Home·The eight trigrams
The eight trigrams
Every hexagram is two trigrams, one set above the other. The eight trigrams and the rules for combining them explain where exactly 64 hexagrams come from and why each means what it means.
What a trigram is
A trigram is three lines, solid or broken. A solid line answers to the light principle (yang), a broken one to the dark (yin). Three positions, two possible states in each: 2³ = 8 combinations, no more and no fewer.
Each combination carries a natural image — heaven, earth, thunder, water, mountain, wind, fire, lake — and an attribute, a way of acting. The image helps you remember; the attribute helps you read.
Qián · The Creative
In the family: father
Three solid lines — light at its fullest. Not power and not force, but the capacity to begin: that out of which things arise.
Zhèn · Arousing
In the family: eldest son
One solid line breaks upward beneath two broken ones — movement that has just begun and has not yet met resistance.
Kǎn · The Abysmal
In the family: middle son
A solid line locked between two broken ones. Light within, darkness without: danger, but also depth. Water flows and does not lose itself.
Gèn · Keeping Still
In the family: youngest son
A solid line settles on top and halts the movement. The mountain is not an obstacle but a limit at which movement completes itself.
Kūn · The Receptive
In the family: mother
Three broken lines — yielding at its fullest. Not weakness but readiness to receive and to carry: earth bears everything and refuses nothing.
Xùn · The Gentle
In the family: eldest daughter
A broken line at the base — what enters from below, unnoticed. Wind penetrates everywhere: an action gentle and inescapable.
Lí · The Clinging
In the family: middle daughter
A broken line within, solid ones without. Fire has no body of its own: it holds to what burns — hence «clinging», hence clarity.
Duì · The Joyous
In the family: youngest daughter
A broken line on top — openness outward. The lake receives and gives back; joy here is not a mood but the release of what has gathered.
How eight become sixty-four
Two trigrams stacked give a hexagram: 8 × 8 = 64. The lower trigram describes the inner side of the situation, the upper the outer.
Table of combinations
Row is the upper trigram, column the lower. Tap a number to open it.