Chien / Development (Gradual Progress)

above:Sun The Gentle, Wind
below:K^ en Keeping Still, Mountain

Kien suggests to us the marriage of a young lady and the good fortune (attending it). There will be advantage in being firm and correct.

Overall Meaning

Progressive advance, the symbol of gradual progress

Kien is ordinarily used in the sense of gradually; but there is connected with that the idea also of progress or advance. The element of meaning in the character is the symbol of water; and the whole of it denotes gradual advance, like the soaking in of water. Three hexagrams contain in them the idea of advance, - Chin (35), Shang (46), and this Kien; but each has its peculiarity of meaning, and that of Kien is the gradual manner in which the advance takes place. The subject then of the hexagram is the advance of men to offices in the state, how it should take place gradually and by successive steps, as wekll as on certain other conditions that may be gathered from the Text.

But how does the lineal figure give the idea of gradual advance? We shall see how it is attempted in the Great Symbolism to get this from the component trigrams. The account there is not satisfactory; and still less so is what else I have been able to find on the subject. For example, the trigrams were originally Khwan and Khien, but the third line of Khwan and the first of Khien have changed places; and the trigrams now denote 'the youngest son' and 'the eldest daughter'. If all this, which is a mere farrago, were admitted, it would not help us to the idea of an advance.

Again, the lines 2, 3, 4, 5 are all in the places proper to them as strong or weak; we ascend by them as by regular steps to the top of the hexagram; and this, it is said, gives the notion of the gradual steps of the advance. But neither does this carry conviction with it to the mind. We must leave the question. King Wan, for reasons which we cannot discover, or without such reasons, determined that the hexagram Kien should denote the gradual advance of men to positions of influence and office.

The marriage of a young lady as mentioned in the Thwan as an illustration of an important event taking place with various preliminary steps, continued from its initiation to its consummation. But all must be done in an orderly and correct manner. And so must it be with the rise of a man in the service of the state.