“The Point of View that underlies the Yijing of I Ching is that instead of trying to understand events to past causes, it understands events by relations to their present pattern… we do not understand something by what went before so much as we for by understanding what went with it.”
China is greatly fashioned today by traditions and customs from ancient times. Some of the greatest influence on Chinese culture is the Three Sage Kings Yao, Shun and Yu. Yao, Shun and Yu were semi-mythical figures from ancient China that went hand in hand with the Yellow Emperor. Some say Yao was the first of the three kings who then passed it down to the greatest of his sons, Shun who passed it down to his own son, Yu. Some say that Yao deemed his son unworthy of the throne and found another, whom was not his son at all, in the form of Shun. Shun then recruited Yu to control the Yellow River’s floods and eventually passed the throne to him when his sons were unworthy of the throne.
Their ruling, along with the Five Emperors, marked the first dynasty of China, which ended when Yu passed down the rule to his son starting the Xia dynasty.
The three kings embodied all that a good ruler should be. They ruled with the perfect wisdom, virtue and clarity that set the example for all emperors after them. They set the moral standards for what every person should strive to be to this day.
The Sage Kings are also credited with the invention of practically everything from ancient China that made it civilized. Yao was said to have created the 365-day calendar to regulate agriculture and established rudimentary government. Yu was credited with taming the Yellow River’s floods and dividing the empire into 9 provinces.
The Sage Kings probably were really people that were made into a mythical figure. While they’re over-exaggerated, they must have done some great things to be personified as the perfect rulers. As ideals, with the Five Emperors, they turned China into the sophisticated culture of the time, setting it on its path to today.
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