蒙 → 升
Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly → Hexagram 46: Pushing Upward
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 3, 6).
Line 3
六三 勿用取女。見金夫。不有躬。无攸利。
Six in the third place means: Take not a maiden who, when she sees a man of bronze, Loses possession of herself. Nothing furthers.
Line 6
上九 擊蒙。不利為寇。利禦寇。
Nine at the top means: In punishing folly It does not further one To commit transgressions. The only thing that furthers Is to prevent transgressions.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
天福所豐，兆如飛龍。成子得志，六三以興。
What heaven’s blessing makes abundant, its omen is like a flying dragon. The heir achieves his ambition; through the six and the three, he rises.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A spring beneath the mountain is blessed by heaven's abundance and rises like a flying dragon. Chengzi achieves his ambition; from the 'six-three' position, he ascends. 'Chengzi' likely refers to Tian Chengzi, whose clan — originally refugees from the state of Chen — gradually accumulated power in Qi across eight generations before formally usurping the throne in 386 BC. The 'six-three' evokes the I-Ching's third line of a hexagram, where yin occupies a yang position: ambition from an unstable station, but here it succeeds. From Youthful Folly to Pushing Upward, the transformation is exact: wood grows within the earth, rising slowly but irresistibly. What begins as a minor refugee lineage pushes upward through generations until it claims the state.
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