| Have you ever wondered where the wisdom and knowledge of the Great ancient civilizations went? Think about it:
The Babylonians
The Egyptians
The Myans
The Mesopotamians
The list goes on. Sure these are explained in school to some extent; like the Great Library of Alexandria destroyed by a fire we today have little to no knowledge of the contents that were lost. You may have heard the stories of the lost library of Egypt, it remains lost. Or about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, we really dont know what they even looked like. There are artist impressions, but nothing historically factual.
Recently I saw on a documentary that Roman building technology was lost after the fall of Rome. Specifically I am referring to the Romans using a form of concrete or mortar that made possible the domed roofed structures of Ancient Rome. When Filippo Brunelleschi planned the domed roof of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence he had to use bricks and a unique construction method to build the dome although a simpler technology was used hundreds of years earlier in the Pantheon in Rome.
What about the great Chinese civilization? They too were sacked by the Moguls, befell fire, natural disasters, and lost many marvelous works through out time. The good news is that documents like the Yijing (or I Ching) survive to this day; Yijing meaning "Book or Canon of Change". Modern scholars scoff at the writing or references to mythology contained within the writings of this canon. The Yijing contains around four thousand years of undisputed knowledge, and isn't knowledge applied is wisdom?
The Yijing itself is a book of divination by category. However the information contained is unadulterated wisdom. To ensure my point let me give you an example
The Yijing starts with the concept of Yin and Yang, then defines the four images, which introduce the cyclical nature of change. This is detailed further to the eight trigrams (both early and late heaven Bagua) into an octagon illustrating the nature of change and its oppositions. But for this to apply to mankind the sixty four hexagrams are detailed with contributions from many authors through time, including Confucius and Lao Tsu (father of Daoism) and even has been contributed to by the Buddhist faith. So what does this mean?
The purpose of the Yijing is to understand change. Heaven, Earth, represent mans place. The witnessing of Heavenly motion gives us the concept of time. Earth the place we live provides food and shelter. Fire and Water, as humans we require fire for heat and to cook with, whilst water is required for quench our thirst, wash ourselves and our garments. Thunder and wind represent our concepts of growth. Lastly Mountain and Lake represent our social interaction.
Take this the next step to the sixty four hexagrams; this is a further extrapolation of our possible nature, growth, environment and circumstances throughout time. To think this wisdom is around four thousand years old. One might question if ancient wisdom has truly been lost; or has it been analytically crippled by academic over indulgence and poor public relations?
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