Zhen, the trigram of thunder 震☳ · quality: movement
Images
Zhen has one yang line beneath two yin lines, yang stirring from below, and its image is thunder. Its quality is movement: rousing and bursting forth. In the family it is the eldest son, in the body the foot, among animals the dragon.
| Image | Thunder |
|---|---|
| Quality | movement |
| Family | eldest son |
| Body | foot |
| Animal | dragon |
| Later Heaven direction | east |
| Earlier Heaven direction | northeast |
| Earlier Heaven number | 4 |
| Five phases | wood |
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
萬物出乎震，震，東方也。
All things come forth in Zhen. Zhen is the east.
This chapter gives the directions and seasons of the eight trigrams, later called the Later Heaven (King Wen) arrangement.
震為雷，為龍，為玄黃，為敷，為大涂，為長子，為決躁，為蒼筤竹，為萑葦。
Zhen is thunder, the dragon, dark yellow, spreading out, the great road, the eldest son, decisive and vehement, young green bamboo, reeds and rushes.
From chapter eleven of the Shuogua: the wider range of images for Zhen, from nature and family to objects, which readers draw on when interpreting a hexagram. Some editions read 旉, blossoming, for 敷.
In the 64 hexagrams
Every hexagram is two trigrams, one above the other. Zhen doubled is hexagram 51, Zhen (Thunder).
Zhen above
- 34 DazhuangThunder over Heaven
- 54 GuimeiThunder over Lake
- 55 FengThunder over Fire
- 51 ZhenThunder doubled
- 32 HengThunder over Wind
- 40 XieThunder over Water
- 62 XiaoguoThunder over Mountain
- 16 YuThunder over Earth