i or Book of Rites and the Chun Chiu or Spring and Autumn Annals (Mungello, 73). The I Ching or Book of Changes is a manual of divination probably compiled before the eleventh century B.C. Confucius and his disciples may have written its supplementary philosophical portion, contained in a series of appendixes, later. In the Zhou Dynasty, the I Ching was used for foretelling the future. It was an oracle used to analyze situations and to decide the proper course of action. The I Ching contained sixty-four hexagrams which each represented a certain stage in the cycle of the universe. More importantly, the I Ching contained the concept of the universe moving in cycles. There were only sixty-four hexagrams, sixty-four states of being for the universe, and it was constantly moving through the sixty-four, starting again at the beginning when it reached the end (Wolf, 133). The name Classic of Changes also originates from this, since the universe is always in a state of change. These cycles would become a dominant theme in Chinese culture. The Chinese would apply the idea of cycles to their concepts of time, life, and people. The rule of dynasties moved in cycles, from the mythically good first ruler to the degenerate last ruler of each dynasty. Life was a cycle, moving upwards from birth to a peak and then declining into death. This also led to the awareness that everything in the universe is related. If there are only sixty-four states of being, then these states must be shared by each thing in the cosmos, and as a result, all things are related to each other (Chang, 110).The Shu Ching is a collection of ancient historical documents. The Shu Ching consists of The Book of Documents and The Book of History. It is a collection of documents that claim to go back to the Shang Dynasty, which was the first historical dynasty of China. The Shu Ching is more important for the fact that it is the earliest work of history and political science in Chine...
