Gou to Ding: merchants and landowners fight over common property

1889 (Meiji 22) · A lawyer in Yokohama · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 44 Gòu (Coming to Meet), line 5 moving, changing to Hexagram 50 Dǐng (The Cauldron).

Original text

明治二十二年某月。橫濱辯護士某來曰。近因商人與地主。爲爭公共財產上權利。起一大訟。此案向來紛爭。迄今未見和解也。請煩一筮。以卜勝負。筮得姤之鼎。爻辭曰。九五以杞包瓜。含章。有隕自天。斷曰。姤者一陰遇五陽之卦。陰欲長而陽抑之。蓋陰長消陽。陽長消陰。卦與夬相反。所謂反復其道。一消一長。亦天運使然也。今足下爲占爭財訟事。而得此爻。知此財產爲公共之物。甲可取。乙亦可取。猶之陰陽消長。彼此互有權也。爻辭曰以杞包瓜。就杞瓜而論。杞爲植木。特立在上。瓜爲蔓生。綿延在地。當以杞爲商人。瓜爲地主。所謂包者。宜以商人包容地主。地主之權利。藉商人調護而出。猶瓜之施于杞木而生也。含章者。謂所包之中。自有章華內含。以見利益之大也。有隕自天者。隕。落也。其終財產歸結。要自有天數存焉。非人力所可强爭也。孔子曰。得之不得。曰有命。勸兩造亦各聽命而已矣。

In plain words

In 1889 a lawyer from Yokohama came and said: merchants and landowners are in a major lawsuit over rights to some common property. The case has been fought over for a long time and there is still no settlement. Please cast to see who will win. The cast gave Gou with its fifth line moving, changing into Ding. The line reads: "Nine in the fifth place: a melon wrapped in willow leaves; hidden beauty; something falls from heaven."

Takashima's judgment: Gou is one yin line meeting five yang lines; the yin wants to grow and the yang holds it back. When yin grows, yang wanes, and when yang grows, yin wanes; this hexagram is the reverse of Guai, the way turning back on itself, one waning and one waxing, as heaven's course would have it. Asking about a property suit and drawing this line shows that the property is held in common: A may take it, and so may B. As with yin and yang waxing and waning, each side has a claim.

The line says "a melon wrapped in willow". Of the willow and the melon: the willow is a tree that stands tall above; the melon is a vine spreading along the ground. Let the willow be the merchants and the melon the landowners. "Wrapping" means the merchants should accommodate the landowners; the landowners' rights can only flourish with the merchants' care, as a melon grows by climbing a willow. "Hidden beauty" means there is something fine within what is wrapped, showing how great the benefit can be.

"Something falls from heaven": in the end, where the property goes is up to heaven, not something human effort can force. As Confucius said, "whether one gets it or not is a matter of fate". Both parties should simply accept what comes.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the fifth line of Gou is read.
The hexagram is read as the waxing and waning of yin and yang: Gou and Guai mirror each other, one waning as the other waxes, read as both sides having a claim to common property rather than one being wholly right.
The image is split between the parties: the tall willow is the merchants, the ground-hugging melon the landowners, and "wrapping" means the merchants should accommodate the landowners. A natural image is taken apart and assigned to the two sides of a lawsuit.
"Something falls from heaven" puts the outcome down to fate, and so the advice is for both parties to accept it, rather than a verdict on who wins.

About the outcome

The text does not record how the suit ended. Nor did Takashima predict a winner; he turned the question from "who wins" into "how the two sides should live together".

Applying it to your situation

In a dispute, what we most want to know is whether we will win. "A melon wrapped in willow" offers another view: both sides may have a point, and the stronger making room for the weaker may be better for everyone. In your dispute, what is the other side's case?

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