Having discussed the title and author of Zhou Yi, today we will continue to talk about the original nature of Zhou Yi. For this question, all the families have basically recognized its head as the Book of Bu Zheng. That is, in ancient times, out of ignorance and reverence for nature, people used yarrow, turtle, knotted rope and other forms to calculate and predict what was going to happen, in order to predict the good fortune and bad luck, and should change it. This is the original nature of the book "Zhou Yi". Here are three reasons to share with you.
1. The Prisoner of Qiangli.
The "Prisoner of Qili" refers to King Wen of Zhou, that is, Ji Chang, who founded the Zhou Dynasty for eight hundred years. During the Shang Dynasty, Ji Chang was divided into Qi Zhou, and Under ji Chang's administration, The national strength of Qi Zhou became increasingly powerful, which caused uneasiness in the Shang Dynasty. The King of Shang listened to rumors and feared that the prosperity of Qi Zhou would not be conducive to the Shang Dynasty, so he ordered Ji Chang to be detained in Qili (羑里, in modern Tangyin County, Henan). In captivity, King Wen, that is, the Gua drawn by Bao Xishi, established the law of Dayan, pushed the number of seven eight nine six, and gave birth to the gua jie, so the "Zhou Yi" was first formed, and it was listed alongside the "Lianshan" and "Guizang" in the official of Bu Xiao. It is true that King Wen worked hard to rescue through the Qi Zhou people, and later overthrew the Shang Dynasty in one fell swoop.
In this allusion, the two most noteworthy points are that one is the Performance of King Wen and the other is the "Official of Bu Zheng". The so-called "method of establishing the great Yan, pushing the number of seven eight nine six" is a method of divination, seven nine is yang, six eight is yin, according to the ancient method of using yarrow to occupy the basket, "four camps and three changes" into one number, this number must be one of the 24, 28, 32, 36, these four numbers divided by four, the last must be one of the seven eight nine six. Then, according to the principle of counting odd days and counting even earth, seven or nine is yang, six eight is yin, and finally it can be transformed into one gua through eighteen. This is king Wen's previous method of divination. Then there is a problem here, in the process of divination, each one is yin or yang, which can be determined, and the last one that occupies is what of the sixty gua can also be determined. But there are two situations in the nature of each trigram, sixty-four cases in the trigram of each trigram, and three hundred and eighty-four in the sixty-four trigrams, all in all, which leads to the uncertainty of the results of the divination. In order to make the results of the divination more accurate, King Wen formulated the principle of "the old becomes the same", and then tied the words under each gua. Here, seven eight nine six, seven for shaoyang, eight for shaoyin, six for laoyin, nine for laoyang. For example, if the astrology is nine and the third to the upper is seven, then the first word is used as the result of the astrology. The above is a brief introduction to divination. In the later stage, this issue will continue to open up another special topic of the Zhengfa Law. Yi You can refer to Zhu Xi's Zhou Yi Enlightenment. The so-called "official of Bu Zheng" refers to the full-time organ set up by the various generations of Xia, Shang, and Zhou, and the duty of this organ is to "paint images, take care of things, and then know that They are stingy." In my opinion, it is equivalent to the current policy research office, modern civilization is developed, and the means of collecting data are clever, so it is accurate to formulate policies. In ancient times, there were not many materials and data for reference, and the most reasonable policy could only be formulated by combining empiricist vision and mystical reasoning. But no matter what, "Zhou Yi" was produced in this kind of divination background, and it was deeply branded with the color of zhanzheng.
II. "River Map" and "Book of Luo"
"Yi Chuan" has clouds: "The river is out of the map, Luo is out of the book". River, Yellow River. Lo, Lo water. Here are actually the following two pictures.
This figure was first taken from the Hong Fan Chapter of the Book of Shang. The Book of Hetuluo, two mysterious patterns handed down from ancient China, contains the profound principle of cosmic astrology, known as the "Cosmic Cube", and is the source of Chinese culture and the five elements of yin and yang. It should be said that these two pictures have a very profound principle of "Zhou Yi". First of all, let's briefly analyze the Book of Luo, which has nine numbers, each of which can be summarized as "wearing nine shoes one, left three right seven, two four for the shoulder, six eight for the foot", left and right up and down obliquely added up to fifteen. And the yang number is in the main position, the yin number is in the corner position, the five is the middle number in the middle position, and the yin and yang are separated and staggered. Let's briefly analyze the river chart, the river chart has ten numbers, one two three four five is the number of births, six seven eight nine ten is the number. Each direction is a combination of birth number and fraction, southeast, northwest, north for one for birth fifty-six, south for two for generation seven, east for three for generation eight, west for four for nine, and middle for five for ten. They represent the ten numbers of heaven and earth, and also contain the principles of yin and yang and the five elements. The ancients "looked up at the heavens, looked down at the geography" and "divination reasoning" all took this as a reference.
Third, Yuan Henry Zhen, Ji Fierce repentant and stingy
The Zhou Yi is the book of Bu Zheng, which can also be glimpsed through some of the divinations in the scriptures. First of all: "Yuan Henry Zhen" is read together as "Great Henry Yu Shouzheng" meaning, read separately, "Yuan Heng" represents the tycoon, "Li Zhen" represents "li yu zhen, good for shou zheng" meaning, "yuan ji" represents daji, "li yan zhen means to adhere to chastity in times of difficulty, etc., these all appear in large quantities in the Zhou Yi scriptures, meaning to occupy a certain gua or a certain result. The second is "auspicious repentance and miserliness", ji is great good, fierce is bad, repentance means from fierce to auspicious, and the meaning of miserliness is from ji to fierce. Moreover, the combination of "Yuan Henry Zhen" and "Ji Ji Repentance" also represents the result of divination. For example, "Chaste", "Zhenji", "Zhenji", "Repentance" and so on. Three hundred and eighty-four yao, each of which is basically composed of elephants and champs, half says elephants, and half says champs. Of course, sometimes the image is in front, sometimes the image is in the back, sometimes there is no accounting, which needs to be pushed by the reader, and sometimes there are two elephants, and there are two kinds of divination results. But it is not in the category of divination.
Today's book about "Zhou Yi" is the original nature of this point. Limited space, I have not been able to talk about his evolution, and I will update it tomorrow, so stay tuned.