剝 → 噬嗑
Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart → Hexagram 21: Biting Through
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 6).
Line 1
初六 剝牀以足。蔑貞凶。
Six at the beginning means: The leg of the bed is split. Those who persevere are destroyed. Misfortune.
Line 3
六三 剝之无咎。
Six in the third place means: He splits with them. No blame.
Line 4
六四 剝牀以膚。凶。
Six in the fourth place means: The bed is split up to the skin. Misfortune.
Line 6
上九 碩果不食。君子得輿。小人剝廬。
Nine at the top means: There is a large fruit still uneaten. The superior man receives a carriage. The house of the inferior man is split apart.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
班馬還師，以息勞疲。役夫忻喜，入戶見妻。
The mottled horses return from campaign, to rest from toil and weariness. The conscript rejoices, entering the door to see his wife.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Mountain upon earth erodes into fire and thunder — Biting Through, the hexagram of decisive legal action. The warhorses turn homeward as the army is dismissed to rest its weary bones. The conscript laborers rejoice, entering their doors to see their wives again. The phrase 'ban ma huan shi' — spotted horses returning, the army disbanded — evokes the end of a long and grueling campaign. From Splitting Apart to Biting Through, the transformation is striking: the slow decay of the mountain gives way to the sharp, clarifying bite of thunder and lightning. What was rotting is cut through decisively. The soldiers' homecoming represents justice completed — the obstacle removed, the sentence carried out, the people released. Biting Through restores normalcy by severing what obstructs, and here the obstruction was the campaign itself.
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