In China, the use of oracle bones dates as far back as the Shang Dynasty, (16001046 BC). The I Ching, or "Book of Changes", is a collection of linear signs used as oracles that are from that period. Although divination with the I Ching is thought to have originated prior to the Shang Dynasty, it was not until King Wu of Zhou (10461043 BC) that it took its present form. In addition to its oracular power, the I Ching has had a major influence on the philosophy, literature and statecraft of China from the time of the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC AD 256).
This was an important site in the Predynastic era of Ancient Egypt, which includes the cultural developments of ten thousand years from the Paleolithic to 3100 BC The temple was dedicated to the worship of Wadjet and may have been the source for the oracular tradition that spread to Ancient Greece from Egypt. Herodotus ii. 55 and vii. 134 The Per-Wadjet tradition continued through the entire history of the Ancient Egyptian culture. The later Greeks called both the goddess and the city Buto.thumb|right|The remains of the oracle temple of Amun at Oasis. ]Another oracle of note lay in Egypt during the Eighteenth dynasty (15501292 BC), in a temple dedicated to Amun, a god who rose to importance during that time. The Greeks associated him with Zeus. Alexander the Great once visited it, and although no record of his query remains, the oracle is thought to have hailed him as Ammon's son, influencing his conceptions of his own divinity.
It became the second most important oracle in ancient Greece, which later was dedicated to Zeus and to Heracles during the classical period of Greece.
Oracles played key roles in many of the major incidents of the epics Mahabharat and Ramayana. An example is that Kamsa, the evil uncle of lord Krishna, was informed by an oracle that the eighth son of his sister Devaki would kill him.
Though the vast majority of Igbos today are Christian, many in Nigeria today still use oracles.
Two of these became especially famous: the Agbala oracle at Awka and the Chukwu oracle at Arochukwu. Webster J.B. and Boahen A.A., The Revolutionary Years, West Africa since 1800 , Longman, London, p. 107108.
The Dalai Lama has according to custom, a custom that has endured for centuries, consulted the Nechung Oracle during the new year festivites of Losar. Gyatso, Tenzin (1988).
Source: Wikipedia > Oracle
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