大壯 → 復
Hexagram 34: Great Power → Hexagram 24: Return
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4).
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
雷霆所擊，誅者五逆，磨滅無迹，有懼方息。
Where thunderbolts strike, they punish the five treasons. Ground to dust, no trace remains; only with dread does it cease.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above heaven doubles: Great Power transforms into Return, where thunder rests beneath the earth, gathering for renewal. The verse speaks of thunderbolts striking down the 'five rebellions' — the most extreme transgressions against the moral order. The guilty are ground to nothing, their traces obliterated, and only through fear does the disruption finally cease. This is cosmic justice delivered with overwhelming force, the thunder that punishes without appeal. From Dazhuang to Fu, the thunder that once raged in the heavens now returns to the earth, entering its period of rest at the winter solstice. The transformation suggests that after power has executed its harshest judgment, it must descend underground and regenerate. Destruction precedes renewal; fear precedes peace.
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