Repairing What Was Spoiled
- In Chinese
- 蠱 gǔ
- Above
- Keeping Still, mountain
- Below
- The Gentle, wind
Did you get this hexagram?
Mark your changing lines and keep your cast.
Mark my castWhat hexagram 18 means
Hexagram 18 is wind below and mountain above. It describes affairs that have been spoiled, and the work of setting them right. Legge calls it “a state in which things are going to ruin”.
The judgment is favorable for whoever takes up that work. In Legge it “indicates great progress and success (to him who deals properly with the condition represented by it)”.
The success takes work. Legge says “great efforts will be required”, and that the work needs thought about what went wrong and about what to do next.
The judgment and the image
The judgment
蠱元亨。利涉大川，先甲三日，後甲三日。
WORK ON WHAT HAS BEEN SPOILED Has supreme success. It furthers one to cross the great water. Before the starting point, three days. After the starting point, three days.
success things flow and come throughit furthers it is favorable
The image
山下有風，《蠱》。君子以振民育德。
The wind blows low on the mountain: The image of DECAY. Thus the superior man stirs up the people And strengthens their spirit.
What the commentaries say
The commentary on the judgment starts from the two trigrams. It has “the strong (trigram) above, and the weak one below”, and it says “we have (below) pliancy, and (above) stopping”. It takes these together as the picture of affairs close to ruin.
The same commentary explains the three days before and the three days after. It reads them as a turn, where “the end (of confusion) is the beginning (of order)”.
The image is a mountain with wind under it. In Legge the superior man sets out to “help the people and nourish his own virtue”. In Wilhelm he “stirs up the people And strengthens their spirit”.
Legge explains the name. Kû “means the having painful or troublesome services to do”, and the figure describes “the arrest of the decay and the restoration to soundness and vigour”.
Hexagram 18 comes after hexagram 17, which is also its opposite and its inverse. Legge quotes an appendix on that order. It says “They who follow another are sure to have services (to perform)”.
Almost every line shows a son. Legge notes that the subject of the lines, “excepting perhaps 6, appears as a son”, and he cannot square this with the yin and yang nature of the lines and trigrams. He does not hide the doubt. He writes “I am unable to account for these things”.
The six lines
First line
幹父之蠱，有子，考无咎，厲終吉。
Setting right what has been spoiled by the father. If there is a son, No blame rests upon the departed father. Danger. In the end good fortune.
no blame there is no mistake in itdanger there is dangergood fortune it goes well
A son takes up the troubles his father left. The text calls the position “perilous”, and this is the one line of the six that speaks of good fortune. The commentary says the son “feels that he has entered into the work of his father”.
Legge asks what a weak line can do against decay. His answer is its place. It is the first line of the figure, “and the decay is not yet great”. He adds that “By giving heed to the cautions in the Text, he will accomplish what is promised”.
When only this line changes, it becomes hexagram 26, Great Taming
Second line
幹母之蠱，不可貞。
Setting right what has been spoiled by the mother. One must not be too persevering.
no verdict
Here the troubles come from the mother, and the advice changes. The son is not to press his firmness to the end. The commentary says “he holds to the course of the due mean”.
Legge gives the reason, that “a son must be very gentle in all his intercourse with his mother”, and most of all when duty makes him oppose her course.
Legge also says where the mother comes from. Line 5 is a weak line in the place of the ruler, “while 2 is strong”, and so the picture becomes a son facing decay “induced somehow by his mother”.
When only this line changes, it becomes hexagram 52, Keeping Still
Third line
幹父之蠱，小有悔，无大咎。
Setting right what has been spoiled by the father. There will be a little remorse. No great blame.
there is remorse there is something to regret
The son deals with his father's troubles again, this time from a strong line. Legge says its subject “might well go to excess in his efforts”, and that “this tendency is counteracted by the line's place in the trigram Sun, often denoting lowly submission”. The text allows for “some small occasion for repentance”, and the commentary closes the matter with “in the end there will be no error”.
When only this line changes, it becomes hexagram 4, Youthful Folly
Fourth line
裕父之蠱，往見吝。
Tolerating what has been spoiled by the father. In continuing one sees humiliation.
humiliation it leads to embarrassment
Here the son lets the troubles be. He is “viewing indulgently the troubles caused by his father”, and the text warns him about going on. The commentary is plain, “if he go forward, he will not succeed”.
Legge traces the warning to the line itself. It is “weak, and in an even place, which intensifies that weakness”.
When only this line changes, it becomes hexagram 50, The Cauldron
Fifth line
幹父之蠱，用譽。
Setting right what has been spoiled by the father. One meets with praise.
no verdict
The son deals with the troubles and is praised for it. The praise is for “using (the fit instrument for his work)”. The commentary names the help, since “he is responded to (by the subject of line two) with all his virtue”.
Legge reads the pair the same way. Line 5 is the seat of the ruler, and line 2 is the minister “to whom the work of the hexagram is delegated”.
When only this line changes, it becomes hexagram 57, The Gentle
Sixth line
不事王侯，高尚其事。
He does not serve kings and princes, Sets himself higher goals.
no verdict
The top line names no father and no mother, and Legge counts it as perhaps the one line whose subject is not a son. Its subject “does not serve either king or feudal lord”. Legge sees in it “one outside the sphere of action, and taking no part in public affairs, but occupied with the culture of himself”.
The commentary does not blame this choice. It says “his aim may be a model (to others)”.
When only this line changes, it becomes hexagram 46, Pushing Upward
Hexagram 18 unchanging
If none of your six lines is moving, you read the hexagram as a whole. That is the judgment and the image above, without any of the line texts.
The book gives the reason. Lines that do not move are “non-moving lines, which serve only as structural matter in the hexagram, without intrinsic meaning of their own”.
For hexagram 18 unchanging, what remains is the judgment, which gives success to the one who deals properly with a spoiled state and weighs what came before and what comes after. The image adds the task of helping the people and nourishing one's own virtue.
Questions people ask
What does hexagram 18 mean?
It describes a state in which things have been left to decay, and the work of repairing them. The judgment “indicates great progress and success (to him who deals properly with the condition represented by it)”.
What does hexagram 18 unchanging mean?
With no moving lines you read only the judgment and the image. For hexagram 18 that is success for the one who deals properly with what was spoiled, and the task to “help the people and nourish his own virtue”.
What does hexagram 18 changing to 52 mean?
It is hexagram 18 with its second line moving. That line shows a son “dealing with the troubles caused by his mother” without pressing his firmness to the end, and when it changes the hexagram becomes number 52.
What does hexagram 18 changing to 46 mean?
It is hexagram 18 with its top line moving. That line shows one who “does not serve either king or feudal lord”, and when it changes the hexagram becomes number 46.
Is hexagram 18 a bad sign?
The state it describes is one of decay, but the judgment is favorable. Legge says the figure describes the arrest of that decay, “so as to justify its auspice of great progress and success”.
Richard Wilhelm, translated by Cary F. Baynes. Kû in James Legge. Work on What Has Been Spoiled in Wilhelm and Baynes.
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