大有 → 明夷
Hexagram 14: Great Possession → Hexagram 36: Darkening of the Light
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 4, 6).
Line 2
九二 大車以載。有攸往。无咎。
Nine in the second place means: A big wagon for loading. One may undertake something. No blame.
Line 4
九四 匪其彭。无咎。
Nine in the fourth place means: He makes a difference Between himself and his neighbor. No blame.
Line 6
上九 自天祐之。吉无不利。
Nine at the top means: He is blessed by heaven. Good fortune. Nothing that does not further.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
賴先之光，受德之佑；雖遭顛沛，獨不凶咎。
Relying on the ancestor's light, receiving virtue's protection. Though one meets upheaval and reversal; alone one escapes blame.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Relying on ancestral radiance, sheltered by accumulated virtue — though the road is fraught with stumbling and hardship, one alone escapes blame and misfortune. The verse describes someone who survives adversity not through personal prowess but through the spiritual capital of prior generations. Ancestral light and the protection of virtue function as an inherited shield. From Great Possession to Darkening of the Light, fire above heaven plunges into the earth — brightness enters darkness. The hexagram counsels using obscurity wisely, and the verse shows how: ancestral virtue, accumulated in brighter times, becomes the hidden resource that sustains one through the darkened age. The light is not gone; it is stored underground.
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