Ideograms of the I Ching: Hexagram 1䷀

A Study

Let’s examine some of the most significant Ideograms in the text of the I Ching, the ones that provide brilliant glimpses into the cosmos.

乾

This character is the “Name” of Hexagram 1.

It depicts the Sun日,

its path through the sky 龺,

a man 人,

and growing grass乙.

It’s traditionally translated as “Heaven”, which I think is fitting, but would add that it’s “Natural Order”, the Divine Order that moves the Sun, raises plants, and gives life to Men.

乾 元 亨 利 貞

Heaven Origin Prosperity Reap Pure

(Heaven is the origin of our pure and bountiful harvests)

This is the first line of the I Ching, the Judgment of Hexagram 1. The four characters following the first fill the rest of the book endlessly, they are essentially the four elemental virtues of the I Ching.

元 -Yuen

亨 -Heng

利 -Li

貞- Ching

From Jung’s Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.

元

Yen depicts a Man with a big Head.

This is often translated as “Origin”, “Generation”, etc. It is “first”, in the way that the Head of an organization is, the Capo.

亨

Heng depicts a Child and a Shrine.

Often translated as “progress” and “prosperity”, this is prosperity in the way that the children of God, the Sons of Heaven prosper.

Or, progress and prosperity through child sacrifice is equally possible.

You pick!

利

Li depicts wheat and a knife.

It is “harvesting” and “gaining”, reaping gains after sowing work.

貞

Ching, or Ding depicts a vessel.

It is purity, like the Grail.

A Ding.

萬

“Ten Thousand” Things. Or “Everything”

One of my favorites, it depicts a Scorpion!

Historically it appears to have also meant a feminine demon, or a potion. Perhaps relating to Maya, the dancing woman who creates the appearance of the World.

龍

Dragon, the great Monster of Energy.

This is simply a picture of a Dragon.

子

Finally, the Sage, or the Child.

I love this depiction, the simplicity, and significance of the shared meaning.

“The Child Mind”, that every great Mystic and Artist returns to is carried in this character. I like to compare it with the Child God Harpocrates of Egypt, and his character:

𓀔

Hopefully this has been insightful, a look at the symbolic depth of these ideograms.

Remember, the I Ching is the oldest living text, alongside the Hebrew Bible. I’d argue it’s older, not the text itself, but the Hexagrams, which are the origin of the Chinese writing system.

What has allowed it to survive this long?

Memes.

The I Ching is a compilation of “Big Memes”. The hexagrams are memes, they reduce extremely complex natural changes into simple lines. They are the smallest units of meaning that can contain the World.

But of course, as Mankind has fallen, we’ve lost our ability to understand the natural languages, and so commentary and language around the hexagrams was necessitated.

Let us not mourn this “progress”, but dig deeper!