六爻
Six Lines casts a hexagram with three coins, then assigns each line a stem, a branch and one of the Six Relations through the eight-palace Najia system, and reads a single question from the result. It grew out of the Najia scheme of the Han scholar Jing Fang and reached a complete interpretive system in the Ming and Qing.
What marks this literature is the sheer volume of worked cases. Zeng Shan Bu Yi is built almost entirely from recorded castings, its author using counterexamples to correct received opinion; Huang Jin Ce is a densely compressed rhapsody that needs a commentary to be read at all. The two forms complement each other.
How to read this branch
Learn to assemble a hexagram from a systematic treatise first, then work through the case collections. Choosing the Useful God is the hinge of the whole method and repays comparing how different books handle it.
- Bu Shi Quan Shu (卜筮全書)OriginalTranslationMing (明) · Yao Jilong (姚際隆)The Complete Book of Divination, Revised by Talk Yi Hall
- Bu Shi Zheng Zong (卜筮正宗)OriginalTranslationQing (清) · Wang Hongxu (王洪緒)The Orthodox Tradition of Divination, compiled by Wang Hongxu, the sec…
- Da Yi Duan Li Bu Shi Yuan Gui Mu (大易斷例卜筮元龜目)OriginalTranslationYuan (元) · Xiao Jiwen (蕭吉文)The Great Changes: Examples of Divination and the Origin…
- Duan Yi Gui Ling Jing (斷易鬼靈經)OriginalTranslationdate unknown (未詳) · anonymous (佚名)Secretly Passed Down Divination Classic of Ghosts and Spirits
- Duan Yi Tian Ji (斷易天機)OriginalTranslationMing (明) · anonymous (佚名)The Oracle Hexagram启蒙 Song
- Hai Di Yan (海底眼)OriginalTranslationSong (宋) · Wang Ding (王鼎)
- Huo Zhu Lin (火珠林)OriginalTranslationSong (宋) · the Hemp-Robed Daoist (麻衣道者)Fire Pearl Forest: A Work by the Hemp-Robed Daoist
- Yi Lin Bu Yi (易林補遺)OriginalTranslationMing (明) · Zhang Shibao (張世寶)Supplements to the Forest of Changes: Prefatory Remarks
- Yi Mao (易冒)OriginalTranslationQing (清) · Cheng Liangyu (程良玉)The Book of Changes: Venturing into the Changes
- Yi Yin (易隱)OriginalTranslationQing (清) · Cao Jiuxi (曹九錫)Preface to the Hidden Changes
- Zeng Shan Bo Yi (增刪卜易)OriginalTranslationQing (清) · the Wild Crane Elder (野鶴老人)The Improved and Revised Book of Divination, authored by the Wild Cran…
Charting guides
- Six Lines ChartA cast hexagram can go to AI reading. Six Lines casts a hexagram about one specific matter and reads its structure. Unlike Four Pillars or Purple Star Astrology, which describe a person, Six Lines describes how a situation stands at a particular moment. This page walks through the full process from casting to attribution.
- Yarrow Stalk DivinationA cast hexagram can go to AI reading. The yarrow stalk method is the casting procedure the Book of Changes describes for itself, set out in the Great Treatise. It is far more involved than tossing coins, but every step is written down in the text, and it distinguishes old from young lines. This page follows the eighteen changes in order.