How to memorize the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching

Don't try to memorize 64 separate pictures. Learn the eight trigrams first; after that, every hexagram is just two things you already know, one above the other. Then add the order in two layers: the King Wen pairs, which halve the work, and the traditional order verse (卦名次序歌), which Chinese students have used for centuries.

Step one: the eight trigrams

Everything rests on eight three-line figures. For each, learn the drawing, the name and the main image:

• ☰ Qian 乾, heaven
• ☷ Kun 坤, earth
• ☳ Zhen 震, thunder
• ☴ Xun 巽, wind or wood
• ☵ Kan 坎, water
• ☲ Li 離, fire
• ☶ Gen 艮, mountain
• ☱ Dui 兌, lake

Zhu Xi printed a short rhyme for the shapes at the front of his commentary, still the standard way Chinese learners fix them: 乾三連，坤六斷；震仰盂，艮覆碗；離中虛，坎中滿；兌上缺，巽下斷. In plain terms: heaven is three unbroken lines, earth is six broken halves; thunder is an upturned bowl (one solid line at the bottom), mountain an overturned bowl (one solid line on top); fire is empty in the middle, water full in the middle; the lake is broken on top, wind broken at the bottom.

Remember that lines are counted from the bottom up. Our guide to the eight trigrams and the trigram reference give the fuller associations (family member, direction, quality) once the shapes are secure.

Step two: read every hexagram as a pair

Each hexagram is a lower trigram and an upper trigram, which is why there are exactly 8 × 8 = 64 of them (the reasoning is in why 64 hexagrams). Chinese readers name hexagrams this way: upper image, lower image, then the hexagram's own name. So Hexagram 3 is 水雷屯, "water over thunder: Zhun", and Hexagram 11 is 地天泰, "earth over heaven: Tai".

Two practical consequences:

• Start with the eight doubled hexagrams, where the same trigram sits above and below: 乾為天, 坤為地, 震為雷, 巽為風, 坎為水, 離為火, 艮為山, 兌為澤. They are 1, 2, 51, 57, 29, 30, 52 and 58, and their names are simply the trigram names.
• Use the image to remember the meaning. Water over thunder is rain and thunder at the start of growth: difficulty at the beginning. Earth over heaven is heaven's energy rising and earth's sinking, the two meeting: peace. The name often follows from the picture, and the picture makes it stick.

Drawing an 8 × 8 grid, lower trigrams down the side and upper ones across the top, and filling in a name each day is one of the most effective exercises there is. The hexagram library lets you check your answers.

Step three: learn the King Wen pairs

The received order, the King Wen sequence, is not random. Hexagrams come in 32 pairs, always an odd number followed by the next even one. In 28 pairs the second hexagram is the first turned upside down (3 Zhun and 4 Meng, 5 Xu and 6 Song). The eight hexagrams that look the same upside down (1 and 2, 27 and 28, 29 and 30, 61 and 62) are instead paired with their opposite, every line flipped.

So once you know an odd-numbered hexagram, you can derive the next one: turn it over, or, if it is symmetrical, invert every line. That halves the memory load. Our page on hexagram pairs shows all 32.

Step four: the order verse

To fix names and numbers in order, Chinese students use the rhyme that Zhu Xi printed in his Zhouyi benyi, the 上下經卦名次序歌. It runs through all 64 names in sequence, with filler words like 兮 for rhythm:

• 乾坤屯蒙需訟師，比小畜兮履泰否，
• 同人大有謙豫隨，蠱臨觀兮噬嗑賁，
• 剝復無妄大畜頤，大過坎離三十備。
• 咸恆遯兮及大壯，晉與明夷家人睽，
• 蹇解損益夬姤萃，升困井鼎震繼之，
• 艮漸歸妹豐旅巽，兌渙節兮中孚至，
• 小過既濟兼未濟，是為下經三十四。

The first three lines are the Upper Canon, hexagrams 1 to 30 ("thirty complete"); the last four are the Lower Canon, 31 to 64 ("thirty-four"). Even if you do not read Chinese, the rhythm in pinyin works as a checklist, and reciting it a couple of times a day for a few weeks is how generations of learners did it. The Miscellaneous Hexagrams (雜卦), another of the Ten Wings, is also a rhymed list of contrasting pairs; see the Xugua and Zagua.

A six-week study plan

• Week 1. The eight trigrams: shapes, names, images. Draw them from memory every day until it takes under a minute.
• Week 2. The eight doubled hexagrams, and the habit of naming any hexagram as "upper over lower". Start the 8 × 8 grid.
• Weeks 3 and 4. The Upper Canon, 1 to 30: about eight new hexagrams every few days, always learned as a King Wen pair. Recite the first three lines of the verse daily.
• Weeks 5 and 6. The Lower Canon, 31 to 64, the same way. Finish the grid.
• From then on. Review with real readings. Each time you cast, name the trigrams and the hexagram before you look anything up. A daily reading is a gentle way to keep this going.

Flashcards help: the drawing on one side; number, name, trigram pair and a five-word gloss of the Judgment on the other.

What to memorize, and what not to

You do not need to memorize line texts. Experienced readers look them up; what they carry in their heads is the shape, the trigrams, the name, the number, the pair and a sense of each hexagram's "time". That is enough to recognise a cast instantly and know where to look. Keep notes on what each hexagram meant in your own readings, in an I Ching journal; over time that is the knowledge that actually stays.