Guan to Yi: bidding in a government coal tender

Date not recorded · An employee of a coal company · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 20 Guān (Contemplation), line 1 moving, changing to Hexagram 42 Yì (Increase).

Original text

某石炭會社員來曰。當某局石炭購入。試驗甲乙石炭之火力。然後將付之入札。請占其勝敗如何。筮得觀之益。爻辭曰。初六童觀。小人无咎。君子吝。斷曰。觀者見也。見石炭之眞質也。今某局方購入石炭。試驗火力。然後競爭入札。可謂行公平之法則者也。謂之大觀在上。中正以觀天下。今占得初爻。初六在下。僻處遠方。曰童觀。以幼童見識。昏愚短淺。蓋指檢査者之無識也。爻曰小人无咎。君子吝。是正者取敗。不正者得勝之時也。玆競爭者某。富狡猾之智。於試驗之際。其設計行詐。弊有不可勝防者。深恐會社取敗。後果如是。

In plain words

An employee of a coal company came and said: a government office is buying coal; it will first test the heating power of the different coals and then put the contract out to tender. Please divine whether we will win. The cast gave Guan with its first line moving, changing into Yi. The line reads: "Six at the beginning: a child's way of looking; for the petty person no fault, for the noble person shame."

Takashima's judgment: Guan means looking, here looking at the true quality of the coal. The office testing the coal before taking bids is following a fair procedure; that is the commentary's "the great view is above, looking at the world with balance and fairness".

But the cast gave the first line. The first line is at the very bottom, far off at the edge, hence "a child's way of looking": seeing with a child's understanding, dim and shallow, which probably points to inspectors without expertise. "No fault for the petty, shame for the noble" means a time when the honest lose and the dishonest win. Your rival in this tender is very cunning, and during the tests he will scheme and cheat in ways that cannot all be guarded against. I fear your company will lose.

That is what happened.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the first line of Guan is read.
The hexagram is read as looking, mapped onto testing the coal; the commentary's "great view above" is cited first to grant that the procedure itself is fair.
The line's place is the bottom: lowest and furthest away, with the shallowest view, read as inspectors who lack expertise.
"No fault for the petty, shame for the noble" is read as the honest losing and the dishonest winning. Casting the rival as the "petty person" goes beyond what the line itself says.

About the outcome

"That is what happened" is Takashima's own record. The text does not show that the rival actually cheated, or how the tender was lost; putting the loss down to the rival's cheating is the view of one side. This site does not treat it as evidence.

Applying it to your situation

"A child's way of looking" is a reminder that any judgment depends on whether the judge can see clearly. When you face an evaluation, beyond doing your own work well, can you make it easier for those judging to see the real quality?

Original: Takashima Kaemon, Takashima Ekidan (expanded edition), recorded by Yanagida Ikusaku, Chinese text by Wang Zhiben, 1901. Translation, notes and reflection by this site.

These are historical records kept by the diviner himself. The outcomes are his own account; this site uses them to study how the lines were read, not as evidence that divination predicts events.

Cast a hexagram · All of Takashima's cases · The 64 hexagrams