) is the sustained focus on a single question, rather than an initial analysis of its ramifications.
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I'm revisiting a primitive YiJing animation, trying to get the code modernised before climate change or dementia sets in.
It currently uses the Wilhelm/Baynes method of generating a second hexagram:
"If there are one or more moving lines...the words appended... are also to be considered... Furthermore, the movement, ie, change in the lines, gives rise to a new hexagram, the meaning of which must also be taken into account" (ISBN 0-7100-1581-X, p725)—ie, any hexagram may transform into any other.
I thought it worthwhile to look at other approaches (forgive me if I'm treading worn ground here). There are many variations:
http://www.russellcottrell.com/VirtualYarrowStalks/rules.htm
Of these, I thought two deviated in major ways from the W/B method, one being extremely simple, another mightily complicated.
Greg Whincup has a preferred method, for which he doesn't give precedents, although he attests its efficacy—one reading bore fruit after "ten years", as foretold. His method :
"If there is one changing line, then that is the divination... If there are two or more changing lines, change them to form a second hexagram. These two hexagrams together are your answer." (ISBN 0-385-19667-9, p223ff)
Given the author's standing, one could assume that this is also a traditional method. However, to me it is a little arbitrary (why two lines and not three, or four, to generate a second hexagram?) as is the underlying conception of his translation, which makes the Changes more coherent than perhaps they need be.
Whincup also describes, without naming them, the Nanjing Rules. Sources and method are fully described in Rutt (ISBN 0-70007-0467-1, p170ff).
The initial attraction is that the rules elucidate the earliest known references to specific divinations (the Zuo and Guoyu texts, datable to circa 400BCE), and that the method allows (mostly) for only one changing line—and thus, in these interesting times, limits the number of possible transformations of one's initial hexagram.
The texts tell of twenty-two divinations: five concern a single hexagram with no changing lines; in another fourteen, the text of each divination is formulated thus:
the questioner "received the line of [first hexagram] that changes to make [second hexagram]".
I like it.
However, to accommodate the flies in the ointment—three divinations with multiple changing lines—some extremely fancy mathematical footwork was required. You can read up on it if you like; the rules are probably discussed somewhere here, too. But for me, counting yarrow stalks is complicated enough without adding another layer of the professional diviner's stock-in-trade.
So, consider: if we accept that changing lines are significant; and accept also that the lines from the first place to the top represent developments in a situation (even allowing for strange textual irruptions): then surely, the uppermost changing line is the most significant. You might consult as many of the changing lines as you wish, but the last one supercedes the others, and carries either exclusive or greater weight.
On this logic, the uppermost changing line would be the line of your hexagram that changes it to another.
'Bundanoon Rules', if ever they see the light of day. Would anyone like to comment?
It currently uses the Wilhelm/Baynes method of generating a second hexagram:
"If there are one or more moving lines...the words appended... are also to be considered... Furthermore, the movement, ie, change in the lines, gives rise to a new hexagram, the meaning of which must also be taken into account" (ISBN 0-7100-1581-X, p725)—ie, any hexagram may transform into any other.
I thought it worthwhile to look at other approaches (forgive me if I'm treading worn ground here). There are many variations:
http://www.russellcottrell.com/VirtualYarrowStalks/rules.htm
Of these, I thought two deviated in major ways from the W/B method, one being extremely simple, another mightily complicated.
Greg Whincup has a preferred method, for which he doesn't give precedents, although he attests its efficacy—one reading bore fruit after "ten years", as foretold. His method :
"If there is one changing line, then that is the divination... If there are two or more changing lines, change them to form a second hexagram. These two hexagrams together are your answer." (ISBN 0-385-19667-9, p223ff)
Given the author's standing, one could assume that this is also a traditional method. However, to me it is a little arbitrary (why two lines and not three, or four, to generate a second hexagram?) as is the underlying conception of his translation, which makes the Changes more coherent than perhaps they need be.
Whincup also describes, without naming them, the Nanjing Rules. Sources and method are fully described in Rutt (ISBN 0-70007-0467-1, p170ff).
The initial attraction is that the rules elucidate the earliest known references to specific divinations (the Zuo and Guoyu texts, datable to circa 400BCE), and that the method allows (mostly) for only one changing line—and thus, in these interesting times, limits the number of possible transformations of one's initial hexagram.
The texts tell of twenty-two divinations: five concern a single hexagram with no changing lines; in another fourteen, the text of each divination is formulated thus:
the questioner "received the line of [first hexagram] that changes to make [second hexagram]".
I like it.
However, to accommodate the flies in the ointment—three divinations with multiple changing lines—some extremely fancy mathematical footwork was required. You can read up on it if you like; the rules are probably discussed somewhere here, too. But for me, counting yarrow stalks is complicated enough without adding another layer of the professional diviner's stock-in-trade.
So, consider: if we accept that changing lines are significant; and accept also that the lines from the first place to the top represent developments in a situation (even allowing for strange textual irruptions): then surely, the uppermost changing line is the most significant. You might consult as many of the changing lines as you wish, but the last one supercedes the others, and carries either exclusive or greater weight.
On this logic, the uppermost changing line would be the line of your hexagram that changes it to another.
'Bundanoon Rules', if ever they see the light of day. Would anyone like to comment?