Ting / The Caldron

above:Li The Clinging, Flame
below:Sun The Gentle, Wind

Ting gives the intimation of great progress and success.

Overall Meaning

Cauldron, the symbol of nourishment

Ting was originally a pictorial character, representing a caldron with three feet and two ears, used for cooking and preparing food for the table (the mat in old times) and the altar. The picture has disappeared from the character, but it is said that in the hexagram we have an outline from which fancy may construct the vessel. The lower line, divided, represents its feet; lines 2, 3, 4, all undivided, represent the body of it; line 5, divided, represents its two ears; and line 6, undivided, the handle by which it was carried, or suspended from a hook. Appendix VI makes Ting follow Ko in the order of the hexagrams, because there is no changer of the appearance and character of things equal to the furnace and caldron.

Ting and Ching are the only two hexagrams named for things in ordinary use with men; and they are both descriptive of the government's work of nourishing. There are three hexagrams of which that is the theme, I (27), under which we are told in Appendix I that 'the sages nourished men of worth, by means of them to reach to the myriads of people'. Ting treats of the nourishment of men of talents and virtue; and that being understood, it is said, without more ado, that it 'intimates great progress and success'. The text that follows, however, is more difficult to interpret than that of Ching.