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Zhou Yi records that in ancient times, Fuxi observed the heavens and the earth, and observed all things in the heavens and the earth, "so he began to gossip, with the virtue of the gods, and the feelings of all things." Therefore, in the past, it was generally believed that gossip began in Fuxi.
Xia, Shang and Zhou inherited the gossip culture, so Xia had "Lianshan", Shang had "Returning to Tibet", and Zhou had "Zhou Yi". However, during the Zhou Dynasty, the gossip changed, and the historical records record that "Xibogai reigned for fifty years." In his prison, Gai Yiyi's gossip is sixty-four hexagrams", Sima Qian guessed that Ji Chang evolved the gossip into sixty-four hexagrams, in fact, the two gossip were superimposed, thus forming sixty-four changes.
The evolution of the Bagua in the Hanshu is called "the three sages of the people, and the three ancient times of the world", that is, the ancient Fuxi made the gossip, the ancient Ji Chang evolved the sixty-four hexagrams, and the ancient Confucius and his protégés commented on the Book of Changes (Zhou Yi is divided into the Book of Changes and the Book of Changes, and the Book of Changes is a commentary on the Book of Changes).
However, archaeological discoveries have rewritten cognition, and the origin of gossip is far beyond our imagination, with a history of 10,000 years, and Fuxi should have improved gossip in the same way that Cai Lun improved papermaking, and Sima Qian's speculation about the origin of the sixty-four hexagrams was overturned.
Sima Qian believes that the "cover" of the sixty-four hexagrams began with Ji Chang, but archaeology has overturned this speculation.
In the Yin Ruins copper casting area, archaeology found a tomb, about 3150 years ago (at this time the ancient father's father has not moved to Qi), inside unearthed a grinding stone, engraved with multiple groups of numbers, every six for a group, such as "seven six eight seven six seven" (even number represents yin, odd number represents yang), modern scholars interpret as a hexagram.
It is obvious that long before Ji Chang, the sixty-four hexagrams already existed, probably because Ji Chang Xi learned the sixty-four hexagrams in Yindu, or improved them, but was mistaken by later generations as "Yiyi's gossip is sixty-four hexagrams". It is worth asking that in the Shang Dynasty, there were tortoiseshell divination and gossip, and it was often emperors and nobles who used tortoiseshell divination
The question is: if this is the case, when did the eighty-four trigrams begin?Modern archaeological discoveries have found that the origin of Bagua and Sixty-four Hexagrams is even earlier than we think.
According to legend, Hua Xu stepped on a huge footprint in Lei Ze, felt pregnant, and gave birth to Fuxi in Chengji (now Tianshui City, Gansu), and later Fuxi was in Chen (now Huaiyang, Henan). This statement is obviously not very credible, because Chengji and Chen are thousands of miles apart, how can Fuxi migrate like this?Therefore, Fu Xi was born in the Cheng period, probably deduced by later generations, in order to echo the origin of the Zhou people, and similar to Yan Huang is also said to have been born in Shaanxi.
More importantly, judging from archaeological discoveries, there are few ancient gossip remains in Shaanxi and Gansu, but they appear repeatedly in the east and southeast. Next, let's take a look at three important archaeological discoveries:
First of all, the ruins of Dawenkou
In 2013, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued the "Third Batch of Catalogue of Cultural Relics Prohibited from Leaving the Country", one of which is an openwork swirl ivory comb (above) from the Dawenkou site in Shandong, which was unearthed in the middle of the Dawenkou culture, more than 5,000 years ago, and has extremely special gossip symbols on it.
In addition, the Dawenkou cultural site also unearthed a swerk tooth hook vessel, composed of swerk teeth and stone, the stone handle is engraved with two three symbols, one is Zhen, one is Kun, some scholars combine the two, and believe that it is the "Yu hexagram" in the sixty-four hexagrams.
Secondly, the Qingdun site
Located in Zhejiang, the cross-lake bridge cultural site, more than 7,000 years ago, unearthed a batch of deer antlers made of calculations. What's more, there is no doubt that the gossip hexagram is engraved on these calculations (above).
The Qingdun site of Hai'an, Nantong, Jiangsu Province, which is later than the bridge across the lake, is about 6000 years ago, and some gossip symbols are found on many elk antler bones.
Third, the ruins of the bridgehead
Located in the west of Yiwu City, Jinhua, Zhejiang, the Qiaotou site, about 8000-9000 years ago, began to excavate in 2012, not only unearthed a lot of Shangshan culture in the middle and late painted pottery, but also found gossip carvings on the painted pottery (as shown above). The red-clothed faience above, unearthed in the tomb of a single man, was held in the arms of the man.
Earlier than the Qiaotou site of Jiahu in Henan, about 9000 years ago, archaeology found Jiahu carved symbols, scholars Cai Yunzhang, Zhang Juzhong ** "The Brilliant Dawn of Chinese Civilization - On the Hexagram Characters Found in Jiahu Lake in Wuyang", that Jiahu carved characters belong to the hexagram Chinese characters.
It can be seen that the Bagua may have originated about 10,000 years ago, probably not created by Fuxi, but Fuxi may have had major improvements in the evolution of Bagua, or played a major role in the inheritance, so later generations mistakenly thought that Fuxi created it. Among them, the sixty-four hexagrams have long existed, and they are certainly not invented by Ji Chang or businessmen, and probably Ji Chang has improved this, such as adding hexagrams, epigrams, etc.
Through the above archaeological discoveries, two mysteries may also be solved: one is that Fuxi should not have been born in Gansu, but in the southeast or east, based on the Dingdu Chendi and his time of more than 5,000 years ago, Fuxi is very likely to be the ancestor of the Dawenkou culture;The second is that the gossip has long existed, but the legend is that Fuxi started to build, or it is related to Fuxi's creation of knotted rope records, because after the knotted rope records, it will be more accurate than the previous inheritance history, so the ancients mistakenly thought that Fuxi started to create gossip.
Finally, there are two more points worth mentioning about the topic of this article:
First of all, before modern archaeology, it was generally believed that the Yellow River Basin gave birth to Chinese civilization, but from the perspective of Bagua archaeological discoveries, the southeast region was obviously not backward in ancient times, and there was already a set of more advanced ways to understand the world - Bagua, which was even more "advanced" than the Central Plains of the same era.
Secondly, the gossip of 8,000 years ago has been passed down to the present day, once again proving that Chinese civilization is indeed in the same vein and has never been broken. More importantly, the gossip culture has been absorbed by various forces from Jiangsu and Zhejiang to Shandong to the Central Plains, which also proves the inclusiveness of Chinese civilization.