Congenital Ba-gua and Acquired Ba-gua

You are most probably aware that there are two different Ba-gua diagrams with different trigram placements, but you may not realize that they are actually coming from the same script which Conficius or his followers wrote two thousand years ago. The name of the script is “Shou-gua” (《說卦》), which literally means the explanation of trigrams. It was an independent script till people found it convenient to make reference to if it is attached to “Zhou-yi” (《周易》) as a commentary.

“Yi” (易) literally means easy or transaction. Since the book “Yi-jing” (《易經》) talks about the interaction of Yin and Yang, Yi can therefore mean change, and hence “Yi-jing” (or people refer it as I-Ching) is called the Book of Change by the westerner. No matter how people try to come up with the meaning for “Zhou” (周), it simply means of the Zhou Dynasty.

However, keep one thing in your open mind, “Zhou-yi” is not the only “Yi-jing” even in Zhou Dynasty. It is just a version happened to be interpreted by Conficius and hence used to refer to by most of the people thereafter. If he interpreted wrongly, then we were fooled during all these times, not to mention the entire study of “Zhou-yi” would just go off course for the last two millenniums.

In “Shou-gua”, there is a paragraph dictated the trigram placement for Congenital Ba-gua. It is as follow:

「天地定位，山澤通氣，雷風相薄，水火不相射，八卦相錯。數往者順，知來者逆，是故《易》，逆數也。」

I am not good in translation, so all I can do is to talk about what it means. The paragraph mentioned heaven and earth, mountain and river, thunder and wind, even water and fire. All these substance pairs have opposite properties nature, like up in the heaven and down on the earth, etc. A practical presentation of Yin and Yang. In fact, the word “定位” means to fix the position.

As Chinese evolved to Zhou Dynasty, the concept of coalescence between human and heaven was gradually established. It is generally acknowledged that the trigram Qian (乾) means heaven. That’s why “Zhou-yi” starts with the hexagram Qian. If Qian assumes the top position, then Kun (坤) should be underneath. As such, we have the Congenital Ba-gua.

However, there is another paragraph in “Shuo-gua” which is far more details in introducing different trigram placements. It is as follow:

「帝出乎震，齊乎巽，相見乎離，致役乎坤，說言乎兌，戰乎乾，勞乎坎，成言乎艮。」

The word “帝” means emperor, but it is here used to represent Sun. “出” means appear, so “帝出乎震” means the Sun arises from Zhen (震). It doesn’t quite make sense unless Zhen means East. Starting Zhen at the left horizon as East and going clockwise, we will then have the Acquired Ba-gua.

The terms Congenital and Acquired in fact are not good descriptions of the Ba-gua’s because they are having the meaning of order of presence. It is generally believed that the Congenital Ba-gua comes before the Acquired Ba-gua. However, later studies show otherwise.

The Congenital Ba-gua demonstrates the opposite properties of different pairs, as compared to Yin and Yang, but also highlights the interaction between them, like mountain and river. The Acquired Ba-gua, on the other hand, illustrates the periodic changes of Yin and Yang, as compared to the change of weather on Earth. The influence, so to speak. It also show directions. This is the primary reason why Chinese metaphysics are based upon the application of Acquired Ba-gua, Luo-shu, and Sexagenary Cycle.