大壯 → 坤
Hexagram 34: Great Power → Hexagram 2: The Receptive
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 4).
Line 1
初九 壯于趾。征凶有孚。
Nine at the beginning means: Power in the toes. Continuing brings misfortune. This is certainly true.
Line 2
九二 貞吉。
Nine in the second place means: Perseverance brings good fortune.
Line 3
九三 小人用壯。君子用罔。貞厲。羝羊觸藩。羸其角。
Nine in the third place means: The inferior man works through power. The superior man does not act thus. To continue is dangerous. A goat butts against a hedge And gets its horns entangled.
Line 4
九四 貞吉。悔亡。藩決不羸。壯于大輿之輹。
Nine in the fourth place means: Perseverance brings good fortune. Remorse disappears. The hedge opens; there is no entanglement. Power depends upon the axle of a big cart.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
家給人足，頌聲並作，四夷賓服，干戈囊閣。
Granaries overflow — even the mice don't steal. Weapons are forged into plows; oxen pull the autumn harvest. Merchants travel freely between neighboring nations, north and south — cooking smoke from ten thousand homes thickens into cloud.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder over heaven transforms into earth upon earth: Great Power yields to the Receptive. The original verse depicts an era of universal sufficiency — every household provided for, hymns of praise rising in harmony, the four barbarian peoples submitting voluntarily, and weapons sheathed and stored away. This is the vision of a realm so abundantly governed that military strength becomes unnecessary. The image recalls the golden age rhetoric of Han imperial panegyric: when virtue radiates outward, even border peoples respond. From Great Power to the Receptive, the transformation traces how vigorous initiative, once it achieves its purpose, wisely dissolves into receptive stillness. The earth carries all things without assertion; power at its zenith finds fulfillment not in further conquest but in generous repose.
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