Kan, the trigram of water 坎☵ · quality: danger
Images
Kan has one yang line sunk between two yin lines, and its image is water. Its quality is the pit: danger, falling in. Water flows through dangerous places without losing its nature, so Kan also stands for holding true to oneself in danger. In the family it is the middle son, in the body the ear, among animals the pig.
| Image | Water |
|---|---|
| Quality | danger |
| Family | middle son |
| Body | ear |
| Animal | pig |
| Later Heaven direction | north |
| Earlier Heaven direction | west |
| Earlier Heaven number | 6 |
| Five phases | water |
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
坎者，水也，正北方之卦也，勞卦也，萬物之所歸也，故曰勞乎坎。
Kan is water, the trigram of due north, the trigram of toil, to which all things return. So it is said: there is toil in Kan.
This chapter gives the directions and seasons of the eight trigrams, later called the Later Heaven (King Wen) arrangement.
坎為水，為溝瀆，為隱伏，為矯輮，為弓輪。
Kan is water, ditches and channels, what lies hidden, bending and straightening, the bow and the wheel.
From chapter eleven of the Shuogua: the wider range of images for Kan, 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. Kan doubled is hexagram 29, Kan (The Abyss).
Kan above
- 5 XuWater over Heaven
- 60 JieWater over Lake
- 63 JijiWater over Fire
- 3 ZhunWater over Thunder
- 48 JingWater over Wind
- 29 KanWater doubled
- 39 JianWater over Mountain
- 8 BiWater over Earth