The eight trigrams of the I Ching

Written by Orbitarot · Sources: listed at the end of this guide · Updated October 7, 2026

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Key finding: From the King Wen table, each trigram appears in 8 + 8 - 1 = 15 of the 64 hexagrams; the 8 doubled trigrams are hexagrams 1, 51, 29, 52, 2, 57, 30 and 58, and the other 56 form 28 swapped pairs.

What are the eight trigrams of the I Ching?

The eight trigrams, or bagua, are every possible stack of three lines, each solid (yang) or broken (yin). Two choices for each of three lines gives 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 trigrams: Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Water, Mountain, Wind, Fire and Lake. Stacking any two of them makes one of the 64 hexagrams.

Ba means eight and gua means trigram or figure, so bagua simply means "the eight trigrams". Each has a Chinese name, a natural image, a core quality and a place in a symbolic family of father, mother, three sons and three daughters. Knowing them turns a hexagram from an abstract number into a picture: hexagram 11, Peace, is Earth above Heaven, and hexagram 63, After Completion, is Water above Fire.

What does each trigram mean?

Heaven is strong and creative; Earth is yielding and receptive; Thunder arouses; Water is deep and dangerous; Mountain keeps still; Wind penetrates gently; Fire is bright and clinging; Lake is joyful and open. Each also has a traditional family role and, in the King Wen or Later Heaven arrangement, a compass direction.

Lines are listed from the bottom up, the way an I Ching reading is always written. The descriptions below are our own summaries of the traditional associations.

Heaven (Qián) ☰

Three solid lines: pure yang. Heaven stands for strength, initiative and steady effort, and in the family it is the father. Doubled, it makes hexagram 1, the Creative, the first hexagram of the book.

Earth (Kūn) ☷

Three broken lines: pure yin. Earth stands for receptivity, support and patient work, and it is the mother. Doubled, it makes hexagram 2, the Receptive.

Thunder (Zhèn) ☳

One solid line under two broken ones. The yang line at the bottom pushes upward, which is why Thunder means sudden movement and arousal. It is the eldest son.

Water (Kǎn) ☵

One solid line between two broken ones, like a current running between banks. Water stands for depth, danger and flowing on through difficulty. It is the middle son.

Mountain (Gèn) ☶

One solid line resting on two broken ones, like a peak on solid ground. Mountain means stillness, stopping and knowing when to rest. It is the youngest son.

Wind (Xùn) ☴

Two solid lines over a broken one. Wind, and also wood, enters gently and gradually, the way roots spread or a breeze gets everywhere. It is the eldest daughter.

Fire (Lí) ☲

A broken line between two solid ones: bright outside, open inside. Fire stands for clarity and light, and for clinging, since a flame needs something to burn. It is the middle daughter.

Lake (Duì) ☱

A broken line on top of two solid ones, like an open surface of water. Lake stands for joy, openness and exchange. It is the youngest daughter.

Why are the trigrams called father, mother, sons and daughters?

The family roles follow from the lines. Heaven, all yang, is the father; Earth, all yin, is the mother. Each son has exactly one yang line and each daughter exactly one yin line, and the position of that single line gives the birth order: bottom for eldest, middle for middle, top for youngest.

You can check it in the table above. Thunder (solid, broken, broken) has its one yang line at the bottom: eldest son. Water (broken, solid, broken) has it in the middle: middle son. Mountain (broken, broken, solid) has it at the top: youngest son. The daughters mirror this with their single yin line: Wind at the bottom (eldest), Fire in the middle (middle), Lake at the top (youngest). Count the yang lines across all eight and you get 3 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 12 of 24, exactly half.

How do two trigrams make the 64 hexagrams?

Every hexagram is one trigram on top of another: lines 1 to 3 form the lower trigram and lines 4 to 6 the upper. Eight choices for the lower times eight for the upper gives 8 x 8 = 64. The table below gives the hexagram number for every pair in the traditional King Wen order.

Find the upper trigram in the left column and the lower trigram along the top row. For example, Mountain over Lake is 41, and Lake over Mountain is 31.

This is the same lookup our I Ching reading tool uses behind the scenes. Once you have a number, the list of all 64 hexagrams takes you to its judgment and line texts. If you cast by hand, our guide on how to consult the I Ching explains how to turn coin tosses into lines.

What can you count from the trigram table?

Each trigram appears in exactly 15 of the 64 hexagrams: 8 as the upper trigram, 8 as the lower, minus the 1 hexagram where it is both. Eight hexagrams are a trigram doubled. The other 56 come in 28 pairs, each pair using the same two trigrams with top and bottom swapped.

The arithmetic, step by step:

• Hexagrams containing Heaven: as upper trigram, 8 (1, 25, 6, 33, 12, 44, 13, 10); as lower trigram, 8 (1, 34, 5, 26, 11, 9, 14, 43). Hexagram 1 is in both lists, so 8 + 8 - 1 = 15. The same holds for every trigram, so a reading contains any given trigram with probability 15/64 = 23.4%.
• The 8 doubled trigrams: Heaven 1, Thunder 51, Water 29, Mountain 52, Earth 2, Wind 57, Fire 30, Lake 58. In the King Wen order they come as four neighboring pairs: 1 and 2, 29 and 30, 51 and 52, 57 and 58.
• The 28 swapped pairs: 64 - 8 = 56 mixed hexagrams, and 56 / 2 = 28 pairs. Choosing 2 of 8 trigrams gives C(8, 2) = 28, which confirms the count.
• Lower and upper odds: with coins or yarrow stalks each line is yang half the time, so any particular lower trigram has probability (1/2)^3 = 1/8, and the same for the upper one.

Some swapped pairs make striking opposites. Earth over Heaven is hexagram 11, Peace; Heaven over Earth is hexagram 12, Standstill. Legge's translations of the two judgments mirror each other:

"In Thâi (we see) the little gone and the great come. (It indicates that) there will be good fortune, with progress and success." (Legge, 1882, hexagram 11)

"We see in it the great gone and the little come." (Legge, 1882, hexagram 12)

The usual reading is that in 11, heavy Earth above and rising Heaven below move toward each other and meet, while in 12 they drift apart. Water over Fire (63, After Completion) and Fire over Water (64, Before Completion) close the book with the same kind of mirror.

Which direction belongs to each trigram?

In the King Wen arrangement, also called the Later Heaven sequence, Fire is south, Water north, Thunder east and Lake west. Heaven is northwest, Earth southwest, Mountain northeast and Wind southeast. A second arrangement, called Earlier Heaven and attributed to the legendary Fu Xi, places the trigrams differently, so check which one a source uses.

These directions surface in the text itself. The judgment of hexagram 2, made of Earth doubled, mentions "getting friends in the south-west, and losing friends in the north-east", and the judgment of hexagram 39, Obstruction, opens:

"In (the state indicated by) Kien advantage will be found in the south-west, and the contrary in the north-east." (Legge, 1882, hexagram 39)

That fits the Later Heaven arrangement, where Earth sits in the southwest and Mountain in the northeast. Bagua charts in feng shui also use compass directions, but practices vary, and we do not cover them here.

How do trigrams help you read a hexagram?

Read the lower trigram as the inner side of a situation or what is close at hand, and the upper trigram as the outer side or what lies ahead. Then picture the two images together: Mountain over Lake, Wind over Thunder. The image often sums up the hexagram before you read a word.

Take a reading that moves from hexagram 41, Decrease (Mountain over Lake) to hexagram 42, Increase (Wind over Thunder). The changing lines alter both trigrams: still Mountain becomes gentle Wind, joyful Lake becomes moving Thunder. That shift from stillness to movement is a useful first impression before you look at the line texts. Our guide to I Ching changing lines works through this example in full, including which line text to treat as the main one.

Trigrams are a reading aid, not a separate oracle. Use them to get a feel for a hexagram, then let the judgment and line texts carry the detail.

Questions

What are the 8 trigrams?

Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Water, Mountain, Wind, Fire and Lake: the eight possible stacks of three solid or broken lines. In Chinese they are Qián, Kūn, Zhèn, Kǎn, Gèn, Xùn, Lí and Duì.

What does bagua mean?

Bagua means eight trigrams. Ba is eight and gua is a trigram or figure; the word refers to the set of eight and to diagrams that arrange them around a center.

How do trigrams make a hexagram?

A hexagram is two trigrams stacked: lines 1 to 3 are the lower trigram, lines 4 to 6 the upper. Eight lower options times eight upper options gives the 64 hexagrams.

Which hexagrams are doubled trigrams?

Eight: Heaven 1, Earth 2, Water 29, Fire 30, Thunder 51, Mountain 52, Wind 57 and Lake 58.

Sources

• James Legge, The Yi King (The I Ching), 1882: James Legge, trans., The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism, Part II, The Yi King (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882 (public domain)
• King Wen hexagram table: The traditional King Wen order of the 64 hexagrams, as used in this site's I Ching tool; counts computed by us

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