What Is Plum Blossom Numerology (Meihua Yishu)? How It Differs from Coins and Yarrow Stalks
Where it comes from
Plum Blossom Numerology (梅花易数, Meihua Yishu) is a method of casting and reading hexagrams, traditionally said to come from Shao Yong (also known as Shao Kangjie) of the Northern Song. The name comes from a widely told story: Shao Yong was admiring plum blossoms when he saw two sparrows, fighting over a branch, fall to the ground, and he cast a hexagram from that. This is the traditional account. As for the book called Meihua Yishu that circulates today, most scholars hold that it was compiled fairly late and put out by later hands under his name; how far the methods in it go back to Shao Yong himself is not clear.
It has two distinguishing features: it casts without any tools, and it does not read mainly from the line statements.
How the hexagram is cast
Plum Blossom Numerology holds that any number at all can be used to cast a hexagram. First each of the eight trigrams is given a number, in the Earlier Heaven order of the eight trigrams: Qian 1, Dui 2, Li 3, Zhen 4, Xun 5, Kan 6, Gen 7, Kun 8. Take a number, divide it by eight, look at the remainder, and you have a trigram (if it divides evenly, that counts as 8).
- Casting from the time: add the numbers of the year, month and day, divide by eight, and the remainder gives the upper trigram. Add the number of the two-hour period (shichen) as well, divide by eight, and the remainder gives the lower trigram. Divide that same total by six, and the remainder is the changing line (if it divides evenly, it is the top line).
- Casting from something you see: the thing seen is assigned to a trigram by its image (for the images, see The eight trigrams chart), and then combined with a direction or the time.
- Casting from a sound, the number of strokes in a written character, and so on: the principle is the same. First get a number, then turn it into a hexagram.
A hexagram cast this way always has exactly one changing line, no more and no fewer. Switch that line between yin and yang and you get the resulting hexagram (which this method calls the changed hexagram, bian gua). What is more, when the time is used, everyone who asks within the same two-hour period gets the same hexagram, whoever they are and whatever they ask.
How it is read
The heart of the reading is ti and yong (体用, "body and function"). A hexagram is made of two trigrams, upper and lower; the one that contains the changing line is called yong, and the one without it is called ti. Ti is yourself; yong is the matter asked about. Each of the eight trigrams belongs to one of the Five Phases (wuxing): Qian and Dui to metal, Zhen and Xun to wood, Kun and Gen to earth, Kan to water, Li to fire. Then you look at how ti and yong generate or overcome each other:
- Yong generates ti, or ti and yong are in harmony (the same phase): good fortune.
- Ti overcomes yong: the matter can succeed, but it will take effort.
- Ti generates yong: there is drain and loss.
- Yong overcomes ti: unfavorable.
You also look at how the nuclear hexagram and the resulting hexagram generate or overcome ti, treating them as the middle stage and the outcome of the matter (for how to find the nuclear hexagram, see What are the primary, resulting and nuclear hexagrams?); and you use the images of the eight trigrams to work out details such as people, objects and directions. The examples in the book do occasionally quote a line statement, but it carries very little weight; what decides the reading is always ti and yong and the trigram images.
How it differs from the coin method and the yarrow-stalk method
| Yarrow stalks | Coins | Plum Blossom Numerology | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What is used | Fifty yarrow stalks | Three coins | No tools: numbers, the time, things seen |
| How the hexagram is formed | Eighteen changes, one line at a time | Six throws, one line at a time | Two divisions by eight, giving the upper and the lower trigram |
| Changing lines | None to six | None to six | Always one |
| Where the hexagram comes from | Dividing the stalks by hand: chance | Throwing the coins: chance | Determined by the moment or by the thing seen |
| Main way of reading | Reading the judgments and line statements | Reading the judgments and line statements; in folk practice also used for najia | Ti and yong, the generating and overcoming of the Five Phases, trigram images |
The yarrow-stalk method and the coin method are one lineage: both arrive at 6, 7, 8 or 9 line by line, and both can be read from the text of the Zhouyi by Zhu Xi's seven rules; they differ only in their odds and in how elaborate they are (see The yarrow-stalk method and the coin method and How to cast with three coins). Plum Blossom Numerology is a different road: it borrows the figures of the sixty-four hexagrams and the trigram images of the Shuogua ("Discussion of the Trigrams"), but its inferences rest on the generating and overcoming of the Five Phases, and in that respect it is closer to najia (six lines) divination.
This site uses the coin method and reads the judgments and line statements; it does not use Plum Blossom Numerology. The reason is the same as for not using the najia method: this site does not predict specific events, and reads only the Zhouyi's own words.