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Bagua Trigrams

Dui

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Origin 1011 to 1077

Dui, the Joyous (Lake or Marsh), is composed of two yang lines below a single broken yin line at the top, an image of firm strength within and gentle, open pleasure without. Its natural image is the still lake or standing marsh, water gathered and smiling at the surface; its attribute is joy, satisfaction, and free expression. In the family of trigrams it is the Youngest Daughter, the darling who brings delight. In the Later Heaven arrangement Dui stands in the west and belongs to the phase Metal and to autumn, the season of harvest gladness. Its body part is the mouth, hence speech, persuasion, and the pleasures of eating and talking; its animal the sheep. The open line at the top shows that its joy is receptive and easily shared, but also that surface pleasure can be shallow or seductive. Doubled it forms hexagram 58, The Joyous, which teaches that true and lasting joy rests on inner firmness, and that gladness shared with others encourages them to bear hardship willingly.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
1011 to 1077 2Tradition: Xiantian (Earlier Heaven) arrangement of Shao Yong
Origin Period
1924 to 1950 2Tradition: Wilhelm-Baynes I Ching (1950)
Origin Period
400 BCE to 100 BCE 1Tradition: Zhou Yi and the Ten Wings
Origin Period
Dui is one of the eight trigrams, traditionally attributed to the legendary sage Fu Xi. The canonical text takes its core shape in the Western Zhou and gathers its commentarial layer, the Ten Wings, across the Warring States and into the Han, roughly the fourth to first century BCE. The Song philosopher Shao Yong (1011 to 1077) set out the numerological "earlier heaven" sequencing of the eight trigrams still cited today, and Richard Wilhelm's German translation of the Yijing, published in 1924 and rendered into English by Cary Baynes in 1950, carried the trigram system to a wide Western readership. 2
Attributed Author / Compiler
By tradition: the eight trigrams to the legendary Fu Xi, and with them the xiantian arrangement that bears his name. 2Tradition: Xiantian (Earlier Heaven) arrangement of Shao Yong
Attributed Author / Compiler
No named author. The trigram doctrine - attributes, family positions, directional arrangement - is a Warring States and Han commentarial system, and the xiantian arrangement ascribed to Fu Xi is Shao Yong's, of the eleventh century. 2
Language
Classical Chinese 3
Attributions
Polarity
Yin 1
Rival Systems
A Rival System's Attribution
Earlier Heaven (xiantian) arrangement: southeast. Shao Yong's arrangement, ascribed to Fu Xi, disagrees with the Shuo Gua on all eight trigrams. 2Tradition: Xiantian (Earlier Heaven) arrangement of Shao Yong
A Rival System's Attribution
Later Heaven (houtian) arrangement: west 3Tradition: Houtian (Later Heaven) arrangement of the Shuo Gua
A Rival System's Attribution
This is the direction recorded here. 3Tradition: Houtian (Later Heaven) arrangement of the Shuo Gua
Identity
Trigram Image
Lake 1
Family Position
Youngest Daughter 1
Element
Metal 1
Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting Source
The Shuo Gua gives Dui as the marsh or lake, the joyous, the mouth and tongue, the youngest daughter, and among animals the sheep. 3Tradition: Zhou Yi and the Ten Wings
Learn More
Dui, the Joyous, the Lake

Dui is one of the eight trigrams (bagua) of the Yijing. It is composed of two yang lines below a single broken yin line, and its attribute is the Lake or Marsh, the Joyous, associated with pleasure, openness, and gentle expression. In the family symbolism it is the Youngest Daughter, and its polarity is yin. Its associated element is Metal, and in the Later Heaven arrangement of the bagua its direction is west. Each of the eight trigrams pairs and combines to form the sixty-four hexagrams through which the Yijing is consulted, the broken and unbroken lines shifting to give the oracle its answers. These are the conventions of the Chinese cosmological and divinatory tradition, in which Dui, the still and reflective water of the lake, expresses the quality of joy.

Dui's compass position is not fixed across the tradition: the Later Heaven direction given above is King Wen's arrangement, used in the practical, compass based feng shui of the Luopan; the older Fu Xi or Earlier Heaven arrangement, an idealised order rather than a worldly one, places Dui in the southeast instead, opposite Gen. Both arrangements assign Dui the family attributes and element given above; what changes between them is only the trigram's position on the circle, Later Heaven describing the world of change and manifestation the Yijing addresses, Earlier Heaven a prior, static order that Chinese cosmology treats as underlying it.

Sources Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in ChinaRichard J. Smith with The I Ching, or Book of ChangesRichard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.), The Five "Confucian" ClassicsMichael Nylan

Dui in the Two Arrangements

Dui occupies the southeast in the Earlier Heaven arrangement attributed to Fuxi, directly opposite Gen in the northwest, since that order is built on exact opposition. In the Later Heaven arrangement attributed to King Wen, the order used in almost all applied practice, Dui moves to the west.

The move is not arbitrary. Later Heaven is organised by the seasonal cycle, and the west is autumn, the season of harvest and of what has been gathered in. A trigram whose attribute is the lake, the standing water that collects and holds, sits naturally at the point of the year when things are brought in rather than put out. That is the kind of reasoning the Later Heaven order runs on, and it is why the arrangement rather than the trigram carries the direction.

In the Later Heaven order Dui belongs to the phase Metal, shared with Qian, and to mid autumn. From the Shuogua, the Discussion of the Trigrams, Dui takes the sheep among animals and the mouth among the parts of the body, which fits an attribute already glossed as the Joyous, since the mouth is where speech and pleasure both come out. In the family scheme Dui is the youngest daughter, holding its single yin line in the top place.

A reader working from a diagram found without a caption should establish which of the two orders it uses before drawing any conclusion from where Dui appears on it.

Sources Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in ChinaRichard J. Smith with The I Ching, or Book of ChangesRichard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.), The Five "Confucian" ClassicsMichael Nylan

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Baguazhang, Disciplines

One of the eight palm changes is named for and mapped onto this trigram, Dui, whose attribute is Lake.

Source Lost T'ai-chi Classics from the Late Ch'ing DynastyDouglas Wile
Southeast, Directions

In the Earlier Heaven arrangement of the eight trigrams, Dui the Joyous stands in the southeast. The Later Heaven arrangement puts Xun there. The two schemes are not variants of one tradition to be reconciled; they answer different questions and are used for different purposes.

Source Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in ChinaRichard J. Smith

Attested In

The Ten Wings, Scripture Portions

The Shuogua, one of the Wings, is the treatise that gives the trigrams their attributes and their families.

Contained In

Earlier Heaven Bagua, Sacred Geometry

One of the eight trigrams the arrangement places. Both arrangements order the same eight; they differ only in where each one sits.

Later Heaven Bagua, Sacred Geometry

One of the eight trigrams the arrangement places. Both arrangements order the same eight; they differ only in where each one sits.

Disciplines That Use This

I Ching, Disciplines

The eight bagua trigrams, each hexagram being a pair of them.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)

Originates in Language

Classical Chinese, Languages
Source The I Ching, or Book of ChangesRichard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.)
Sources
1. The Five "Confucian" Classics
Michael Nylan, Yale University Press, 2001On the Changes, the Ten Wings, and the formation of the Five ClassicsView the Source
2. Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in China
Richard J. Smith, University of Virginia Press, 2008The bagua and its Earlier and Later Heaven arrangements in Chinese cosmology and divinationView the Source
3. The I Ching, or Book of Changes
Richard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.), Princeton University Press, 1980Shuogua (Discussion of the Trigrams): trigram attributes, images and family symbolismView the Source

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