I Ching Hexagram Chart: The 64 Hexagrams Explained

The I Ching has 64 hexagrams, and each one is built from two of eight trigrams stacked on top of each other: eight lower trigrams times eight upper trigrams. In the sequence most charts print — the King Wen sequence — the sixty-four begin with Qian (乾, the Creative) and Kun (坤, the Receptive) and end with Ji Ji (既濟, After Completion) and Wei Ji (未濟, Before Completion). A hexagram chart is a lookup plate: it puts all sixty-four on one sheet so a reader can find a name, a number and a structure at a glance.

The eight trigrams

Every hexagram is two of these. Learn the eight and the sixty-four become readable.

Each line is either yang (solid, unbroken) or yin (broken, with a gap). Six lines stacked from the bottom up make a hexagram; the lower three are the inner trigram and the upper three the outer. Read the same two trigrams in the other order and you get a different hexagram, which is why the system has sixty-four entries rather than the thirty-six unordered pairs.

How a hexagram is named and numbered

Take the hexagram formed by Qian below and Kun above: earth over heaven, the eleventh in the King Wen sequence, Tai (泰, Peace). Turn the same two trigrams around — Kun below, Qian above — and you get the twelfth, Pi (否, Standstill). Same two components, opposite meaning, because the relationship between them is reversed.

That structure is the reason a chart is worth printing rather than a list of names: the reader needs to see the two trigrams simultaneously and compare them against their neighbours. On a single sheet, the King Wen order displays its own logic — the sequence is organised largely in pairs, and the pairs are usually a hexagram and its inverse or its opposite.

What the chart is actually used for

• Looking up a cast hexagram. The traditional method produces six lines; the reader finds the resulting hexagram, then its changing lines, then the second hexagram those changes produce. That is a lookup that wants a plate, not a book.
• Reference for study. Students of the text — and there are a great many of them outside China — want the sequence, the names in characters and romanisation, and the trigram structure visible at once.
• A philosophical object. The I Ching is read seriously as a cosmological text, not only as a divination manual. A chart that shows the trigram structure makes that reading possible; one that shows only decorative spirals does not.
• Display. It is one of the few Chinese reference subjects with genuine recognition in the West — the eight trigrams are on the national flag of South Korea, and the book has been in continuous Western translation since the nineteenth century.

The translations that made it recognisable

The book entered Western bookshops through Richard Wilhelm's German translation of 1924, translated into English by Cary F. Baynes in 1950 with a foreword by Carl Jung. That edition is the reason a European or American customer can name the I Ching at all, and the reason a chart of the sixty-four sells outside East Asia. Jung's interest also explains the persistent Western framing of the I Ching as psychology rather than divination — a framing that Chinese readers of the same text would not necessarily recognise.

What a good hexagram chart shows

1. All sixty-four, numbered in a stated sequence. If the chart does not say "King Wen sequence", ask which sequence it is using — alternatives exist and they are not interchangeable.
2. Both parts of every name. The characters and the romanisation. A chart in characters alone excludes almost every buyer in Europe and North America.
3. The two trigrams visible within each hexagram. Highlighted lines, or a marker showing where the inner trigram ends.
4. The changing-line logic. On a good large chart the nuclear trigrams — the inner pair formed by lines two to four and three to five — are marked too.
5. Accurate line art. A yang line is solid, a yin line is broken. Sloppy printing that closes the gap in the yin line destroys the only visual grammar the system has.

Frequently asked questions

How many hexagrams are there in the I Ching?

Sixty-four, formed by combining two of the eight trigrams. The count is a consequence of the geometry rather than a choice: eight possible lower trigrams and eight possible upper trigrams give sixty-four distinct combinations.

What is a hexagram made of?

Six lines drawn from the bottom up. Each line is either yang (solid) or yin (broken). The lower three lines are the inner trigram and the upper three the outer; the whole figure is read as a relationship between the two.

What is the King Wen sequence?

The traditional ordering of the sixty-four hexagrams, attributed to King Wen of Zhou, beginning with Qian and Kun and ending with Ji Ji and Wei Ji. It is the sequence nearly all printed charts use, and it is arranged in pairs — usually a hexagram followed by its inverse or its opposite.

Is the I Ching a fortune-telling book?

It is used as one, and it is also read as a philosophical and cosmological text — the two uses have coexisted for over two thousand years. Western readers most often meet it through the Wilhelm–Baynes translation, which frames it psychologically. A shop selling a hexagram chart should be able to describe all three framings, because different customers will ask for different ones.

What is the difference between a trigram and a hexagram?

A trigram is three lines, and there are eight. A hexagram is six lines, made of two trigrams, and there are sixty-four. If a chart shows eight symbols and calls them hexagrams, it is mislabelled.

Next: The 28 lunar mansions: how to read a Chinese star chart covers the astronomical reference chart, and Selling Chinese history and culture accurately is the staff briefing that goes with this range.

The chart described here is Wisdom of the I Ching, printed on 240gsm matte art paper in three sizes. Trade tiers start at 12 pieces — sign in to see them.