter. "Yin" is retractive, passive and contractive in nature, while "yang" is repelling, active and expansive in principle; this dichotomy in some form, is seen in all things in nature—patterns of change and difference. For example, biological, psychological and seasonal cycles, the historical evolution of landscapes over days, weeks, years to eons. The origin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
