Page 273 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols 266
Oracle

shenyu

In prehistoric and early historical China, prognostication was practised by means of
oracle bones and tortoise shells. Holes were bored in the shells or in the shoulder bones
of cattle, into which hot rods were inserted: cracks then appeared on the obverse side,
from which answers of the ‘yes–no’ type were derived. Similarly, something that had just
happened or was about to happen could be identified as ‘auspicious’ or ‘inauspicious’.
The method could be varied. For example, glowing metal could be held close to the bore-
holes in the shell which then cracked in various ways, or bones could be prepared and
thrown into the fire. The text of the question was always scratched onto shell or bone, so
that these oracle bones provide us with what amounts to historical documentation – in
fact, the most important source, so far discovered, for the history of the Shang period
(c. 1500–1050 BC). Similar oracle bones, sometimes furnished with authenticating dates,
were used until recently by various ethnic minorities.

The sign of change in the Yi-jing

In early Chinese culture, oracles of this kind provided important guide-lines which
ordered and channelled the stream of events and possible reactions. ‘The oracle priests
functioned as indispensable coordinators in a world which was split between the
wilderness and the town, between this life and that beyond, and where the dividing
partitions were thin enough to allow continual traffic and exchange between them’
(Wolfgang Bauer).