Hsiao Ch'u / The Taming Power of the Small

above: Sun The Gentle, Wind
below: Ch'ien The Creative, Heaven

Hsiao Khu indicates that (under its conditions) there will be progress and success. (We see) dense clouds, but no rain coming from our borders in the west.

Overall Meaning

Minor restraint, the symbol of taming force

The name Hsiao Khu is interpreted as meaning 'small restraint'. The idea of 'restraint' having once been determined on as that to be conveyed by the figure, it is easily made out that the restraint must be small, for its representative is the divided line in the fourth place; and the check given by that to all the undivided lines cannot be great. Even if we suppose, as many critics do, that all the virtue of that upper trigram Sun is concentrated in its first line, the attribute ascribed to Sun is that of docile flexibility, which cannot long be successful against the strength emblemed by the lower trigram Khien. The restraint therefore is small, and in the end there will be 'progress and success'.

The second sentence of the Thwan contains indications of the place, time, and personality of the writer which it seems possible to ascertain. The fief of Kau was in the western portion of the kingdom of Yin or Shang, the China of the 12th Century B.C., the era of King Wan. Rain coming and moistening the ground is the cause of the beauty and luxuriance of the vegetable world, and the emblem of the blessings flowing from good training and good government. Here therefore in the west, the hereditary territory of the house of Kau, are blessings which might enrich the whole kingdom; but they are somehow restrained. The dense clouds do not empty their stores.

P. Regis says: 'To declare openly that no rain fell from the heavens long covered with dense clouds over the great tract of country, which stretched from the western border to the court and on to the eastern sea, was nothing else leaving it to all thoughtful minds to draw the conclusion that the family of Wan was as worthy of the supreme seat as that of Shau, the tyrant, however ancient, was unworthy of it.' The intimation is not put in the Text, however, so clearly as by P. Regis.