I-Ching (‘Book of Changes’), a Chinese divination manual that may have existed in some form as early as the seventh century B.C. It was not philosophically significant until augmented by a group of appendices, the ‘Ten Wings,’ around 200 B.C. The book has tremendously influenced Chinese thought since the Han dynasty, for at least two reasons. First, it provided a cosmology that systematically grounded certain ideas, particularly Confucian ethical claims, in the nature of the cosmos. Second, it presented this cosmology through a system of loosely described symbols that provided virtually limitless interpretive possibilities. In order to ‘read’ the text properly, one needed to be a certain kind of person. In this way, the I-Ching accommodated both intuitionism and self-cultivationism, two prominent characteristics of early Chinese thought. At the same time, the text’s endless interpretive possibilities allowed it to be used in widely different ways by a variety of thinkers. See also CHINESE PHILOSOPHY , CONFUCIANIS. P.J.I.