噬嗑 → 大壯
Hexagram 21: Biting Through → Hexagram 34: Great Power
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 6).
Line 2
六二 噬膚滅鼻。无咎。
Six in the second place means: Bites through tender meat, So that his nose disappears. No blame.
Line 3
六三 噬腊肉。遇毒。小吝。无咎。
Six in the third place means: Bites on old dried meat And strikes on something poisonous. Slight humiliation. No blame.
Line 6
上九 何校滅耳。凶。
Nine at the top means: His neck is fastened in the wooden cangue, So that his ears disappear. Misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
犬吠驚駭，公拔戈起；玄冥厭火，消散瓦解。
Dogs bark in alarm; the lord seizes halberd and rises. The dark spirit of winter loathes fire -- it scatters and dissolves to nothing.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire and thunder crack through the law, and here a dog's sudden bark startles the night. The lord seizes his halberd and leaps to his feet in alarm. But the threat dissolves: the Dark Warrior of the north, patron of winter and water, suppresses the fire, and the crisis scatters like broken tiles. The 'Dark One suppressing fire' (玄冥厭火) invokes the cosmological cycle where winter's water-energy naturally quells summer's fire-energy. From Biting Through to Great Power, thunder rides above heaven — enormous force unleashed. Yet the verse shows that overwhelming power need not be deployed: the cosmic cycle itself resolves the alarm, and the halberd raised in fear is never needed.
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