The Ten Wings of the I Ching: a map of the seven commentaries

The Ten Wings (十翼, shiyi) are the ancient commentaries attached to the I Ching's core text. There are seven distinct works, three of them in two parts, which makes ten: the Tuan, the Xiang, the Xici, the Wenyan, the Shuogua, the Xugua and the Zagua. Tradition credits them to Confucius; most scholars now date them to the late Warring States and early Han, written by several hands. For reading a cast, the Tuan and the two layers of the Xiang matter most.

Text and wings

The core of the I Ching, the Zhouyi, consists of the sixty-four hexagrams, each with a short Judgment (卦辭) and six line statements (爻辭). It is terse and often obscure. The Wings are the earliest systematic attempt to explain it — what the hexagram's shape means, why a line is fortunate or not, how the whole book fits a picture of heaven, earth and human life. Once they were accepted as canonical in the Han, the text and its Wings together became the Yijing, the "Classic of Changes."

Most editions you meet, including the one on our hexagram pages, print some of the Wings directly beneath each hexagram. That arrangement goes back to Han and Wei editors; Wang Bi's text, the standard one for centuries, was laid out this way. Zhu Xi deliberately separated text and commentary again in his Zhouyi Benyi, to make clear which layer is which. Wilhelm prints the Great Image with each hexagram in his Book I and gathers the other Wings in Books II and III; Legge printed them as appendices.

The seven texts, one by one

Tuan (彖傳), in two parts — commentary on the Judgment

The Tuan explains each hexagram's Judgment by its structure: the two trigrams, which line rules, whether the strong and weak lines stand in their proper places. Its opening on Qian, 大哉乾元，萬物資始，乃統天 — "Great indeed is the originating power of Qian; the myriad things owe their beginning to it" — shows its style: a structural reading lifted into a statement about the world. It is divided into two parts following the upper and lower halves of the text. See the Tuan commentary.

Xiang (象傳), in two parts — the Images

The Xiang has two layers. The Great Image (大象) takes the two trigrams as a picture and draws a lesson for conduct, almost always in the form "the superior person, in accordance with this, …". For Qian: 天行健，君子以自強不息 — "Heaven moves with vigour; the superior person, accordingly, strengthens himself without ceasing." The Small Image (小象) adds a short note on each line, often explaining why the line is fortunate or not. See Great Image and Small Image and who is the superior person.

Xici (繫辭傳), in two parts — the Great Commentary

The longest and most philosophical Wing. The Xici is not attached to any one hexagram; it is an essay on what the book is and how to use it. It gives the famous lines 一陰一陽之謂道 ("one yin, one yang: that is the Way") and 窮則變，變則通，通則久 ("when a thing reaches its limit it changes; changing, it gets through; getting through, it endures"), the account of the sages devising the trigrams, and the only classical description of the yarrow stalk method. See the Xici.

Wenyan (文言傳) — the words on Qian and Kun

A commentary on only the first two hexagrams, treating them line by line from several angles. It contains the classic moral reading of the four words of Qian's Judgment: 元者善之長也，亨者嘉之會也，利者義之和也，貞者事之幹也 — origin as the chief of goodness, success as the gathering of excellence, benefit as the harmony of what is right, perseverance as the trunk of affairs. See the Wenyan and yuan heng li zhen.

Shuogua (說卦傳) — Discussion of the Trigrams

The handbook of trigram symbolism: the two circular arrangements that later became Early Heaven and Later Heaven, the family of father, mother, three sons and three daughters, and long lists of images — Qian as horse, head, metal, jade; Kun as cow, belly, cloth. Most of what is said about trigrams in any reading goes back to it. See the Shuogua.

Xugua (序卦傳) — the Sequence

A chain of short reasons explaining why each hexagram follows the one before, from Qian and Kun to Wei Ji. See the King Wen sequence.

Zagua (雜卦傳) — the Miscellaneous Notes

Rhymed one-line contrasts between paired hexagrams, beginning 乾剛坤柔 — "Qian is firm, Kun is yielding." Short, but often the sharpest definition you will find of a hexagram. Both are covered in Xugua and Zagua.

Who wrote them, and when?

The Records of the Grand Historian says Confucius loved the Changes in old age and arranged its commentaries, and for nearly two thousand years the Wings were read as his. Doubts are old: in the Song, Ouyang Xiu (歐陽修) argued that the Xici, Wenyan and Shuogua could not all come from one sage, since they repeat and contradict one another. Modern scholarship broadly agrees that the Wings were composed by different authors between roughly the late Warring States and the early Han, some drawing on Confucian teaching. The silk manuscripts from Mawangdui, buried in 168 BCE, include a version of the Xici alongside other commentaries that never entered the canon — a reminder that the Ten Wings were one selection from a larger body of interpretation. See Confucius and the I Ching and Mawangdui.

The tradition also disagrees about how much weight the Wings deserve. Wang Bi and Cheng Yi read the text largely through them; Zhu Xi insisted the Zhouyi was first a book of divination and should be read on its own terms before the commentaries are added. Many modern translators try to recover the Zhou meaning without them. You do not have to choose once and for all, but it helps to know which layer you are reading.

Which Wings matter most for a reading

• The Tuan — read it with every Judgment. It shows you how the hexagram's structure produces its meaning.
• The Great Image — the most practical sentence on the page: what attitude or conduct the situation asks of you.
• The Small Image — read it with each changing line; it often explains a puzzling line in a few words.
• The Shuogua — when you want to read the trigrams, for example in Plum Blossom or when the images seem to speak.
• The Wenyan — only for Qian and Kun, but indispensable for reading Qian and Kun in depth.
• The Xici — not for any one cast, but for how to approach the book at all. Its advice is to contemplate the images and words when at rest, and the changes and the oracle when you act: 動則觀其變而玩其占.
• The Xugua and Zagua — background: how the situation arises, and its contrast with its pair.

Putting it into practice

When you read a cast, try this order: the Judgment, then the Tuan; the Great Image; each changing line with its Small Image; then the changed hexagram. Notice when a Wing says more than the original line — that is interpretation, often wise, sometimes a stretch. The how to read the I Ching guide walks through a full reading, and the caster gives you a hexagram to practise on.