• The Journal of Korean Medical History
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.135-147
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• 2018

Analyzing the Book of Changes, researchers noted that animals and plants utilized as symbols in the Book of Changes were later used as medicinals in East Asian medicine. They found 24 animals and plants utilized as symbols in the Book of Changes; specifically in six statements on the hexagrams and 53 statements on the lines. The animal and plant symbols in 59 statements are more clearly interpreted with the descriptions in the Compendium of Materia Medica. Eleven plants referenced in the Book of Changes were written with their nicknames, causing confusion to the researchers of later times. Using the Compendium of Materia Medica however, these plants can be identified. Livestock were mentioned 34 times among the 59 statements, with horse and cattle being the most often at eight times, each. They are subdivided according to their sex and color. The writers of the Book of Changes constructed an elaborate symbol system with the animals that are familiar to people, and which, through this research, has been decoded through cross references to the Compendium of Material Medica.