Yuan heng li zhen (元亨利貞): what the four words of the I Ching mean

元亨利貞 (yuan heng li zhen) is the entire Judgment of Hexagram 1, Qian. There are two main ways to read it. The Wenyan commentary reads it as four virtues: origination, flourishing, benefit and firmness. Many modern scholars, looking at the language of Bronze Age divination, read it as a two-part formula: "great offering; favourable to divine". Both readings have a long pedigree, and which one a translator follows explains most of the differences you see between I Ching editions.

Where the four words appear

The full four-word formula opens a handful of hexagrams: Qian (1), Zhun (3), Sui (17), Lin (19), Wu Wang (25) and Ge (49). Kun (2) has a variant, 元亨，利牝馬之貞. Pieces of the formula are everywhere: 亨 alone, 利貞, 貞吉, 可貞, 不可貞. So how you read these four words affects your reading of hundreds of sentences, not just one.

Reading one: the four virtues

The Wenyan, the "Words of the Text" wing devoted to Qian and Kun, opens with a definition:

元者，善之長也；亨者，嘉之會也；利者，義之和也；貞者，事之幹也。

"Yuan is the chief of goodness; heng is the gathering of excellence; li is the harmony of rightness; zhen is the trunk of affairs." It then ties each to a virtue of the noble person (humaneness, propriety, rightness and firmness) and concludes 君子行此四德者，故曰：乾，元亨利貞, "the noble one practises these four virtues, therefore it says: Qian, yuan heng li zhen".

Almost the same passage appears in the Zuozhuan, in a story about Lady Mu Jiang, which shows this ethical reading was already current in the Spring and Autumn period. It shaped the whole later tradition: the four words became the four stages of any process (beginning, growth, fruition, completion), mapped onto the seasons, and treated as qualities of Heaven that a person can embody.

James Legge follows this closely: "great and originating, penetrating, advantageous, correct and firm". Each word is a separate attribute.

Reading two: offering and divination

Read against the oracle-bone and bronze inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou, the words look different:

• 亨 is closely related to 享, "to make an offering". 元亨 then means "a great offering" (or "the offering is greatly received").
• 貞 is the regular word on the oracle bones for "to divine, to put a question to the oracle"; the diviners who carved them are known as 貞人.
• 利 means "favourable" and governs what follows.

So 元亨，利貞 would be "a great offering [should be made]; it is favourable to divine", or more loosely "the divination is favourable". This reading is associated with modern philologists such as Gao Heng (高亨), and many recent scholarly translations adopt something like it. It fits the Zhouyi's origin as a diviner's manual, and it makes formulas like 貞吉 ("the divination: auspicious") and 貞凶 read naturally.

The middle path: Zhu Xi and Wilhelm

Zhu Xi took a position between the two. He insisted the Zhouyi was originally a book for divination, so he read the Judgment as a verdict, not a list of virtues: roughly "greatly penetrating, and it is favourable to be correct and firm". 貞 here becomes 正而固, "correct and firm".

Richard Wilhelm, working with a late Qing scholar in this tradition, gives the famous English rendering: "The Creative works sublime success, furthering through perseverance." Here 元亨 is "sublime success" and 利貞 is "furthering through perseverance". If you have wondered what that phrase means, see what does "perseverance furthers" mean.

Why 貞 has so many translations

貞 is the hinge. Translators render it as:

• perseverance (Wilhelm–Baynes), stressing staying the course;
• correct and firm (Legge, following Zhu Xi), stressing being right and holding to it;
• steadfast or constancy, a modern middle ground;
• divination or to divine (philological translations), the oldest attested sense.

The Kun Judgment shows how much rides on this. 利牝馬之貞 can be "favourable is the perseverance of a mare" (the mare's patient, yielding steadiness) or "favourable for a divination about a mare". The two lead to quite different pictures. Neither is careless; they answer different questions: what the words meant to the people who first used the book, and what the book has meant to the readers who shaped its tradition.

How to read them in a judgment

• Notice what is attached. 利貞 standing alone is general approval of steady, correct conduct. 利X之貞 or 貞 + verdict narrows it.
• Watch the condition. Several judgments add a qualifier. Wu Wang continues 其匪正有眚, "if one is not correct, there is calamity"; Lin continues 至於八月有凶, "in the eighth month there will be misfortune". The four words are not a blanket promise.
• Read 貞凶 as a warning to change. In the virtue reading, "persistence is unfortunate" means the course you are holding is the problem. In the divination reading, "the divination: misfortune" says the same thing more bluntly.
• Do not count the words. A judgment with all four is not "four times as good" as one with only 亨. See the verdict words for how to weigh these.

Using this when you read a cast

When your cast gives a judgment with 元亨利貞 or part of it, read it both ways once. As virtues, it tells you the qualities the situation rewards: a strong start, openness, fairness, firmness. As divination, it says the moment is favourable and the matter deserves your full and serious commitment. The two readings rarely contradict each other; together they describe a situation in which steady, correct effort is well placed. Then go on to the changing lines, which say where that general approval meets your particular case.