Hsien / Influence (Wooing)

above:Tui The Joyous, Lake
below:K^ en Keeping Still, Mountain

Hsien indicates that (on the fulfillment of the conditions implied in it), there will be free course and success. Its advantageousness will depend on the being firm and correct, (as) in marrying a young lady. There will be good fortune.

Overall Meaning

Influence, wooing, the symbol of mutual influence

With the 31st hexagram commences the Second Section of the Text. It is difficult to say why any division of the hexagrams should be made here, for the student tries in vain to discover any continuity in the thoughts of the author that is now broken. The First Section does not contain a class of subjects different from those which we find in the Second. That the division was made, however, at a very early time, appears from the sixth Appendix on the Sequence of the Hexagrams, where the writer sets forth an analogy between the first and second figures, representing heaven and earth, as the originators of all things, and this figure and the next, representing (each of them) husband and wife, as the originators of all the social relations. This, however, is far from carrying conviction to my mind. The division of the Text of the Yi into two sections is a fact of which I am unable to give satisfactory account.

Hsien, as explained in the treatise on the Thwan, has here the meaning of mutual influence, and the Duke of Kau, on the various lines, always uses Kan for it in the sense of 'moving' or 'influencing to movement or action'. This is to my mind the subject of the hexagram considered as an essay, - 'Influence; the different ways of bringing it to bear, and their issues.'

The Chinese character called hsien is the graphic symbol for 'all, together, jointly'. Kan, the symbol for 'influencing', has hsien in it as its phonetic constituent (though the changes in pronunciation make it hard for an English reader to appreciate this), with the addition of hsin, the symbol for 'the heart'. Thus kan, 'to affect or influence', = hsien + hsin, and it may have been that while the name or word was used with the significance of 'influencing', the hsin was purposely dropped from it, to indicate the most important element of the thing, - the absence of all purpose or motive. I venture to think that this would have been a device worthy of a diviner.

With regard to the idea of husband and wife being in the teaching of the hexagram, it is derived from the more recent symbolism of the eight trigrams ascribed to King Wan. The more ancient usage of them is given in the paragraph on the Great Symbolism of Appendix II. The figure consists of Kan ( ::| ), 'the youngest son', and over it, Tui ( ||: ), 'the youngest daughter'. These are in 'happy union'. No influence, it is said, is so powerful and constant as that between husband and wife; and where these are young, it is especially active. Hence it is that Hsien is made up of Kan and Tui. All this is to me very doubtful. I can dimly apprehend why the whole line ( | ) was assumed as the symbol of strength and authority, and the broken line as that of weakness and submission. Beyond this, I cannot follow Fu-hsi in his formation of the trigrams; and still less can I assent to the more recent symbolism of them ascribed to King Wan.

Coming now to the figure and its lines, the subject is that of mutual influence; and the author teaches that that influence, correct in itself, and for correct ends, is sure to be effective. He gives an instance, - the case of a man marrying a young lady, the regulations for which have been laid down in China from the earliest times with great strictness and particularity. Such influence will be effective and fortunate.