旅 → 訟
Hexagram 56: The Wanderer → Hexagram 6: Conflict
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
Line 1
初六 旅瑣瑣。斯其所取災。
Six at the beginning means: If the wanderer busies himself with trivial things, He draws down misfortune upon himself.
Line 2
六二 旅即次。懷其資。得童僕貞。
Six in the second place means: The wanderer comes to an inn. He has his property with him. He wins the steadfastness of a young servant.
Line 3
九三 旅焚其次。喪其童僕。貞厲。
Nine in the third place means: The wanderer's inn burns down. He loses the steadfastness of his young servant. Danger.
Line 4
九四 旅于處。得其資斧。我心不快。
Nine in the fourth place means: The wanderer rests in a shelter. He obtains his property and an ax. My heart is not glad.
Line 5
六五 射雉。一矢亡。終以譽命。
Six in the fifth place means: He shoots a pheasant. It drops with the first arrow. In the end this brings both praise and office.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
秋蚕不成,冬種不生。殷王逆理,棄其寵榮。
Autumn silkworms yield no silk; winter planting bears no life. The Yin king defied right reason and cast away his honored glory.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire on the mountain scorches the harvest before its time. Autumn silkworms fail to spin their cocoons; winter seeds refuse to germinate — every endeavor launched against the natural season comes to nothing. The verse then names 'the Yin king who defied reason,' almost certainly referencing the last Shang tyrant Zhou, whose cruelty and perversion of the cosmic order led him to discard his own glory. From The Wanderer to Conflict, fire meets heaven moving against water. The Yin king's tragedy is precisely the Conflict hexagram's warning: acting contrary to the natural flow invites contention with heaven itself. A ruler who abandons propriety is a wanderer who has lost not merely his home but his mandate.
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