Gen, the trigram of mountain 艮☶ · quality: stillness
Images
Gen has one yang line resting above two yin lines, and its image is the mountain. Its quality is stillness: steady like a mountain, knowing where to stop. In the family it is the youngest son, in the body the hand, among animals the dog.
| Image | Mountain |
|---|---|
| Quality | stillness |
| Family | youngest son |
| Body | hand |
| Animal | dog |
| Later Heaven direction | northeast |
| Earlier Heaven direction | northwest |
| Earlier Heaven number | 7 |
| Five phases | earth |
The image, quality, family member, body part, animal and Later Heaven direction all come from the Shuogua, the commentary on the trigrams. The Earlier Heaven direction and number come from the chart handed down by the Song scholar Shao Yong; the five phases are a Han-dynasty and later correlation that the Shuogua does not make.
The Shuogua
艮，東北之卦也，萬物之所成終而所成始也，故曰成言乎艮。
Gen is the trigram of the northeast, where all things reach their end and where they begin again. So it is said: completion is spoken in Gen.
This chapter gives the directions and seasons of the eight trigrams, later called the Later Heaven (King Wen) arrangement.
艮為山，為徑路，為小石，為門闕，為果蓏，為閽寺，為指，為狗，為鼠，為黔喙之屬。
Gen is the mountain, the byway, small stones, gateways, tree fruits and vine fruits, gatekeepers and eunuchs, the fingers, the dog, the rat, the black-billed birds.
From chapter eleven of the Shuogua: the wider range of images for Gen, from nature and family to objects, which readers draw on when interpreting a hexagram.
In the 64 hexagrams
Every hexagram is two trigrams, one above the other. Gen doubled is hexagram 52, Gen (Stillness).
Gen above
- 26 DaxuMountain over Heaven
- 41 SunMountain over Lake
- 22 BiMountain over Fire
- 27 YiMountain over Thunder
- 18 GuMountain over Wind
- 4 MengMountain over Water
- 52 GenMountain doubled
- 23 BoMountain over Earth