Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
Most of the modern Yijing editions seem to pose the yarrow as the more authentic (and senior?) oracular ritual than the coin method, which makes sense since it is preserved in the text of Ta Chuan. I would be interested to learn more of the historical context of mathematical divinatory methods.
The utter simplicity of the concentric square rings on the 8x8 and the coincidence of their producing the same probabilities are the purported yarrow oracle ... it speaks to me. Truth often is betrayed that kind of straightforward simplicity -- at least in the stories.
Still, the historical record does not support the hypothesis, bummer. Truth is ever-elusive when treating with antiquity. I'm reminded of Tennyson's words "[Death] puts our lives so far apart we cannot hear each other speak."
The graphic depicted here shows the so-called FuXi arrangement overlaid on a tableau of concentric squares, each discretely colored. This presentation is remarkable in that it explicitly encodes the yarrow oracle probabilities; i.e. each ring comprises a specific proportion of the hexagrams as shown in the table above.
⚏ dynamic yin, represented by '6', probability = 0.0625 ( 4 in 64)It does appear that the oracle and its probabilities are derived from this 8x8 grid, and that the ritual as is commonly understood may have been a way to produce the probabilities from the grid. Any proper quadrant of this 8x8 square likewise encodes the same probabilities at one-quarter scale: 1/16, 3/16, 5/16, 7/16.
⚌ dynamic yang, represented by '9', probability = 0.1875 (12 in 64)
⚎ static yang, represented by '7', probability = 0.3125 (20 in 64)
⚍ static yin, represented by '8', probability = 0.4375 (28 in 64)
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).