震 → 蠱
Hexagram 51: The Arousing Thunder → Hexagram 18: Work on the Decayed
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 6).
Line 1
初九 震來虩虩。後笑言啞啞。吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Shock comes–oh, oh! Then follow laughing words–ha, ha! Good fortune.
Line 2
六二 震來厲。億喪貝。躋于九陵。勿逐。七日得。
Six in the second place means: Shock comes bringing danger. A hundred thousand times You lose your treasures And must climb the nine hills. Do not go in pursuit of them. After seven days you will get them back again.
Line 3
六三 震蘇蘇。震行无眚。
Six in the third place means: Shock comes and makes one distraught. If shock spurs to action One remains free of misfortune.
Line 4
九四 震遂泥。
Nine in the fourth place means: Shock is mired.
Line 6
上六 震索索。視矍矍。征凶。震不于其躬。于其鄰。无咎。婚媾有言。
Six at the top means: Shock brings ruin and terrified gazing around. Going ahead brings misfortune. If it has not yet touched one's own body But has reached one's neighbor first, There is no blame. One's comrades have something to talk about.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
不虞之患，禍生無門。奄然暴卒，病傷我心。
An unforeseen calamity; disaster enters through no gate. Sudden and violent it strikes; illness wounds my heart.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder doubled yields to mountain over wind: shock encounters festering decay. Disaster strikes without warning — misfortune enters through no gate. Death comes suddenly, illness wounds the heart. The phrase 'misfortune enters through no gate' (禍生無門) echoes the classical formulation that 'blessings and calamities have no fixed path; people summon them upon themselves.' Yet this verse emphasizes the unpredictable: calamity that arrives without visible cause. From The Arousing to Work on the Decayed, mountain over wind, the verse traces how shock, instead of clearing the air, reveals corruption already festering beneath the surface. Wind below the mountain stirs what has rotted quietly. The sudden death is not the cause but the symptom of neglected decay.
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