Qian, the trigram of heaven 乾☰ · quality: strength
Images
All three lines of Qian are yang: it is pure yang, and its image is heaven. Its quality is strength, moving without rest like the sky. In the family it is the father, in the body the head, among animals the horse.
| Image | Heaven |
|---|---|
| Quality | strength |
| Family | father |
| Body | head |
| Animal | horse |
| Later Heaven direction | northwest |
| Earlier Heaven direction | south |
| Earlier Heaven number | 1 |
| Five phases | metal |
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
戰乎乾，乾，西北之卦也，言陰陽相薄也。
There is struggle in Qian. Qian is the trigram of the northwest; it means that yin and yang press against each other.
This chapter gives the directions and seasons of the eight trigrams, later called the Later Heaven (King Wen) arrangement.
乾為天，為圜，為君，為父，為玉，為金，為寒，為冰，為大赤，為良馬，為老馬，為瘠馬，為駁馬，為木果。
Qian is heaven, the round, the ruler, the father, jade, metal, cold, ice, deep red, a good horse, an old horse, a lean horse, a piebald horse, the fruit of trees.
From chapter eleven of the Shuogua: the wider range of images for Qian, 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. Qian doubled is hexagram 1, Qian (Heaven).
Qian above
- 1 QianHeaven doubled
- 10 LüHeaven over Lake
- 13 TongrenHeaven over Fire
- 25 WuwangHeaven over Thunder
- 44 GouHeaven over Wind
- 6 SongHeaven over Water
- 33 DunHeaven over Mountain
- 12 PiHeaven over Earth