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I Ching lines
Lines and their places
Every hexagram is six lines, and each line carries two facts: where it sits, and what value the cast gave it. The place decides what the line is about; the value decides whether it speaks at all. This is the grammar the rest of the system runs on.
- 6
- positions
- 4
- line values
- 384
- line texts in the classic
The grammar of a hexagram
First the six places, counted from the bottom of the figure upward. Then the four values a line can come out as, of which only two move.
The six places
Counted from the bottom up.
①
1. The first line
初 · Chū
Bottom
Yang place
The bottom line, read first. The start of the situation, before anyone can see what it is.
②
2. The second line
二 · Èr
Central
Yin place
The centre of the lower trigram, and one of the two best places in the figure.
③
3. The third line
三 · Sān
Threshold
Yang place
The top of the lower trigram. The most exposed place in the figure, and the one with the most warnings.
④
4. The fourth line
四 · Sì
Upper trigram
Yin place
The first line of the upper trigram: inside the room where decisions are made, and close to whoever makes them.
⑤
5. The fifth line
五 · Wǔ
Central
Yang place
The ruler
The centre of the upper trigram, and the ruling place of the hexagram: authority used well.
⑥
6. The top line
上 · Shàng
Top
Yin place
The last line, called 'above' rather than sixth. The end of the situation, past the point of usefulness.
The four line values
What a single cast produces.
⚊
9. Old yang
老陽 · Lǎo Yáng
Moving
Changes to yin
A solid line at its maximum, marked 9. It moves, and becomes a broken line in the second hexagram.
⚊
7. Young yang
少陽 · Shào Yáng
Stable
No line text
A solid line with room left to grow, marked 7. It stays as it is and carries no line text.
⚋
8. Young yin
少陰 · Shào Yīn
Stable
No line text
A broken line with room left to yield, marked 8. It stays as it is and carries no line text.
⚋
6. Old yin
老陰 · Lǎo Yīn
Moving
Changes to yang
A broken line at its maximum, marked 6. It moves, and becomes a solid line in the second hexagram.
Place and value
Two separate things are true of every line in a hexagram. The first is where it sits: first place, second place, and so on up to the top. The second is what value the casting produced for it, which is one of four numbers rather than a simple yes or no.
Place is fixed by the figure and is what the line texts are mostly about. The classic reads the six positions as a hierarchy and as a sequence in time, so the bottom line is the beginning and the newcomer, the fifth is the ruler, and the top is the aftermath. Value is fixed by the cast and decides whether that line is in motion.
Correctness, centrality and correspondence
Three structural relationships do most of the analytical work in traditional commentary.
A line is correct when its type matches its place: solid lines belong in the first, third and fifth places, broken lines in the second, fourth and sixth. A line is central when it sits in the middle of its trigram, which means the second and fifth places only, and centrality is praised more consistently than correctness anywhere in the classic. A line corresponds with the line three places away, pairing first with fourth, second with fifth and third with top, and the pair is said to answer each other when they are of opposite types.
A hexagram whose second and fifth lines are central, correct and in correspondence is about as well-ordered as the system allows, and the Judgment texts frequently explain their own good fortune by pointing at exactly that.
The four values
A cast produces a six, a seven, an eight or a nine for each line. Sevens and eights are young yang and young yin: stable, silent, and read only as part of the figure's structure. Sixes and nines are old yin and old yang, lines that have reached the end of their range and are turning into their opposites. Those are the moving lines, they are the ones whose texts you read, and they generate the second hexagram.
The two standard casting methods do not produce these four values with the same frequencies. Yarrow stalks weight them unevenly; three coins flatten them. The difference is ancient, real, and still argued about.
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