Kun, the trigram of earth 坤☷ · quality: receptivity

Images

All three lines of Kun are yin: it is pure yin, and its image is the earth. Its quality is yielding, bearing all things and receiving them, as the earth does. In the family it is the mother, in the body the belly, among animals the ox.

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

坤也者，地也，萬物皆致養焉，故曰致役乎坤。

Kun is the earth; all things receive their nourishment from it. So it is said: service is rendered in Kun.

This chapter gives the directions and seasons of the eight trigrams, later called the Later Heaven (King Wen) arrangement.

坤為地，為母，為布，為釜，為吝嗇，為均，為子母牛，為大輿，為文，為眾，為柄。

Kun is the earth, the mother, cloth, the cauldron, thrift, the level, a cow with her calf, a great cart, pattern, the multitude, the handle.

From chapter eleven of the Shuogua: the wider range of images for Kun, 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. Kun doubled is hexagram 2, Kun (Earth).

Kun above

• 11 TaiEarth over Heaven
• 19 LinEarth over Lake
• 36 MingyiEarth over Fire
• 24 FuEarth over Thunder
• 46 ShengEarth over Wind
• 7 ShiEarth over Water
• 15 QianEarth over Mountain
• 2 KunEarth doubled

Kun below

• 12 PiHeaven over Earth
• 45 CuiLake over Earth
• 35 JinFire over Earth
• 16 YuThunder over Earth
• 20 GuanWind over Earth
• 8 BiWater over Earth
• 23 BoMountain over Earth
• 2 KunEarth doubled

The 64 hexagrams by upper and lower trigram →