復 → 大畜
Hexagram 24: Return → Hexagram 26: Great Taming
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 6).
Line 2
六二 休復。吉。
Six in the second place means: Quiet return. Good fortune.
Line 3
六三 頻復。厲。无咎。
Six in the third place means: Repeated return. Danger. No blame.
Line 6
上六 迷復。凶。有災眚。用行師。終有大敗。以其國君凶。至于十年不克征。
Six at the top means: Missing the return. Misfortune. Misfortune from within and without. If armies are set marching in this way, One will in the end suffer a great defeat, Disastrous for the ruler of the country. For ten years It will not be possible to attack again.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
南邦大國，鬼魅滿室。讙聲相逐，為我行賊。
A great southern land; ghosts and goblins fill its rooms. Clamoring voices chase one another; they act as thieves against us.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder returns beneath the earth, but what fills the house in the great southern state is not treasure but ghosts and demons. Clamorous voices chase one another, and these spectral intruders become bandits working against the traveler. The 'southern state' as a place of supernatural menace inverts the usual association of the south with warmth and abundance. From Return to Great Taming, heaven stored within the mountain — the power of accumulated wisdom and restraint. The transformation suggests that the chaotic spirits haunting the great state can only be tamed by the mountain's patient containment. What cannot be fought must be absorbed, stored, and slowly civilized through the discipline of learning and virtue.
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