About Zhouyi Reference
Methods, reading rules, classical sources, privacy, content boundaries and disclaimers.
Purpose
This is a Zhouyi casting and textual reference tool. It records questions, applies casting rules, constructs the primary, resulting and nuclear hexagrams, identifies changing lines, and presents the relevant original texts. It does not generate fortune judgments or replace personal judgment.
Yarrow method
The site follows the Great Expansion procedure: fifty stalks, forty-nine used. Divide into two, set one aside, count in fours and collect remainders. Three changes produce one line (6/7/8/9), and eighteen changes produce six lines. Old yang (9) and old yin (6) are changing lines.
Coin method
Toss three coins six times to record six lines from bottom to top. Inscription faces count as two and reverse faces as three: three inscriptions give old yin (6), two inscriptions and one reverse young yang (7), one inscription and two reverses young yin (8), and three reverses old yang (9).
Meihua Yishu · Number input
Uses the Earlier Heaven trigram numbers. The first number sets the upper trigram, the second the lower, and their sum modulo six the changing line. This two-number input is the site’s convention for convenient entry and checking. The numbers are Qian 1, Dui 2, Li 3, Zhen 4, Xun 5, Kan 6, Gen 7 and Kun 8; a zero remainder means eight.
Meihua Yishu · Time input
The year uses the earthly-branch ordinal; month and day use lunar-calendar numbers. Their sum sets the upper trigram. Add the hour branch for the lower trigram, and use the total modulo six for the changing line; zero means the top line.
Reading rules
The site adopts fixed text-selection rules based on the seven-case framework in Yixue Qimeng: no changes, read the primary judgment; one change, its line text; two changes, both line texts with the upper prioritized; three changes, both judgments with the primary prioritized here; four changes, the two unchanging line texts in the resulting hexagram with the lower prioritized; five changes, the sole unchanging line text in the resulting hexagram; all six changes, Use of Nine for Qian, Use of Six for Kun, otherwise the resulting judgment. Transmitted versions and later interpretations differ; this is not claimed to be the only traditional convention.
Judgments and line texts on result pages come from static original-text data. The Tuan, Da Xiang and Xiao Xiang commentaries for all sixty-four hexagrams have been checked hexagram by hexagram, and are presented as textual explanation and symbolic interpretation alongside the primary reading.
Disclaimer
This tool is for the study and research of traditional culture and the Zhouyi. It is not advice for life decisions or superstition. Consider casting results rationally.
Data sources
Judgments and line texts are checked against the received text in the Chinese Text Project · Zhouyi; time casting and Earlier Heaven trigram data follow Meihua Yishu, Volume One. Variant character forms, such as “无／無”, retain the source text and are not rewritten as modern interpretation.