The origins of I Ching is among the most debated topics in Chinese intellectual history, and is still far from being settled. There is no single "orthodox" (or modern) view concerning the historical origins and authorships of this collection of pre-Qin divination canons known (at least since the Warring States period) as I Ching or Classic of Changes. Perhaps the closest thing to an “orthodox view” of the historical origins of I Ching would be what’s written in Sima Qian’s Shiji, which I will provide some in depth explanation here:
The first thing I'd like to clarify is that I Ching is not a monograph by a single author, but a collection of canonical divination texts written by different authors across a time span of several centuries. The organization and content of Classic of Changes we read today follows formalized version from Han dynasty mostly during the reign of Emperor Wudi (157 BC - 87 BC), known as 《周易》 (Zhou Yi). Works in the Zhou Yi collection are organized into two groups: 《本經》 (Benjing) or "original classical text," and 《十翼》(Shi-yi), literally "Ten Wings."[2] Ben-jing consists of the more ancient (circa early Zhou period) esoteric divination texts revolving around the 六十四卦 or Hexagram. Ten Wings refers to a collection of later ten interpretive/hermeneutic works on Ben-jing written sometime during the Spring and Autumn (771 BC - 476 BC) and Warring States (475 BC - 221 BC) periods.
The Grand Historian's Account
Perhaps the most well known account on the origins and authorship of I Ching came from Sima Qian's Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian). With regard to the textual history of the original divination text of the Hexagrams or Ben-jing portions of I Ching, Sima Qian wrote:
西 伯 蓋 即 位 五 十 年 其 囚 羑 里 蓋 益 易 之 八 卦 為 六 十 四 卦 詩 人 道 西 伯 蓋 受 命 之 年 稱 王 而 斷 虞 芮 之 訟 後 十 年 而 崩 謚 為 文 王 改 法 度 制 正 朔 矣
Here’s my quick translation of this passage:
Duke Gai of Xi (the contemporaneous title of King Wen of Zhou)’s reign lasted fifty years. During his imprisonment (by the Shang king) at the Youli Palace, Duke Gai expanded the existing Bagua (Eight trigrams) divination text into Sixty-Four Hexagrams. Author of Zhou court hymns claims that the year Duke Gai of Xi received the Mandate of Heaven, he peacefully resolved the dispute between the state of Yu and the state of Rui. Duke Gai died ten years later and was posthumously named King Wen for his legal reforms and his establishment of the official lunisolar calendar. --Zhou Benji, chapter 11)
As written in Zhou Benji, Sima Qian indeed attributed the authorship of the Ben-jing portions of I Ching to King Wen of Zhou, but qualified his role as expanding and improving the pre existing Bagua divination text. Sima Qian did not specify the historical origin of the allegedly even more ancient Bagua divination, except that it is in the realm of ancient mythological traditions. Sima Qian wrote in his postscript *《太史公自序》
“...according to ancient oral traditions, Fuxi being the epitome of pure wisdom and virtue, authored the Bagua divination.” (余聞之先人曰：伏羲至純厚，作易八卦。).
Also interestingly, Sima Qian’s passage implied a connection between King Wen’s invention of the Hexagram and his subsequent receiving the Mandate of Heaven (to overthrow the Shang rule), but prefaced this connection with a caveat “according to authors of Zhou court hymns,” which is Sima Qian’s way of cautioning the readers to treat this official narrative as a romanticized poetic retelling of Zhou’s defeat of Shang. If anything, in this passage, Sima Qian deconstructed the classic epic story arc of “King Wen receiving the Mandate of Heaven” as recorded in I Ching and Shijing (Book of Odes) – which by the way could be summarized (in a highly distilled way) as “after his father’s failed rebelling against Shang rule, King Wen of Zhou was imprisoned by the Shang King at the Youli palace, and amidst this most trying time King Wen got the divine inspiration and authored the Book of Changes, which he used to formulate his successful escape plan (via intricate series of briberies), and provided him with the wisdom to resolve disputes among other feudal states, bring legal reforms, even inventing a better lunisolar calendar, which eventually and led him to receive Mandate of Heaven, a Mandate which to be completed by his son King Wu...” – into discrete historical events that later court hymn writers decided to highlight and use them as poetic plot devices. Sima Qian even used the contemporaneous title “Duke Gai of Xi” when referring to King Wen in this passage, something that is rarely used in writings, to emphasize and separate what Sima Qian considered the historical elements from the poetic narratives.
That being said, Sima Qian did attribute the majority of the I Ching’s content, or the Ten Wings portion of the book to one entirely different author:
孔 子 晚 而 喜 易 序 《彖》 《繫》 《象》 《說卦》 《文言》 讀 易 韋 編 三 絕 曰「假 我 數 年 若 是 我 於 易 則 彬 彬 矣 」
Here’s my quick translation of the above passage:
Confucious in his elderly years became increasingly found of Yi (referring to the ancient Bengjing Hexagrams text). He authored five sets of interpretative books for Yi (each set comprises of a in-text annotation and a separate, self contained monogram), titled Tuan (“On Interpretations”), Xi (“Establishing Connections”), Xiang (“On Representations”), *Shuogua (“Discourse on Hexagrams”), and *Wenyan (“Elaborations of the Text”). Confucius re-read Yi so intensively that he had worn out three bamboo slip copybooks of Yi. Confucius said (in a jestingly fashion): “Grant me a few more years of life, if so, myself and Yi would fully complete each other.”
Not only did Sima Qian attribute 90% of the I Ching’s text as Confucius’ works, by highlighting that particular quote of Confucius (which is also recorded in the Analects) at the end of the passage, Sima Qian is reminding the readers I Ching in terms of its textual history, should be seen first and foremost as a work of classical Confucian philosophy rather than a esoteric early Zhou divination text.
Many later neo-Confucian scholars, most notably Ouyang Xiu (1007-1042) casted doubt on Sima Qian’s claim that all Ten Wings are works by Confucius himself. Ouyang Xiu offered an alternative theory of I Ching’s origins which became widely accepted by later Chinese literary historians. While acknowledging the “ancient origins” of the esoteric Benjing portions of I Ching, Ouyang suggests it is “highly unlikely” authored by King Wen himself, considering many surviving early Zhou bronze and ironware inscriptions do not correspond to the divination text of the Benjing. With regard to the authorship of Ten Wings, Ouyang claims that only Xi (“Making Connections”) and Xiang (“On Representations”) are possibly by Confucius himself, given their stylistic similarity to Spring and Autumn. Ouyang suspects remaining works in the Ten Wings portion of I Ching are likely authored by Confucianist scholars from much later time, most likely during the Warring States period or even in the early Han dynasty.
P.s. Some recent discoveries from early Warring States / late Spring Autumn period bamboo slip texts unearthed from Guodian Chujian archaeological site added a very interesting twist to this whole debate, as Guodian Chujian bamboo slips made direct references to many titles from the Ten Wings, all of which are attributed to Confucius himself, just like what Sima Qian recorded in Shiji.
Sources:
魏慈德，馬王堆帛書《周易》經文的照片與底本 用字問題
《周易 尚書》文華嚴書
Sima Qian, Shiji
歐陽修，《易童子问·卷三》
郭店楚簡資料庫 CUHK
