The Wheel of Changes
The sixty-four hexagrams of the Yi Jing (I Ching) in Shao Yong’s circle, each facing its complement, drawn as a plate that draws itself. How to read it and where it comes from.
The Wheel of Changes sets the sixty-four hexagrams of the Yi Jing (I Ching) in the circle attributed to the Song scholar Shao Yong (1011 to 1077). Read as numbers, bottom line first, they climb from Return at the winter solstice up the left side to The Creative at the top, then fall down the right side from Coming to Meet to The Receptive. Every figure faces its complement across the wheel.
How to read the wheel
Each figure has six lines, built from the centre outward: its first line lies nearest the heart of the wheel. A solid line is yang and a broken line is yin. The inner three lines are the lower trigram, drawn in ink, and the outer three are the upper trigram, drawn in vermilion.
The number beside each figure is its place in the received book, the King Wen order, and the name is the short name it is usually known by. The circle itself follows a different order, which is why the numbers seem to jump.
The eight trigrams at the centre
The inner ring holds the eight trigrams in the Earlier Heaven arrangement described in the Shuo Gua and drawn by Shao Yong: Heaven at the top, Earth at the bottom, Fire on the left, Water on the right, with Lake, Thunder, Wind and Mountain between them. South is at the top, as the old charts set it.
Why the circle is a year
Read each hexagram as a binary number with yang as one, and the circle counts. Up the left side the yang lines grow from Return, a single yang line under five yin, to The Creative, six yang lines. Down the right side the yin lines grow from Coming to Meet to The Receptive. Shao Yong read this as the year: yang waxing from the winter solstice, yin waxing from the summer.
In 1703 the philosopher Leibniz, sent this arrangement by the Jesuit Joachim Bouvet, noted that it matched the binary arithmetic he had worked out himself.
What the plate does not claim
It is a map of a tradition. The Almanac reads symbols as a mirror for reflection, never as a forecast, and the wheel predicts nothing on its own.
Related
Common questions
Why is south at the top?
Chinese diagrams of this kind were drawn facing south, the direction of the Sun at noon, so south sits at the top and east on the left. The plate keeps that convention and marks the four directions.
What is the difference between the King Wen order and this circle?
The King Wen order is the sequence of the received Book of Changes, numbered 1 to 64. Shao Yong’s circle arranges the same sixty-four figures by their lines, so each stands opposite its complement and the yang lines rise and fall round the year. The numbers on the plate are the King Wen numbers.
Can I ask about a hexagram here?
Yes. The Oracle can talk through a hexagram’s traditional meaning with you. It reads the figure as a prompt for reflection, not as a prediction.
