I Ching
Nobody knows for sure who wrote the I Ching, or when. But most scholars think somebody wrote the I Ching around 800 BC, during the last years of the Western Chou Dynasty in China. That makes the I Ching the oldest piece of writing in China other than the oracle bones. Like the earlier oracle bones, the I Ching is a collection of predictions about the future. It's a fortune-telling book to help people predict what is going to happen in the future. People wrote the first versions of the I Ching on silk cloth, because paper hadn't been invented yet.
Yarrow stalks for throwing the I Ching
I Ching means the Book of Changes. People threw three yarrow stalks (yarrow is a kind of flowering plant), and depending on how they fell they used that pattern to choose which predictions to read, according to complicated formulas. Some examples of the predictions are, "The Judgement: Peace. The small departs, the great approaches. Good fortune. Success." or "Six at the beginning means: Enthusiasm that expresses itself brings misfortune.".
Why did people want to punch Socrates?
Where did Egyptians bury your liver?
How old are the Rocky Mountains?
What does a half-timbered house look like?
How do you spin wool?
(a project)
By the Han Dynasty, about 100 BC, people began to throw bronze coins instead, because the coins led to more random results than the stalks of yarrow.
More about Chinese religion
More about Chinese literature
To find out more about Chinese religion, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
One World, Many Religions: The Ways We Worship, by Mary Pope Osborne (1996). For kids.
The Gods and Goddesses of Ancient China, by Leonard Everett Fisher (2003). For kids. One page for each god, with lots of pictures and some historical context.
Five Heavenly Emperors: Chinese Myths of Creation, by Song Nan Zhang (1994). Stories for kids.
Chinese Mythology A to Z, by Jeremy Roberts (2004).
Dragons and Demons : Myths of China, by Stewart Ross (1998). A few Chinese stories, retold for kids.
Dragons, Gods and Spirits from Chinese Mythology, by Tao Sanders (1983). More of a child's encyclopedia.
Main religion page
Main China page
