Trigram

Origin

Chinese tradition attributes the eight trigrams to the mythical first emperor Fu Xi, who is said to have discovered them on the back of a turtle emerging from the Luo river around 2800 BCE. The Shuogua, one of the Ten Wings of the I Ching attributed to Confucius and his school around 500 BCE, gives the names, attributes, and correspondences of each trigram. The trigrams predate the written I Ching and were used in early Chinese divination on their own, before they were combined into hexagrams.

Two arrangements of the eight trigrams are traditional. The Earlier Heaven sequence, attributed to Fu Xi, places the trigrams in a symmetrical pattern around the cardinal directions, with Qian (heaven) in the south and Kun (earth) in the north. The Later Heaven sequence, attributed to King Wen of Zhou around 1100 BCE, rearranges the trigrams to match the cycle of the seasons, with Li (fire) in the south and Kan (water) in the north. The Earlier Heaven arrangement is used in meditation, philosophy, and feng shui to describe ideal cosmic structure. The Later Heaven arrangement is used in calendar science, divination, and applied feng shui to describe the world in time.

Meaning and method

The eight trigrams are Qian, three Yang lines, the Creative, heaven, father, head, northwest, metal. Kun, three Yin lines, the Receptive, earth, mother, belly, southwest, earth. Zhen, one Yang at the bottom under two Yin, the Arousing, thunder, eldest son, foot, east, wood. Kan, one Yang between two Yin, the Abysmal, water, middle son, ear, north, water. Gen, one Yang on top of two Yin, Keeping Still, mountain, youngest son, hand, northeast, earth. Xun, one Yin at the bottom under two Yang, the Gentle, wind, eldest daughter, thigh, southeast, wood.

Li, one Yin between two Yang, the Clinging, fire, middle daughter, eye, south, fire. Dui, one Yin on top of two Yang, the Joyous, lake, youngest daughter, mouth, west, metal. The eight trigrams form four complementary pairs: Qian and Kun (heaven and earth), Zhen and Xun (thunder and wind), Kan and Li (water and fire), Gen and Dui (mountain and lake). The complementary structure is read by inverting each line: Yang becomes Yin and Yin becomes Yang. These four pairs are the structural axes of the Chinese cosmos and the basis of the hexagram system.

In practice

In divination, trigrams appear within hexagrams as the upper and lower halves. The lower trigram describes the inner situation of the questioner, the upper trigram the outer environment or the manifesting force. A hexagram with Qian above and Kun below reads as heaven over earth, the lower meeting the upper, which is hexagram 12 Pi, Stagnation. The reverse, Kun above and Qian below, gives hexagram 11 Tai, Peace, because earth and heaven interpenetrate when each is in its receptive position. Trigrams can also be used alone, drawing one trigram from eight by the toss of three coins, giving a single-symbol reading. Use the I Ching oracle for digital casting.

In feng shui, the Later Heaven sequence is used to map the home or workspace. The bagua grid divides the floorplan into nine sections, eight trigrams plus the centre. Each section is associated with a life domain: Kan (north) with career, Li (south) with fame, Zhen (east) with family, Dui (west) with creativity, Gen (northeast) with knowledge, Xun (southeast) with wealth, Qian (northwest) with helpful people, Kun (southwest) with relationships. The bagua grid is overlaid on the floor plan with the door wall in the south, and each domain is examined for clutter, light, and energy flow.

Symbolic depth

The trigrams encode the Chinese metaphysics of family and force. The three lines correspond to the three powers of heaven, humanity, and earth, called san cai. The bottom line is earth, the middle is humanity, the top is heaven. Within a trigram the lines describe the position of the three powers in the situation at hand. The eight trigrams also map onto the family: Qian is the father, Kun the mother, and the remaining six trigrams are the three sons and three daughters arranged by which line is the active or sole line of the opposite polarity.

In the Shuogua, each trigram is given dozens of correspondences, including animals (Qian is horse, Kun is ox, Zhen is dragon, Kan is pig, Gen is dog, Xun is rooster, Li is pheasant, Dui is sheep) and body parts. These correspondences allow the trigrams to be used not only for divination but also for medical diagnosis, calendar science, martial arts, and architecture. Continue with Hexagram, I Ching, Bagua, Yin and Yang, and Taoism for the philosophical context, or visit the oracle hub.

Also known as

• Gua
• Three-Line Figure
• Bagua Sign
• Pa Kua
• Chinese Trigram