Mystical systems
I Ching Hexagram
Direct answer
I Ching Hexagram: An I Ching hexagram is one of the sixty-four figures of the Book of Changes, each a stack of six lines that are either whole or broken.
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At a glance
- Also called
- hexagram i ching, 64 hexagrams, sixty-four hexagrams, gua
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- I Ching, Divination, Hexagram
An I Ching hexagram is one of the sixty-four figures of the Book of Changes, each a stack of six lines that are either whole or broken.
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What is a hexagram in the I Ching?
A hexagram, gua in Chinese, is the basic unit of the I Ching. It is drawn as six horizontal lines, one above another, each either whole (yang) or broken in the middle (yin). Six lines with two possibilities give sixty-four figures, and the book has a chapter for each: a name, a short judgment and a saying attached to every line.
A hexagram is also read as two trigrams, three-line figures that stand for heaven, earth, thunder, water, mountain, wind, fire and lake. In a consultation the lines are built from the bottom up by a chance method. Lines that come up as changing turn into their opposites, giving a second hexagram that shows where the first is tending.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Tarot, runes, I Ching.
What sets I Ching Hexagram apart
What marks the figure of the I Ching is that it is read in three ways at once. As a whole it has a name and a judgment. As two halves it is a meeting of two trigrams, such as water over fire. And line by line it tells a small story from the bottom to the top, the first line the beginning of a matter and the sixth its overshoot. The count of sixty-four is simple arithmetic: two kinds of line in six places.
- Chinese word: gua, used for the three-line and the six-line figures alike
- Lines: six, counted from the bottom; whole lines are yang, broken lines yin
- Trigrams: eight three-line figures, the bagua; each hexagram pairs two of them
- Line values: 6 and 9 mark changing lines, 7 and 8 stable ones
- Standard order: the King Wen sequence, which sets the figures in pairs
Often mistaken for something else: The six-pointed star is also called a hexagram; the I Ching figure is six stacked lines and has nothing in common with it beyond the Greek word for six.
The story behind I Ching Hexagram
The line sayings belong to the oldest layer of the book, from Zhou China in the early first millennium BCE. Groups of numbers scratched on bones and bronzes of the period suggest the figures began as records of counted results. The order of the sixty-four used today is called the King Wen sequence; a different order was found in a silk manuscript buried at Mawangdui in 168 BCE. In 1703 Leibniz pointed out that another traditional arrangement matches binary counting.
Why I Ching Hexagram matters
The hexagram is what a cast actually produces, so every reading of the I Ching begins by identifying one and finding its chapter.
How to read I Ching Hexagram
A reader builds the six lines from the bottom, looks the figure up by its two trigrams, and reads the judgment and then the changing lines.
I Ching Hexagram in practice: an example
A reader who throws three coins six times and gets hexagram 3, Difficulty at the Beginning, reads its judgment and then any changing lines.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- i ching hexagrams, hexagram i ching, 64 hexagrams, sixty-four hexagrams, gua
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is a hexagram in the I Ching?
It is a figure of six stacked lines, each whole or broken. The Book of Changes has sixty-four of them, and each has its own name, judgment and line sayings.
How is an I Ching hexagram cast?
Traditionally by sorting fifty yarrow stalks, or more simply by throwing three coins six times. Each throw gives one line, and the figure is built from the bottom line upward.
What are changing lines?
A line that comes up as old yin or old yang is about to turn into its opposite. Its saying is read with special weight, and changing every such line gives a second hexagram.
