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䷱
Hexagram 50 of 64
The Cauldron
鼎 · Dǐng
A bronze ritual cauldron, drawn line by line: legs, belly, handles, carrying rings. The hexagram is about culture, refinement and the holding of office.
transformation
culture
nourishment
office
- King Wen number
- 50 of 64
- Above
- ☲ Lí · Fire
- Below
- ☴ Xùn · Wind
- Composition
- Fire over Wind
- Lines, bottom to top
- Broken · solid · solid · solid · broken · solid
- Chinese
- 鼎 · Dǐng
The Judgment
Supreme good fortune. Success.
Four characters, entirely favourable. The ding was the emblem of legitimate rule, and the classic spends no words qualifying it.
The Image
Fire above wood: the Cauldron. So the noble person makes their position correct and thereby steadies their destiny.
A vessel works because it is standing straight. The classic makes the same claim about a person in office.
What it means
Ding is a bronze ritual cauldron, and in early China possession of the ding was possession of the mandate itself. The hexagram draws one: a yin line at the bottom for the legs, solid lines for the belly, an open line for the handles, and a strong line at the top for the carrying ring.
What the vessel does is transform. Raw ingredients go in, fire is applied, and something emerges that can be offered. The classic uses it for culture in the broadest sense: education, refinement, ritual, the process by which crude material is made fit to serve.
Its warning is about capacity. The fourth line has the legs snapping, the prince's meal on the floor and his robes ruined, and the Great Treatise takes this as the type of someone holding an office too big for them. The failure is public, immediate and hard to undo.
The Image gives the preventive. Make your position correct and your destiny steadies. A cauldron works because it stands level, and the same is claimed of a person: the alignment comes first and the contents follow.
In a reading
The Cauldron as an answer is favourable and concerns transformation, office and the making of something refined out of raw material.
Its counsel is to get the vessel right: your position, your preparation, the fit between what you are being asked to hold and what you can carry. If something excellent in the matter cannot be lifted or served, the third line locates the problem in the fittings rather than in the substance.
The six lines
Read a line's text only when the cast made it a moving line. They are listed from the top of the figure down, the way the hexagram is drawn.
-
Nine at the top
The cauldron has rings of jade. Great good fortune. Nothing that does not further.
Jade rather than metal: hard and mild at once. The best line ending in the hexagram.
-
Six in the fifth place
The cauldron has yellow handles and golden rings. It rewards holding to the course.
Central, valuable and properly fitted. The ruling line.
-
Nine in the fourth place
The legs of the cauldron break. The prince's meal is spilled and he is soiled. Misfortune.
The classic quotes this line elsewhere as the model of someone whose capacity does not match their office. Everything is spilled in public.
-
Nine in the third place
The handle is altered and the way is blocked. The pheasant fat goes uneaten. When the rain falls, regret is spent. Good fortune in the end.
Something excellent that cannot be lifted or served. The obstruction is in the fitting, not the contents.
-
Nine in the second place
There is food in the cauldron. My rivals are envious and cannot reach me. Good fortune.
Substance in the vessel. Envy is noted and dismissed in the same breath.
-
Six at the beginning
The cauldron with its legs upturned. It helps to get the old matter out. One takes a concubine for the sake of her son. No blame.
Tipping it over to clean it. An undignified position that is exactly right for the purpose.
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