What is Hexagram (卦)?

A six-line symbol in the I Ching that represents a specific situation or pattern of change. Each hexagram has a judgment, image, and line texts. Each of the 64 hexagrams consists of six lines (yin or yang) with judgment, image, and line texts -- used both as a divination tool and a philosophical system for understanding change.

The I Ching does not contain answers; it shows the patterns of change.

— I Ching (Yijing) tradition

Key Takeaways

  • A hexagram (卦) is built from two trigrams (八卦), each of three lines, to form one of the 64 six-line figures of the I Ching.
  • Each line is either yin (阴, broken) or yang (阳, solid); the figure is read through a text, an image, and six line-by-line commentaries.
  • Chinese tradition credits the sequence to the sage-emperors Fu Xi (伏羲) and King Wen (文王), with line texts attributed to the Duke of Zhou and commentary to Confucius.
  • Chinese: 卦 (Hexagram).

Understanding Hexagram

The I Ching's fundamental unit is the trigram, a stack of three broken or solid lines, of which there are eight possible combinations. Placing one trigram on top of another yields 8 × 8 = 64 six-line hexagrams, each given a name, a judgment (卦辞), a commentary on the two trigrams' image, and six line texts (爻辞) that interpret each position. Broken lines are yin (阴) and solid lines are yang (阳), and the position of a line from bottom to top carries meaning, so the same pair of trigrams can yield figures with very different readings. Traditional Chinese sources ascribe the eight trigrams to the legendary sage Fu Xi (伏羲), the ordered sequence of the 64 hexagrams to King Wen (文王) of the Zhou, the line texts to the Duke of Zhou, and the ten commentaries, known as the Ten Wings, to Confucius.

Further Reading

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Hexagram in Chinese Philosophy?

In Chinese philosophy a hexagram (卦) is a six-line figure of the I Ching, formed by stacking two of the eight basic trigrams. Each of the 64 possible hexagrams represents a distinct situation or pattern of change and is read through a judgment, an image, and six line texts.

What does 卦 mean?

The character 卦 (gua) denotes the diagram or hexagram itself. Its structure is binary: each of the six positions is either a broken yin line (阴) or a solid yang line (阳), so the whole figure encodes a state of change that diviners and readers interpret through the accompanying texts.

Why is Hexagram important?

The 64 hexagrams are the backbone of the I Ching, one of the oldest and most influential Chinese classics, and the tradition traces them through the legendary sage-emperor Fu Xi (伏羲) and King Wen (文王). Because each hexagram compresses a whole situation into six lines, the system became both a divination method and a symbolic vocabulary for describing how situations shift over time, a lineage that later philosophical and cosmological traditions in China continued to draw on.

Also Known As

Chinese: 卦. 卦, Gua