Origins of Ancient Changes 古易考原

Authored by Mei Wang, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty.

Comprising three volumes, it is included in the Supplementary Daoist Canon—an extension of The Daozang.

This book examines and verifies the hexagram images, hexagram numbers of the I Ching as well as the origin and development of the Zhouyi texts dating from the Three Dynasties.

The first volume explores the "Zhouyi of the Hexagram Drawings by Fuxi". The author argues that the assertion of Confucian scholars in the Han Dynasty—claiming that Fuxi created the Eight Trigrams and King Wen expanded them into the Sixty-Four Hexagrams—is inaccurate, and that the circular and square hexagram sequence diagrams handed down in later ages are inconsistent with the ancient Zhouyi. He holds that the Sixty-Four Hexagrams were all created by Fuxi, who first made the Eight Trigrams (each consisting of three lines) as the foundation, and then superimposed the Eight Trigrams on each of these basic trigrams to derive the Sixty-Four Hexagrams. For instance, superimposing the Eight Trigrams on the three-line Qian Trigram results in eight six-line hexagrams: Qian, Guai, Dayou, Dazhuang, Xiaoxu, Xu, Daxu and Tai. Among these, the Qian Trigram is regarded as the "principal hexagram", while the other seven are "subordinate hexagrams", all centered on the Qian Trigram. The formation method of other hexagrams follows the same pattern. (This theory is consistent with the hexagram sequence of the Zhouyi unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tombs.) The second volume investigates the "Zhouyi of the Universal Numbers by Fuxi". The author contends that the total number of the Great Expansion in the Hetu (Yellow River Diagram) is ninety-nine, with fifty as the fundamental substance and forty-nine as the practical application; this number, closely linked to the five elements theory, is derived from the sequential addition of the first ten natural numbers. This view also differs from those proposed by Liu Xin and Liu Mu. The third volume examines the Zhouyi of the Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang and Zhou), putting forward an independent academic perspective that reflects the integration of Confucian thought and Taoism concepts in the development of ancient Zhouyi studies. This book is included in the Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries).