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Bagua Trigrams

Kan

KAHN

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Origin 1011 to 1077

Kan, the Abysmal (Water), has one unbroken yang line held between two broken yin lines: a firm, dangerous core sunk in yielding depths. Its image is water, especially the rushing gorge stream and the pit or abyss; its attribute is danger, hardship, and the peril that must be passed through. In the family of trigrams it is the Middle Son. In the Later Heaven arrangement Kan stands in the north and belongs to the phase Water and to winter, the cold, dark, downward quarter. Its animal is the pig, and its body part the ear, for water finds the hollow way as sound fills the ear. Yet the strong central line shows that within danger lies a heart of integrity: water flows on without losing its nature, filling each hollow before it moves ahead. Doubled it forms hexagram 29, The Abysmal Repeated, which counsels sincerity of heart and steady conduct so that one wins through repeated danger, learning the constancy that water models.

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
Kan 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
Yang 1
Rival Systems
A Rival System's Attribution
Earlier Heaven (xiantian) arrangement: west. 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: north 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
Water 1
Family Position
Middle Son 1
Element
Water 1
Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting Source
The Shuo Gua gives Kan as water, the abysmal, ditches and pits, the middle son, and among animals the pig. 3Tradition: Zhou Yi and the Ten Wings
Learn More
Kan, the Abysmal, Water

Kan is one of the eight trigrams (bagua) of the Yijing. It is composed of a single yang line at the centre between two broken yin lines, and its attribute is Water, the Abysmal, associated with danger, depth, and the flowing that finds its way through any hazard. In the family symbolism it is the Middle Son, and its polarity is yang. Its associated element is Water, and in the Later Heaven arrangement of the bagua its direction is due north, the place of winter and midnight. Each of the eight trigrams combines with another to form the sixty-four hexagrams of the Yijing. These are the conventions of the Chinese cosmological and divinatory tradition, in which Kan, the abyss of water, is the natural counterpart of the bright and clinging fire of Li.

In the Earlier Heaven or Fu Xi arrangement, an older and more static ordering than the Later Heaven sequence used for compass direction above, Kan stands in the west rather than the north. Kan's abyss has a practical afterlife in feng shui, appearing with the other seven trigrams around the rim of the small octagonal bagua mirror hung to deflect unfavourable influences, and again around the outer rings of the Luopan, the compass used to orient buildings, where the Later Heaven sequence generally governs directional and spatial judgement while the Earlier Heaven sequence is reserved for the more cosmological branches of the practice.

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

Kan in the Two Arrangements

Kan stands in the west in the Earlier Heaven arrangement attributed to Fuxi, opposite Li in the east. In the Later Heaven arrangement attributed to King Wen it takes the north, opposite Li in the south, so the two trigrams remain a facing pair in both orders while the axis they lie on rotates.

That is unusual and worth noting. Most trigrams change partners as well as position between the two arrangements. Kan and Li do not: they oppose each other in Earlier Heaven and again in Later Heaven, which is one reason the pair carries so much weight in the internal alchemy of the neidan tradition, where water and fire are the two that have to be made to change places.

In the Later Heaven order Kan is the phase Water outright, the only trigram to hold it, and belongs to the depth of winter and to midnight. From the Shuogua it takes the pig among animals and the ear among the parts of the body, hearing being the sense that works in the dark. In the family scheme Kan is the middle son, holding its single yang line in the central place.

The trigram's attribute, glossed as the Abysmal and as danger, is the yang line caught between two yin lines, strength held inside a yielding surface, which is also how the classical commentators describe water itself.

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, Kan, whose attribute is Water.

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

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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