Glossary of Chinese Yijing terms
This is a glossary of Yijing technical terms that appear on this site, in alphabetical order of pinyin syllables, so xiantian comes before xiangshu. If you need a Chinese font, you can download one.
八純卦
'Eight pure hexagrams' – The eight hexagrams where upper and lower trigrams
are the same (1, 2, 29, 30, 51, 52, 57, 58). Each heads a 'palace' of Jing
Fang's Eight Palaces arrangement, so
such hexagrams are also known as 'palace hexagrams' (GONGGUA).
八宮
'Eight Palaces' – The Eight Palaces
arrangement of Jing Fang. Sometimes called 'Eight Houses', though this is
less accurate.
八卦
'Eight trigrams'
八卦五行
'Eight trigrams five phases' – Each of the eight trigrams is associated
with one of the Five Phases (see WUXING).
Qian is metal, Kun is soil, Zhen is wood, Xun is wood, Kan is water, Li
is fire, Gen is soil, Dui is metal.
辟卦
'Sovereign hexagrams' – A sequence of 12 hexagrams
that show the waning and waxing of yang and yin, correlating with the 12
months and lunar phases. See also XIAOXIGUA.
錯卦
'Inlaid hexagrams' – Two hexagrams where the yin and yang lines in one are
yang and yin lines, respectively, in the same positions in the other. One
is the cuogua of the other. In English such hexagrams are said to be 'complementary'.
They are also known as PANGTONGGUA, 'laterally
linked hexagrams'. For further details, see my notes on cuogua.
大橫圖
'Great horizontal diagram' – This diagram
is explained in Yijing hexagram sequences. The
diagram that ascends for three levels, to form the eight trigrams, is called
the xiaohengtu (small horizontal diagram). See also XIANTIANTU.
反卦
'Turned-over hexagrams' – The fangua of a hexagram is the hexagram it becomes
by being turned upside down. For instance, hexagram 3 is the fangua of hexagram
4. There are a number of synonyms of fangua, of which FUGUA
and ZONGGUA have been used on this site.
覆卦
'Overturned hexagrams' – Same as FANGUA. Some
contemporary Chinese authors on the Yijing have been using the term fugua
incorrectly, see my notes on this.
剛柔
'Firm/yielding' – Solid and broken lines may be known as yang and yin now
but in the Tuanzhuan ('Commentary on the Decision', the first two of the
Ten Wings) the technical terms for such lines are 'firm' (gang) and 'yielding'
(rou), sometimes translated as 'hard' and 'soft'. These terms appear to
pre-date the use of yang and yin to describe the lines.
宮卦
'Palace hexagram' – See BACHUNGUA.
卦
'Divination figure' – This character has been translated both as 'hexagram'
and 'trigram' in Yijing studies, context deciding which is meant. But its
use is not exclusive to the Yi, it is also the term used for the three-row
divination figure constructed from throwing 12 disks in the Lingqijing,
translated by Sawyer as 'trigraph', avoiding confusion
with 'trigram'. The right-hand half of the character is said to represent
a crack made in a tortoise shell, the method of divination preceding divination
by milfoil (yarrow) stalks.
卦主
'Hexagram ruler' – See my notes on ruling lines.
歸魂
'Returning soul' – Explained in my notes on the Eight
Palaces arrangement of hexagrams. Related to YOUHUN,
'wandering soul'.
河圖
'(Yellow) River diagram' – Diagram showing the numbers 1–10 as 55 black and white dots. The black dots are the numbers of Earth, being even and yin, whereas the white dots are the numbers of Heaven, odd and yang. Notice that the outer numbers are 6, 7, 8, and 9 – the numbers of the four types of line arising from coin and yarrow divination (see SIXIANG and YAOSHU). A dragon-horse is supposed to have come out of the river bearing the diagram. In Han dynasty lore, the Hetu was received by Fuxi, who used it to invent the trigrams. Confucius appears to have heard of the Hetu (Analects 9.9), but the diagram we know today looks to have turned up in the Song dynasty (960–1279). The diagram is paired with the LUOSHU. Both Hetu and Luoshu are sometimes combined with the circular trigram arrangements.
後天圖
'After Heaven diagram' – Circular trigram arrangement. Other translations are 'Later Heaven' and 'Succeeding Heaven' diagram. Also known as the King Wen arrangement. Paired with the XIANTIANTU, 'Before Heaven diagram'.
互卦
'Interlocked trigrams' – This is the term usually given in English as 'nuclear
trigrams', which refers to the two trigrams embedded in a hexagram in lines
2-3-4 and lines 3-4-5. They overlap, sharing the two middle lines of the
hexagram. Some have translated hu as 'mutual', which isn't incorrect, but
note that Karlgren said the character depicts two hooks gripping each other,
so 'interlocked' is better. For further details, see my notes on nuclear
hexagrams.
互體
'Interlocked body' – A synonym of HUGUA.
火珠林法
'Forest of Fire Pearls Method' – The three-coin method of consulting the Yi. This method is also called WENWANG KE.
兩象易
'The two images change over' – The 'two images' here are the upper and lower
trigrams of a hexagram. This term refers to swapping them over to form a
different hexagram, such that the lower trigram in the first becomes the
upper in the second and the upper in the first the lower in the second.
For example, this procedure applied to hexagram 20 gives hexagram 46. This
term has a number of synonyms, but none of them are used on this site. Some
contemporary Chinese Yijing authors have incorrectly
used the term FUGUA when they should have
used liangxiangyi or one of its synonyms.
洛書
'Luo (river) writing' – Diagram showing the numbers 1–9 as 45 black and white dots, actually a magic square of three. The three numbers across, down, and diagonally add up to 15. The black dots are the numbers of Earth, even and yin. The white dots are the numbers of Heaven, odd and yang. The white dots are at the centre and on the four cardinal compass points (N, S, E, and W), while the black dots are in the intermediary directions. The diagram is supposed to have been borne out of the River Luo on a turtle's back, a story which could indicate that it was an inscribed oracle bone that was washed up. Yu the Great is said to have received it. The Luoshu is mentioned by name in late Zhou literature but its form isn't described. The 'writing' (shu) surfaced in the Song dynasty (960–1279) as a diagram, the one we know today. It is paired with the HETU. Both Luoshu and Hetu are sometimes combined with the circular trigram arrangements.
梅花
'Plum blossom' – A numerological method of Yijing divination, based on observation
and correlative deduction, that doesn't use coins or yarrow to form the
hexagram and doesn't use the text. See the review of Lillian Too's plum
blossom book.
納甲
'Inserted jia [stem]' – See the review article on najia.
旁通卦
'Laterally linked hexagrams' – Complementary hexagrams. A synonym of CUOGUA.
三變筮法
'Three change yarrow method' – A way of getting a hexagram using fifty yarrow stalks (or black-laquered counting rods) and six wooden blocks representing hexagram lines (yao bars), with yang on one side and yin on the other. Sometimes yin is black with the gap carved out and yang is red, or the blocks are stained and polished wood with inlaid metal for the gap in the yin line. Three manipulations are performed with the stalks or counting rods. The first determines the inner (lower) trigram, the second the outer (upper) trigram, and finally the third gives you a single moving line. The block of the moving line is nudged out a little to mark it. See The I Ching on YouTube for two Japanese video demonstrations.
四象
'Four images' – Greater yin, lesser yang, lesser yin, and greater yang. How they are formed is shown on the xiantian diagram. They are otherwise known as old yin (line value 6), young yang (7), young yin (8), and old yang (9), respeectively. They are: moving yin, static yang, static yin, and moving yang. The numbers 6, 7, 8, and 9 are known both as the xiang numbers and YAOSHU.
太極
'Supreme polarity'
太極圖
'Diagram of the supreme polarity' – The circular design otherwise known
as the yin-yang emblem. (The term taijitu also refers to a diagram
associated with Zhou
Dunyi.)
體卦
'Form trigram' – Term used in MEIHUA (plum
blossom numerology) to refer to the trigram without the moving line that
represents the subject of the question. See also YONGGUA.
圖
'Diagram' – Can also be translated as: chart, picture, map.
文王課
'To enquire of King Wen' or 'King Wen's divination' – The three-coin method of consulting the Yijing. Also known as HUOZHULIN FA.
五行
'Five Phases' or 'Five Agents' – In early translations of books on Chinese
philosophy this was usually given as 'Five Elements', but the relation to
the Western four elements is superficial and best downplayed. The Five Phases
are: wood, fire, soil (earth), metal, and water.
They are ordered in the 'production cycle' and the 'destruction cycle'. The production cycle is shown in the above diagram as the outer pentagon: wood, fire, soil, metal, and water. The traditional explanation is that wood acts as fuel to produce fire, fire forms ashes to make soil, in soil metal ores are found, and metal when it melts becomes liquid like water (an alternative explanation comes from the use of metal mirrors for collecting dew, in that it looks like the metal has generated water). Coming full circle, water nourishes the wood of trees. Thus the Five Phases generate or give birth to each other. The destruction cycle is shown as the inner star and is the order in which the Five Phases conquer or overcome each other: metal, wood, soil, water, fire. Metal tools cut wood, wooden tools such as the plough can break up earth, earth can be used to make dams and cut off water (or simply that earth soaks up water), water can extinguish a fire, and back full circle fire can melt metal. The destruction cycle seems to be the one most smoothly explained, and it is probably the earliest (circa 4th century BCE). The childhood game of 'Scissors, Paper, Stone' – which was invented in China – is an application of a similar kind of thinking to the destruction cycle.
先天
'Before Heaven' or 'Earlier Heaven' or 'Preceding Heaven' – See XIANTIANTU
and HOUTIANTU.
先天方圓圖
'Before Heaven square and circle diagram' – The 'Before Heaven' sequence
of hexagrams arranged in a square in the middle of a circle of them in the
same order. There are examples of such diagrams in the scans
archive, such as this one. See Yijing
hexagram sequences.
先天圖
'Before Heaven diagram' – Circular trigram arrangement in which opposite trigrams are complementary (a yin line in one is a yang line in the same position in the other, and vice versa, a relationship called PANTONGGUA). Other translations are 'Earlier Heaven' and 'Preceding Heaven' diagram. Also known as the Fuxi arrangement. On this site I regard all
diagrams based on the 'Before Heaven' ordering as xiantiantu, such as the DAHENGTU, not just the trigram circle. Paired with the HOUTIANTU, 'After Heaven diagram'. See also Yijing
hexagram sequences.
象數
'Image and Number' – Name of a school of thought that is largely uninterested
in the text of the Book of Changes, save to the extent that the structure
of the hexagram figures, their constituent and nuclear trigrams, and numerous
types of line relationships can be made to sound as if they explain it;
whereas the 'Meaning and Pattern' (YILI) school
interpret the text on its own terms without great regard for the drawn oracular
figure associated with it, save that it gives emphasis to the text via the
changing lines. Xiangshu practitioners often ignore the text altogether,
either in divination methods such as MEIHUA
(plum blossom numerology), or in studies of arrangements of hexagrams, sequences,
symmetries, and diagrams. There is some crossover – for instance, Wang Bi
(226–249) is often regarded as the initiator of 'Meaning and Pattern', yet
he used line positions and ruling lines in his commentary, while being critical
of the use of nuclear trigrams (HUGUA) and five phases (WUXING).
消息卦
'Waning and waxing hexagrams' – A synonym of BIGUA.
The xiaogua are the waning hexagrams (44, 33, 12, 20, 23, 2) and the xigua
are the waxing hexagrams (24, 19, 11, 34, 43, 1). See my
notes.
爻
'Hexagram line' – The technical term for a line in a hexagram. Originally,
the term may have applied only to a changing line, but today it is used
to refer to any kind of line, yin, yang, changing, unchanging.
爻數
'Line number' – The numbers 6, 7, 8, and 9 derived from yarrow or coin divination, referring to the following line types, respectively: moving yin, static yang, static yin, and moving yang. Also known as xiang numbers, after the 'four images', SIXIANG.
義理
'Meaning and Pattern' – Explained under XIANGSHU.
陰陽魚
'Yin yang fish' – Alternative name for the TAIJITU,
or yin-yang emblem.
用卦
'Function trigram' – Term used in MEIHUA (plum
blossom numerology) to refer to the trigram with the moving line that shows
what will happen to the TIGUA or subject of
the question.
用九
用六
'Apply nines' and 'apply sixes', respectively – Way of referring to the
seventh line in hexagrams 1 and 2, which is read when all six lines change,
such that you get all nines (all changing yang) or all sixes (all changing
yin) when casting the hexagram. The significance of the character yong,
'apply' or 'use' or 'employ', is a little obscure in this term. Maybe it
means the lines have been 'expended' or 'used up'.
游魂
'Wandering soul' – Explained in my notes on the Eight
Palaces arrangement of hexagrams. Related to GUIHUN,
'returning soul'.
綜卦
'Woven pattern hexagrams' – Same as FANGUA.
See my notes on zonggua.
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