Chinese for "
The Book of Changes". The
I Ching (sometimes "I-Ching" or "IChing") is an ancient Chinese system of
divination which became popular in
the West in the
1960s.
Legend has it that around 1042 B.C. Wên, king of the Chou, invented the sixty-four hexagrams and their names while languishing in prison at the hands of Chou Hsin, king of the Shang.
It works by dividing piles of yarrow stalks (traditional technique) or flipping three coins (modern technique) six times in a row while reflecting and meditating on your question. Depending on how the stalks/coins come up, you draw a yin line (broken), a yang line (unbroken), or a "moving" yin or yang line. If tossing coins, the head is yang and counts as three points, while tails is yin and counts as two points. Adding up all three coins yields a moving yin line (six points), a yang line (seven), a yin line (eight), or a moving yang line (nine).
The resulting six lines represent two trigrams which are combined into one of sixty-four hexagrams. Each trigram represents one of the following:
The resulting primary hexagram is an interpretation of the image of the first trigram (top) over the second (bottom). For instance, water over wood produces the image of the
well ("Thus
the superior man encourages the people at their work,/And exhorts them to help one another") while the sun over earth produces the image of
progress ("Thus
the superior man himself/Brightens his bright virtue.") Then the "moving" lines are reversed -- a moving yin becomes a yang and
vice versa -- producing a secondary hexagram which is likewise interpreted.
Since the hexagrams can be quickly determined from random coin tosses, it's been popular for some time to use software to generate I Ching divinations. The Everything I-Ching is just one such example.