ACKERMANAt a glance
History, context & interpretation
The text and its story
A divination book of 64 six-line figures, each with judgements and line readings. It shaped Daoism, Confucianism and even inspired Leibniz's binary arithmetic.
Traditional attribution
Trigrams by the mythical Fu Xi, texts by King Wen and the Duke of Zhou, commentary by Confucius.
Historical scholarship
A Western Zhou divination manual; the 'Ten Wings' commentaries are later.
Context and curiosity
Traditional readings use 50 yarrow stalks; three coins became a common shortcut.
Chronology and transmission
This text belongs to China (Zhou China). The catalogue gives its approximate dating as core c. 1000–750 BCE and original language or script as Old Chinese. The dated manuscript witnesses and traditional claims may not refer to the same historical event.
Sources and further reading
Historical descriptions are educational summaries. Religious traditions, scholarly interpretations and unverified claims are distinguished where possible; imagery may be illustrative rather than an artifact photograph.
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