Li, the trigram of fire 離☲ · quality: clinging
Images
Li has one yin line held between two yang lines, and its image is fire. Its quality is clinging: fire must cling to something to burn, and from that comes light. In the family it is the middle daughter, in the body the eye, among animals the pheasant.
| Image | Fire |
|---|---|
| Quality | clinging |
| Family | middle daughter |
| Body | eye |
| Animal | pheasant |
| Later Heaven direction | south |
| Earlier Heaven direction | east |
| Earlier Heaven number | 3 |
| Five phases | fire |
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
離也者，明也，萬物皆相見，南方之卦也。聖人南面而聽天下，嚮明而治，蓋取諸此也。
Li is brightness; here all things see one another. It is the trigram of the south. The sage faces south to hear the affairs of the world and governs turned toward the light; this is where that comes from.
This chapter gives the directions and seasons of the eight trigrams, later called the Later Heaven (King Wen) arrangement.
離為火，為日，為電，為中女，為甲冑，為戈兵。
Li is fire, the sun, lightning, the middle daughter, armor and helmets, spears and weapons.
From chapter eleven of the Shuogua: the wider range of images for Li, 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. Li doubled is hexagram 30, Li (Clinging Fire).
Li above
- 14 DayouFire over Heaven
- 38 KuiFire over Lake
- 30 LiFire doubled
- 21 ShiheFire over Thunder
- 50 DingFire over Wind
- 64 WeijiFire over Water
- 56 LüFire over Mountain
- 35 JinFire over Earth