In relation to their characterization in terms of chapters, that description, even though informative, does not represent adequately the multivalence of significance the conception of the Odu embodies in the ontological framework of the Ifa system. The Odu are understood not only as consisting of the graphic forms realised by lines organised in numerical formations, and of textual expressions, realizable through the resources provided to the essentially oral system of Ifa, by the graphic symbols of the written language.

They are also understood in terms that relate less to a conception of a text as an inert codification of expressions, than to what we might describe as dynamic content, dynamic in the sense that it is realizable in various ways by different audiences, as emphasised by reader response theory, but more to an understanding of texts that relates to Milton’s conception when he asserts that “A good book is the precious life blood of a master spirit, sealed and transmitted to a life beyond life” and van Gogh describes as a predominance of the “working of the soul, which is realized in its effects on its audience as “an awakening power”.

The Odu are depicted in terms that not only integrate the sense of endogenous dynamism, expressive of a motive fore emanating from an imaginative creator, a force described by Milton as “a precious life-blood”, by van Gogh as “the working of the soul” but goes beyond these to depict the Odu as sentient entities, each of which embodies its own centre of ultimate direction, known in traditional Yoruba ontology as Ori. The Ori represent the spiritual and cognitive centre of an entity, within which is embodied its complete potential for actualisation, in relation to the matrix of influences to which it relates. Its origin is described as preterrestial. In describing each of the Odu as embodying its own center of ultimate direction or Ori, the Odu are thereby perceived as self-conscious entities, each with own sense of mission, because the conception of the significance of the Ori suggests ideas of destiny as well as of mission.