Hexagram 20觀Contemplation
Contemplation is the discipline of stepping back to observe and, at the same time, the discipline of being seen. The hexagram is the I Ching's instruction for the moment when the right move is not to act but to model dignified, principled conduct from a higher vantage — so that those below can read the model and align without coercion.
60-second read
Contemplation is the hexagram for the moment when action stops being the load-bearing move and observation becomes the work. The hexagram statement is one of the most ritually precise in the Yijing: the worshipper has performed the hand-washing but has not yet made the offering, and what is seen in him is sincerity in dignified appearance. The instruction is twofold — observe the field from a vantage high enough to actually read it, and conduct yourself so that what you are doing is itself legible to those below. The two halves are the same discipline read from opposite sides.
The hexagram
觀：盥而不薦，有孚顒若。
Contemplation: hand-washing performed, but offering not yet made. There is sincerity, with a dignified appearance. — Translation by YiGram Editorial from the classical Chinese
“Kwan shows (how he whom it represents should be like) the worshipper who has washed his hands, but not (yet) presented his offerings; — with sincerity and an appearance of dignity (commanding reverent regard).”
— James Legge, The Sacred Books of the East: The I Ching (1882), public domain.
The six lines
Click any line on the hexagram to read its passage. Use ↑ and ↓ after focusing the hexagram to step through the six positions.
童觀，小人無咎，君子吝。
A lad's looking. For small persons, no fault; for the noble person, regret.
“The first SIX, divided, shows the looking of a lad — not blamable in men of small note, but matter for regret in superior men.”
— Legge (1882)
Line 1 is the yin at the bottom of the lower trigram of earth — the lowest position in the hexagram, the furthest from the vantage the hexagram is asking the actor to occupy. 童觀 — the looking of a lad — names the failure exactly. The actor is looking, the act of observation is happening, but the vantage is too low for what is observed to register as anything more than surface. The hexagram is unusually direct about the two-tier consequence. For 小人, persons of small responsibility, the shallow looking is not blamable; the position does not demand more. For 君子, the noble person whose seat carries decision weight, the same shallow looking is matter for regret — 吝, the I Ching's specific term for the small, recoverable shame of an actor who has not lived up to their position.
In a decision context this is the line of the senior whose observation of the field has stayed at the level a junior could perform — reading the dashboard rather than the underlying mechanism, taking the team's summary rather than sitting through the customer call, looking at the quarterly numbers rather than the cohort behaviour the numbers compress. The line is not condemning the act of looking; it is naming the altitude. The fault for the junior is no fault at all — they are looking from where they stand. The fault for the senior is the structural one of operating from too low a vantage when the seat demands a higher one. Founders who pattern-match to their own first-year intuitions years after the company has outgrown those intuitions hit line 1 squarely. The hexagram is honest: the regret is small, but the remedy is not more looking — it is climbing to a vantage that matches the seat.
闚觀，利女貞。
Peeping observation. Advantageous for a woman's firm-correctness.
“The second SIX, divided, shows one peeping out from a door. It would be advantageous (only) for a woman's purpose.”
— Legge (1882)
Line 2 is the centred yin in the lower trigram and the second failure mode of looking. 闚觀 — peeping observation — names the act of viewing the field through a narrow aperture, glimpsing fragments through a partially opened door rather than standing in the open and taking the full view. The classical gloss makes the cost explicit. The line is advantageous only for 女貞 — a woman's firm-correctness — in the specific Zhou-dynasty sense of the constrained, gendered, indoor vantage proper to a particular social role. For the actor whose seat demands the open, public vantage, the peeping is not enough.
For decision-makers this is the line of the operator whose intelligence about the situation is filtered through one channel — the trusted lieutenant whose reports are the only window onto the team, the single customer whose complaints become the proxy for the whole base, the one analyst whose memos shape the entire investment thesis. The hexagram is not condemning the channel; the channel may be excellent. The failure is the narrowness of the aperture relative to what the actor's position demands they actually see. Founders who run their company through one co-founder's filtered read, executives who build strategy on one director's interpretation of the market, principals who see their portfolio only through their longest-tenured associate — all hit line 2. The corrective is not to distrust the channel but to widen the aperture: more channels, more direct exposure, more time spent at the actual surface where the situation is happening.
觀我生，進退。
Observing my own life — advance or withdraw.
“The third SIX, divided, shows one looking at (the course of) his own life, to advance or recede (accordingly).”
— Legge (1882)
Line 3 is the top of the lower trigram and the hexagram's pivot from looking outward to looking inward. 觀我生 — observing my own life. The actor turns the contemplation back on themselves: not the field, not the team, not the situation, but the actual course the actor's own life has taken and the kind of conduct the actor's own work has produced. The second clause is the operative one. 進退 — advance or withdraw. The line is explicit that the introspection is not an exercise in self-knowledge for its own sake; it is the input to a binary decision about whether to step forward or step back. The observation produces the action, and the action follows the observation.
For decision-makers this is the line of the operator at an honest mid-career review — the founder asking whether the seven-year arc is still the right arc, the executive asking whether the next move is upward into a larger role or sideways into a different domain, the partner asking whether the practice they have built deserves another decade of their life. The hexagram is unsentimental about the answer. Some self-observations produce 進, advance — the actor sees clearly that what they have built deserves the next push. Others produce 退, withdraw — the actor sees clearly that the next push would extend something that should be allowed to end. The line refuses to prescribe either outcome. The discipline is the honesty of the observation, and the willingness to let the observation determine the move rather than letting the move pull the observation toward a flattering conclusion.
觀國之光，利用賓于王。
Contemplating the glory of the kingdom. Advantage in being a guest of the king.
“The fourth SIX, divided, shows one contemplating the glory of the kingdom. It will be advantageous for him, being such as he is, (to seek) to be a guest of the king.”
— Legge (1882)
Line 4 is the position closest to the ruler at line 5 and the only line in the hexagram whose contemplation is met by a specific institutional opportunity. 觀國之光 — contemplating the glory of the kingdom. The actor is now standing at an altitude where what they see is the broad health of the institution itself: the regime's strengths, its working culture, the quality of the work being done at the level above. The second clause names the corresponding move. 利用賓于王 — advantage in being a guest of the king. The phrase has a specific Zhou-dynasty resonance: the guest at court is the figure invited into the inner counsel, the talent absorbed into the regime's working circle rather than the supplicant standing outside it.
The decision-relevant translation is precise. For the actor at line 4 the right move is neither continued observation from a distance nor pushing for a formal role; it is the lateral move into the room where the work is happening. For senior operators contemplating an organisation whose direction they admire, the line is explicit that the proper response is to enter as a guest — the trusted advisor, the principal whose counsel is invited, the senior whose presence is requested rather than demanded. Founders who admire a peer company's culture and respond by recruiting their VP; executives who watch a competitor's strategy work and respond by joining their board as an external; senior partners who see another firm's practice flourishing and respond by exploring a cross-firm secondment — all hit line 4 cleanly. The hexagram is unambiguous that the response to contemplating real institutional glory is participation by invitation, not imitation from outside.
觀我生，君子無咎。
Observing my own life. The noble person — no fault.
“The fifth NINE, undivided, shows its subject contemplating his own life. A superior man — he will (thus) fall into no error.”
— Legge (1882)
Line 5 is the ruler line and the second appearance of 觀我生 — observing my own life — that mirrors line 3 with a critical structural difference. At line 3 the actor was inside the lower trigram and the introspection produced a binary advance-or-withdraw decision. At line 5 the actor is the ruler, the figure whose conduct is the model others contemplate, and the introspection is the load-bearing work of the seat itself. The hexagram is precise about the standard: 君子無咎 — the noble person, no fault. The ruler who reliably observes their own life — not their portfolio, not their organisation, not their field, but the kind of conduct their own work is actually producing — operates without the structural error that comes from authority untethered from self-knowledge.
For decision-makers in senior seats the line is the I Ching's most demanding instruction. The ruler's work is not the engineering of results; the ruler's work is the calibration of their own life so that what those below observe is genuinely worth modelling. The line refuses the easier reading that line-5 authority should focus on its public conduct — the work is the private observation of one's own life, with the public dignified appearance of the hexagram statement as the downstream consequence. CEOs whose teams read their actual working pattern more carefully than their announced strategy; senior partners whose juniors absorb their actual relationship to the work; founders whose early employees calibrate their own ambition against the founder's lived intensity — all are figures whose line-5 work is the same. The hexagram is unambiguous that the ruler who does this work falls into no error, and that the ruler who skips this work produces the line-1 lad's looking in everyone below.
觀其生，君子無咎。
Observing his character and ways. The noble person — no fault.
“The topmost NINE, undivided, shows its subject contemplating his character and ways (to see if they are indeed those of a superior man). He will not fall into error.”
— Legge (1882)
Line 6 is the topmost line and the structural mirror of line 5 with the pronoun shifted. Where line 5 read 觀我生 — observing my own life — line 6 reads 觀其生, observing his character and ways. The shift is the whole point. The actor at line 6 has stepped beyond the ruler's seat and now observes the conduct of the figure who occupies it — the principal whose work the actor was once doing, the executive whose seat the actor has just left, the founder whose company the actor has handed over. The hexagram is again unambiguous: 君子無咎, the noble person, no fault. The post-power observer who reliably watches the conduct of the figure now in the seat, without trying to climb back into it, operates without structural error.
For decision-makers this is the line of the senior who has stepped down — the founder who has handed the company to the new CEO, the partner who has rotated off the management committee, the principal whose succession has been completed. The hexagram is honest about the discipline. The temptation at line 6 is to either continue acting from the previous altitude — second-guessing the new leadership, holding the institutional shadow longer than the role — or to disengage entirely as if the position never carried any responsibility. The line refuses both. The work of the post-power observer is to actually observe — to see whether the seat is being held by a noble person, to watch the character and ways of the figure now responsible, and to do that observation honestly enough that the fault, if any, can be named without becoming an instrument of return. Founders who chair boards well, partners who become useful elders, advisors whose counsel is sought because their observation is clean — all are figures whose line-6 work the hexagram is naming. The fortune is unconditional once the observation is real.
PostureObserving from a height · being seen as model
Contemplation is the hexagram of the two-sided act of seeing. The trigram structure makes the picture exact: Kun (earth) below, Xun (wind) above — wind passing over the earth, seen from a height, taking the broad view. The hexagram pairs with Hexagram 19 — Approach — as its structural inverse: where 19 puts Lake below and Earth above and names the rising active influence approaching a receptive field, 20 inverts every line and puts Earth below and Wind above, naming the corresponding discipline of withdrawing to a vantage from which the field can be read and from which one’s own conduct can be read by those below. The hexagram statement is one of the most ritually precise in the Yijing: 盥而不薦，有孚顒若 — the hand- washing has been performed, the offering has not yet been made, and what is seen is sincerity in dignified appearance. The moment named is the pause between preparation and act, when the worshipper has done the preparatory ritual and is standing in the visible interval before completing it.
The Xiang commentary makes the institutional application of that interval explicit: 風行地上，觀。先王以省方觀民設教 — wind moves above the earth; Contemplation. The former kings accordingly inspected the regions, observed the people, and established teaching. The active half of the hexagram is the inspection itself — the actor moves like wind across the surface of what is being observed, broad enough to take the whole field. The corresponding half is the establishing of teaching, the conduct that follows from what was observed and that becomes itself the next thing observed by those below. The two halves form a single posture: observation high enough to read the field, conduct dignified enough to be read by those below. Neither half is the hexagram on its own. The discipline is the simultaneous practice of both.
Failure modesThe lad's looking (line 1) · peeping from the door (line 2)
The dominant failure mode is the line-1 童觀: the actor is looking, the act of observation is happening, but the vantage is too low for what is observed to register as anything more than surface. The hexagram is precise that the fault scales with the seat. For a small role the shallow looking carries no blame; for thenoble person whose position demands a higher vantage, the same looking is matter for regret. The secondary failure is the line-2 闚觀 — the peeping observation through a narrow aperture. The actor is looking through one channel, glimpsing through a partially opened door, and the narrowness is structurally insufficient for the position the actor occupies. Both failures share a root: an actor whose contemplation has fallen below the altitude or the breadth the seat actually demands, and who treats the act of looking as the discharge of the work rather than the entry point to it.
Application & adjacentQuestion shape · Hexagram 19 pair · Stepping back as the move
A note on the question shape this hexagram answers best. Contemplation rewards questions framed around moments when the obvious move is to act and the right move is instead to step back and observe — the founder weighing a launch versus another month of customer-listening, the executive deciding whether to intervene in a team's dynamics or watch them resolve, the principal asking whether to push the strategy through or sit with the dissent a quarter longer. It also rewards the inverse question: how to conduct yourself so that what those below observe is itself worth modelling. It is less useful for vague questions about whether the actor is generally wise; for that question, re-read with Hexagrams 4 — Youthful Folly — or 15 — Modesty — depending on whether the issue is inexperience or carriage. Contemplation presumes the question of vantage is live. The hexagram is the instruction layer for stepping back and being seen.
The canonical adjacent reading is Hexagram 19 — Approach — the structural inverse in the King Wen sequence. Where Hexagram 19 names the discipline of moving while the window of receptive influence is genuinely open — the active rising up into a yielding field — Hexagram 20 names the discipline of withdrawing to the vantage from which the field itself can be read. Read together, the pair is the I Ching’s clean instruction for the alternation between acting and observing that any sustained leadership requires. In 19 you approach because the moment is open and the cost of hesitating exceeds the cost of moving; in 20 you withdraw because the next useful move requires an altitude you have not yet climbed to, or a breadth of observation you have not yet taken. Founders and executives who keep both hexagrams in view tend to alternate cleanly between intervention and watching, and to recognise which mode the next decision actually calls for.
The operational centre of the hexagram is the line-5 / line-6 pair that addresses the question from the ruler’s side and from the post-ruler observer’s side. For the actor in the line-5 seat the discipline is 觀我生 — the load-bearing work is the private observation of one’s own life so that what those below model is worth modelling. For the actor at line 6 the discipline shifts to 觀其生 — observing the character and ways of the figure now in the seat without trying to climb back into it. The hexagram’s most unconditional fortunes (no fault, at both line 5 and line 6) concentrate at the two positions where the observer has done the corresponding internal work. The decision-relevant move is twofold. If you are the ruler, observe your own life so the model is real. If you have stepped down, observe the seat cleanly so your continued presence is useful counsel rather than institutional shadow.
SynthesisYiGram Editorial
Each Western line of reading approaches Contemplation from a different angle. James Legge transliterates 觀 as “Kwan” and frames the hexagram within his Confucian moral lens — the canonical instruction about the dignified worshipper whose sincerity is visible in his appearance, and the political application of that worshipper’s posture in the ruler whose contemplation of the world establishes teaching. Richard Wilhelm’s symbolic-philosophical posture reads the hexagram more cosmologically — the wind passing over the earth as the image of the contemplating sage whose presence transforms what is observed without explicit intervention. A reading in the lineage of Carl Jung’s 1949 foreword would treat 20 as a marker of the observing consciousness — the witnessing function of the psyche stepping back from action to see the field, and the corresponding visibility of the observer to what is observed. Bradford Hatcher’s linguistic project (below) abandons all three framings and returns to the semantic field of 觀 itself — observation, examination, reframing, taking inventory, reading the signs. None of these readings is quoted on this page; the synthesis is YiGram Editorial’s characterization of each tradition’s posture, written so a reader can triangulate the field without us reproducing copyrighted text.
Reception historyLegge · Wilhelm · Baynes · Jung
The Western reception of the I Ching has two main lines. The first is James Legge’s 1882 missionary translation in the Sacred Books of the East series — methodical, Victorian, framed around Confucian moral readings. It is the public-domain anchor reproduced above. The second is Richard Wilhelm’s 1923 German translation, prepared in Qingdao in collaboration with Lao Naixuan — sympathetic, philosophical, closer to Daoist intuitions. Cary F. Baynes rendered Wilhelm into English in 1950, with a foreword by Carl Jung that introduced the book to Western psychology as a window onto synchronicity and the unconscious.
We cite these two lines by name to credit the reception history and to help search systems and readers resolve the entities; the Wilhelm/Baynes text itself and Jung’s foreword remain in copyright and are not quoted on this page. A more recent academic-linguistic line is represented by Bradford Hatcher’s Yijing project (1990s–2010s), which appears in the next section under his explicit redistribution permission.
Bradford HatcherVerbatim · © 2011
Hatcher organizes each hexagram around six short clusters of keywords that sketch the field of decision and association the Chinese name opens onto. For Hexagram 20 觀, his clusters are:
Observe, view, attend, study, contemplate, consider, examine; the examined life Investigation, reconnaissance, review, survey, learning, comprehension, compass (Changing) points of view, frames of mind, postulates, hypotheses, outlooks, ken Frames of reference, reframing; universes of discourse; suspending a (dis-)belief Overview, taking inventory, overall view, objectivity(-ification); reading the signs Understanding other perspectives, a point of view of being beheld or objectified
Hatcher’s framing is vocabulary-centred rather than narrative — the reader is invited to feel the semantic shape of the Chinese name through the spread of English fragments. For his longer notes and the full glossary entry, read the complete passage on hermetica.info.
Quoted verbatim from Bradford Hatcher, Yijing Hexagram Names and Core Meanings (Version 12.1, 2011), hermetica.info/GuaMing.htm. © Bradford Hatcher, 2011. Reproduced under the author’s explicit permission to redistribute his work intact, with copyright notice. Bradford Hatcher (d. June 2020); site maintained to preserve his work.
SynthesisYiGram Editorial
Read across the four Chinese traditions, Hexagram 20 names a very specific working posture: a moment in which the load-bearing work is not action but observation, and the corresponding discipline of conducting oneself so that what those below see is itself worth observing. The Wings give the canonical reading: the great contemplation is above; centred correctness contemplates the world; those below contemplate and are transformed; the sage establishes teaching by the spiritual way and the world submits. Wang Bi sharpens the structural reading: 觀 is not a hexagram about passive spectating but about the simultaneous practice of high-vantage observation and visible dignified conduct, with the line-by- line texts mapping specific failures and accomplishments of that simultaneous practice. Zhu Xi reframes the hexagram around the ritual interval the hexagram statement names — the worshipper who has performed the hand-washing but not yet made the offering — and stresses that what is seen in that interval is the entire point: sincerity in dignified appearance is not a performance but the visible consequence of the inward state. The divinatory manual Bushi Zhengzong reads 20 strictly as the marker for decisions where the right move is to step back and observe — succession arrangements, organisational reviews, periods when intervention would cost more than it would produce — rather than as commentary on whether the actor is contemplative in temperament. The unified posture is the same: Contemplation is the discipline of vantage and visibility, practiced together, with the most generous outcomes concentrating at the positions where both halves are real.
Yi ZhuanTuan + Xiang · Ten Wings
The Ten Wings are the canonical Confucian commentary stratum embedded in the received Yijing. For Hexagram 20 the two most directly relevant Wings are the Tuan Zhuan (彖傳, the Judgement Commentary) and the Xiang Zhuan (象傳, the Image Commentary).
Tuan 彖傳: 大觀在上，順而巽，中正以觀天下。觀，盥而不薦，有孚顒若，下觀而化也。觀天之神道，而四時不忒，聖人以神道設教，而天下服矣。
The great contemplation is above — compliance with penetration; centred-correct, contemplating the world. “Contemplation: hand-washed but not yet offered; sincerity in dignified appearance” — those below contemplate and are transformed. Contemplating heaven’s spiritual way, the four seasons do not deviate. The sage establishes teaching by the spiritual way, and the world submits.
Xiang 象傳: 風行地上，觀。先王以省方觀民設教。
Wind moves above the earth — Contemplation. The former kings accordingly inspected the regions, observed the people, and established teaching.
The Tuan does the structural work: the great contemplation is the high vantage of the upper trigram; the trigram pair (Kun below, Xun above) is read as 順而巽, compliance penetrated — the receptive ground met by the penetrating gentleness of wind — and the line-5 centred-correct position is what makes the contemplation of the world possible. The same Wing names the cosmological generalisation: 觀天之神道 — contemplating heaven’s spiritual way — treating the rhythm of the seasons as the model of the discipline. The Xiangcompresses the political application: 省方觀民設教 — inspecting the regions, observing the people, establishing teaching — three verbs in sequence that describe the whole hexagram as a single working motion. Translations by YiGram Editorial from the classical Chinese.
Classical commentariesWang Bi · Zhu Xi · Bushi Zhengzong
Wang Bi (Zhouyi Zhu, 3rd century) reads Hexagram 20 as a hexagram about the simultaneity of seeing and being seen. For Wang Bi the analytical centre is the line-5 yang in centred- correct position, whose contemplation of the world is what gives the hexagram its name, and whose visible conduct is what makes the contemplation effective. The line-by-line texts then map specific failures (lines 1 and 2) and accomplishments (lines 4, 5, 6) of that double practice. Wang Bi’s reading refuses to treat 觀 as either passive spectating or ornamental display. The hexagram is a hexagram of working vantage.
Zhu Xi (Zhouyi Benyi, 1188) reframes the hexagram around the ritual image the hexagram statement names — the worshipper at the precise moment after the hand-washing and before the offering. For Zhu Xi the temporal precision matters. The hand-washing has happened: the preparation is real, the actor has made themselves clean. The offering has not yet been made: the act is still pending, the moment is not the consummation but the visible interval before it. What is seen in that interval, Zhu Xi argues, is the truest reading of the actor’s inward state, because there is nothing for appearance to hide behind. The 顒若 of dignified appearance is therefore not performance but the visible structure of 有孚, sincerity itself.
The Bushi Zhengzong (Qing-dynasty divinatory manual, 1709) reads 20 practically: a hexagram drawn in answer to a question about whether to act or to step back — whether to push the next move through, whether to intervene in a contested situation, whether to extend a tenure or arrange a succession, whether the present moment is one of action or of observation. The manual is explicit that 20 is not a comment on the actor’s temperament; the cast applies whether the actor is contemplative by nature or impatient. The practical recommendation tracks the line position the question lands at: climb to a higher vantage at line 1; widen the aperture at line 2; let honest self-observation determine advance or withdraw at line 3; accept the invitation to participate in institutional glory at line 4; observe your own life as the ruler’s work at line 5; observe the seat cleanly after stepping down at line 6.
Translations and paraphrase by YiGram Editorial from the classical Chinese. We do not reuse any modern third-party English rendering of these commentaries.
These method notes are not required to read the hexagram. They organize the traditional six-line structure for readers who want to see the rule layer beneath the plain-language reading.
Palace: Qian (heaven), fourth-generation (四世) position. Binary, bottom-up: 000011. Lower trigram: Kun (earth). Upper trigram: Xun (wind). Shi line: 4. Ying line: 1.
The line branches, bottom-up, follow the Kun-below / Xun-above najia composition for Contemplation: 未 (line 1), 巳 (line 2), 卯 (line 3), 未 (line 4), 巳 (line 5), 卯 (line 6). Read against the Qian palace, whose element is metal, the six-relatives assignments are: line 1 未 (earth) — parents (父母); line 2 巳 (fire) — officer-ghost (官鬼); line 3 卯 (wood) — wealth (妻財); line 4 未 (earth) — parents (父母); line 5 巳 (fire) — officer-ghost (官鬼); line 6 卯 (wood) — wealth (妻財).
The shi line at position 4 carries parents (未, earth), the element that generates the Qian palace’s metal — the actor stands at the seat where the palace is being nourished from below by its own generating element. The ying line at position 1 carries parents (未, earth) as well: both ends of the shi-ying axis sit at the parental position, with the palace’s metal being structurally supported from both directions. Read as a structural pair, the shi-ying axis of Contemplation says the actor and the receiving position are both occupying the seat that produces the palace’s working force, while the line-5 officer-ghost (巳, fire) overhead is the element that in turn controls the palace itself — the najia-layer correlate of the hexagram’s posture of observation from above. The actor stands on the generative ground; the upstream constraint is the figure at line 5 whose centred-correct conduct is what theTuan names as the contemplation of the world.
For a cast, this static layer records the palace, generation label, shi and ying positions, each line's branch and six-relative, moving-line positions, transformed hexagram, and the use-spirit selected by question category. The public page keeps that structure as a method note rather than as default reading text.
Audit status: unaudited_draft. The static-layer tables are pulled from the standard 京房纳甲 sequence and have not yet been cross-checked against the three reference texts named in the methodology. Errors should be reported against the v0.1.0 rule version in the GitHub rules directory.
For the full pipeline (how the static layer reaches the AI interpretation), see Methodology → Najia engine.
Sources
- Classical text of the Yijing (周易) — hexagram and line statements (卦辭 / 爻辭) from the received Zhou-dynasty edition. Public domain.
- James Legge, The Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XVI: The Yi King, Oxford University Press, 1882. Public domain.
- Zhu Xi (朱熹), Zhouyi Benyi (周易本義), 1188. Public domain.
- Wang Bi (王弼), Zhouyi Zhu (周易注), 3rd century. Public domain.
- Bushi Zhengzong (卜筮正宗), Qing-dynasty divinatory manual, 1709. Public domain.
- Tuan Zhuan (彖傳) and Xiang Zhuan (象傳), two of the Ten Wings (十翼). Public domain.
- Bradford Hatcher, Yijing Hexagram Names and Core Meanings (Version 12.1, 2011). © Bradford Hatcher, 2011. Reproduced under the author’s explicit permission to redistribute his work intact, with copyright notice; this page quotes the “Key Words” subsection only and links readers to the full original for the longer notes. Bradford Hatcher (d. June 2020).
All Chinese-to-English translations on this page are by YiGram Editorial, working directly from the classical Chinese. We do not reuse third-party modern English translations of any of the listed Chinese sources. Read the full source policy in the methodology page.
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