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.