The eight trigrams: the alphabet of the I Ching

Sixty-four hexagrams are a lot to remember. Eight trigrams are not. Every hexagram is two trigrams stacked, and in most cases the image the pair makes — fire over water, wind under heaven — is where its name and its Judgment come from. Learn the eight and the Book opens. The full attribute table is on our trigrams page; this guide explains how to use it.

Lines to trigrams

A trigram (卦, gua; collectively 八卦, bagua) is three lines, each yin (broken) or yang (solid), read from the bottom. Two choices three times gives eight figures. The tradition reads each as a natural image, a family member, a quality and a direction:

• ☰ Qian (乾) — three yang. Heaven. The father; strength, initiative, the creative. Metal. Northwest.
• ☷ Kun (坤) — three yin. Earth. The mother; receptivity, nourishment, devotion. Earth. Southwest.
• ☳ Zhen (震) — one yang pushing up under two yin. Thunder. The eldest son; movement, shock, beginnings. Wood. East.
• ☴ Xun (巽) — one yin under two yang. Wind, wood. The eldest daughter; gentle penetration, gradual influence. Wood. Southeast.
• ☵ Kan (坎) — one yang between two yin. Water, the abyss. The middle son; danger, depth, flow. Water. North.
• ☲ Li (離) — one yin between two yang. Fire, light. The middle daughter; clarity, clinging, culture. Fire. South.
• ☶ Gen (艮) — one yang resting on two yin. Mountain. The youngest son; stillness, stopping, boundaries. Earth. Northeast.
• ☱ Dui (兌) — one yin on two yang. Lake, marsh. The youngest daughter; joy, openness, speech. Metal. West.

A memory aid from the tradition: the "family" is decided by the odd line out. One yang among yin is a son (Zhen, Kan, Gen, by the position of the yang line: bottom, middle, top); one yin among yang is a daughter (Xun, Li, Dui). Qian and Kun are the parents.

Two arrangements

You will meet the trigrams in two circular orders.

The Early Heaven arrangement (先天八卦, attributed to Fu Xi) places opposites across from each other: Qian at the top (south, in Chinese maps), Kun at the bottom, Li and Kan on the horizontal axis. It is a diagram of complementary pairs — every trigram faces the one with all its lines reversed. Its numbering (乾1 兌2 離3 震4 巽5 坎6 艮7 坤8) is what Plum Blossom numerology uses to turn numbers into trigrams.

The Later Heaven arrangement (後天八卦, attributed to King Wen) is the one on compasses and feng shui charts: Li south, Kan north, Zhen east, Dui west, with the others in the corners. It follows the cycle of the seasons — thunder wakes the year in the east, fire ripens it in the south, the lake gathers it in the west, water stores it in the north — and gives each trigram the direction listed above.

Neither order is "the" order; they answer different questions (structure versus process).

From two trigrams to a hexagram

Stack a lower and an upper trigram and you have one of the sixty-four hexagrams. The traditional way to name the combination is "upper image, lower image, name": 水雷屯, "water-thunder Zhun". Three readings of the pair are worth knowing:

• The picture. Earth above heaven (Hexagram 11, Tai) looks upside down — but heaven's energy rises and earth's sinks, so the two meet and mingle: peace. Heaven above earth (Hexagram 12, Pi) looks orderly, yet the energies move apart: standstill. The picture is dynamic, not static.
• The qualities. Fire (clarity) over water (danger) in Hexagram 64: light that has not yet reached the depths — before completion. Water over fire in Hexagram 63: each in the place where it works on the other — after completion.
• The family. Two daughters living under one roof with different aims gives Hexagram 38, Kui, Opposition; the Commentary says exactly that.

The hexagram's Image text (大象) always begins by naming the two trigrams' pictures, which is why it is the easiest text to connect to the figure.

Why the pure hexagrams are special

The eight hexagrams made of a trigram doubled — ䷀ Qian, ䷁ Kun, ䷲ Zhen, ䷸ Xun, ䷜ Kan, ䷝ Li, ䷳ Gen, ䷹ Dui — show each quality undiluted. Reading these eight pages is a good second step after this guide: they are the trigrams speaking in full sentences.