Sheng to Heng: fortunes rising like the morning sun

Date not recorded · A merchant · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 46 Shēng (Pushing Upward), line 4 moving, changing to Hexagram 32 Héng (Duration).

Original text

某商人來。請占氣運。筮得升之恒。爻辭曰。六四王用亨于岐山。吉。无咎。斷曰。升卦諸爻。皆言升。唯二四不言升。其義並取於祭亨。謂人欲升騰發達。必先求神明之保也。四爻辭曰。王用亨于岐山。岐山爲太王避狄之地。寖熾寖昌。大啓爾宇。爲周室王運發祥之始。今足下占得此爻。知足下運氣通順。正如曉日東升。逐步增高。財運亨通。其中雖由足下計畫之精。要亦有神助也。宜齋祓以禱之。吉。

In plain words

A merchant came to ask about his fortunes. The cast gave Sheng with its fourth line moving, changing into Heng. The line reads: "Six in the fourth place: the king makes offerings on Mount Qi; good fortune, no fault."

Takashima's judgment: every line of Sheng, Rising, speaks of rising except the second and fourth, which take their meaning from sacrifice. That is to say, whoever wants to rise and prosper must first seek the protection of the spirits. The fourth line says "the king makes offerings on Mount Qi": Mount Qi was where the Great King of Zhou moved to escape the Di tribes; from there his house grew ever stronger and its lands spread wide. It was the beginning of Zhou's rise to rule.

Drawing this line shows that your fortunes are running smoothly, rising step by step like the morning sun, with money flowing well. Much of this is owed to your careful planning, but there is help from the spirits too. Purify yourself and pray; it is good.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the fourth line of Sheng is read.
The lines are compared: most lines of Sheng speak of rising, but the second and fourth speak of offerings, and from that difference Takashima draws "seek the spirits' help first, and then you can rise". It is a way of reading the whole hexagram and using the exception to explain the moving line.
History is brought in: Mount Qi, where the Great King of Zhou settled and the Zhou house began to rise, becomes a venture at its founding moment, growing steadily.
The hexagram is read as rising, like the morning sun: fortunes going up, money flowing well.

About the outcome

The text does not say what became of the merchant. It is an example of a favourable cast: Takashima's judgment mostly follows the good sense of the line, with the advice to pray that was common in his day.

Applying it to your situation

When things go well, Takashima's reminder is that success comes partly from one's own planning and partly from help beyond oneself. In your present good run, what have others or the times given you, and how will you repay that help?

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