歸妹 → 晉
Hexagram 54: The Marrying Maiden → Hexagram 35: Progress
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 6).
Line 1
初九 歸妹以娣。跛能履。征吉。
Nine at the beginning means: The marrying maiden as a concubine. A lame man who is able to tread. Undertakings bring good fortune.
Line 2
九二 眇能視。利幽人之貞。
Nine in the second place means: A one-eyed man who is able to see. The perseverance of a solitary man furthers.
Line 6
上六 女承筐无實。士刲羊无血。无攸利。
Six at the top means: The woman holds the basket, but there are no fruits in it. The man stabs the sheep, but no blood flows. Nothing that acts to further.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
江漢上流，政逆民憂。陰伐其陽，雌為雄公。
The Yangtze and Han flow upstream; governance reversed, the people grieve. Yin attacks yang; the hen usurps the cock's authority.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder over lake yields to fire over earth: the maiden's constrained role meets Progress, where light emerges above the horizon. The upper reaches of the Yangtze and Han rivers flow in reverse; governance defies the people's welfare. Yin usurps yang; the female takes the male's authority. The verse describes political inversion: rivers running backward signal a world turned upside-down. The allusion to the hen crowing at dawn echoes the classic warning from the Book of Documents against women seizing governing power. From the Marrying Maiden to Progress, fire rises above earth in the natural advance of illumination. Yet the verse presents anti-progress: when yin overpowers yang, what should clarify instead obscures. Progress demands the self-illumination of bright virtue; without it, advancement becomes perversion.
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