Jian (Gradual) to Jia Ren: a new venture at its start

Date not recorded · A friend of Takashima · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 53 Jiàn (Gradual Progress), line 1 moving, changing to Hexagram 37 Jiā Rén (The Family).

Original text

友人某來。請占事業成否。筮得漸之家人。爻辭曰。初六鴻漸于干。小子厲。有言。无咎。斷曰。漸者漸而進也。漸在初爻。爲進步之初基也。干。水涯。亦低下之處。君占事業。得漸初爻。知君此業。必是初次開辦。如秋雁初來。尙在江干飛集。未得遠翔。凡事業初創。未免有小人出而阻擾。務要把定初志。不改成言。是得无咎。然在初爻。其進猶微。必得四年後。行到上爻。則得其應援。必可大獲利益也。

In plain words

A friend of Takashima came to ask whether a venture would succeed. The cast gave Jian (Gradual Progress) with its first line moving, changing into Jia Ren. The line reads: "Six at the beginning: the wild goose gradually draws near the shore. The young one is in danger; there is gossip, but no fault."

Takashima's judgment: Jian is advancing little by little. At the first line, it is the very start of the advance. "The shore" is the water's edge, a low place. Asking about a venture and drawing the first line shows that this must be your first such undertaking, like autumn geese that have just arrived and are still gathered on the riverbank, not yet flying far.

Any new venture will meet petty people who try to obstruct it. Hold firmly to your original aim and do not go back on what was agreed, and there will be no fault. But at the first line progress is still small; only after four years, on reaching the top line, will help come, and then there will surely be large profits.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the first line of Jian is read.
The hexagram is gradual advance; the first line is the starting point, read as a first venture.
The image "the goose draws near the shore": geese just arrived and resting at the water, read as a business just started and not yet able to go far.
"The young one is in danger; there is gossip" becomes petty obstruction and idle talk; "no fault" depends on holding to the original aim and agreements. Counting lines then gives help in four years.

About the outcome

The text does not say how the venture went. The advice is plain: new ventures start slowly and attract gossip; keep your aim and your word, and give it time.

Applying it to your situation

"The goose draws near the shore": just arrived and not yet flying far, which is how a beginning should look. Are you expecting too much too soon from something just started, and which promises made at the outset should you keep?

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