渙 → 師
Hexagram 59: Dispersion → Hexagram 7: The Army
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 5, 6).
Line 5
九五 渙汗其大號。渙。王居无咎。
Nine in the fifth place means: His loud cries are as dissolving as sweat. Dissolution! A king abides without blame.
Line 6
上九 渙其血。去逖出。无咎。
Nine at the top means: He dissolves his blood. Departing, keeping at a distance, going out, Is without blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
安息康居，異國穹廬。非吾習俗，使我心憂。
Yellow desert sand stretches without end; in round tents among cattle and sheep, no one marks the autumn. Foreign food is strange and harsh — in dreams I still hear the bells of my homeland.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind disperses over water, and here the original verse speaks the traveler's anguish directly. Anxi and Kangju — the Parthian and Central Asian kingdoms along the Silk Road — with their domed yurts and alien customs, weigh upon the heart. 'These are not my ways; they make me grieve.' The verse captures the homesickness of a Han envoy or captive stranded among nomadic peoples, where round felt tents replace tiled roofs and mutton replaces millet. Earth concealing water within, the Army's image, speaks of disciplined multitudes held in formation — the organized response to disorder. From Dispersion to the Army, exile's grief transforms into the collective discipline of endurance: the scattered individual finds structure not in homecoming but in the soldier's stoic bearing far from home.
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