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Bagua Trigrams

Zhen

JUN

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Origin 1011 to 1077

Zhen, the Arousing (Thunder), has one unbroken yang line beneath two broken yin lines: a strong impulse breaking upward from below into yielding space. Its image is thunder, the shock that bursts from the earth in spring and startles all things into life and growth; its attribute is movement, arousal, and sudden inciting force. In the family of trigrams it is the Eldest Son, the firstborn who acts. In the Later Heaven arrangement Zhen stands in the east and belongs to the phase Wood and to spring, the quarter of sunrise and new beginnings. Its animal is the dragon rising, and its body part the foot, which sets things in motion. Doubled it forms hexagram 51, The Arousing, whose Judgment shows the superior man setting his life in order in fear and trembling when the thunder comes, yet not letting the shock upset his composure. Interpretively Zhen marks the decisive first stir of action, a wake-up call that, met with steadiness, becomes the seed of development.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
1011 to 1077 2Tradition: Xiantian (Earlier Heaven) arrangement of Shao Yong
Origin Period
1924 to 1950 2Tradition: Wilhelm-Baynes I Ching (1950)
Origin Period
400 BCE to 100 BCE 1Tradition: Zhou Yi and the Ten Wings
Origin Period
Zhen is one of the eight trigrams, traditionally attributed to the legendary sage Fu Xi. The canonical text takes its core shape in the Western Zhou and gathers its commentarial layer, the Ten Wings, across the Warring States and into the Han, roughly the fourth to first century BCE. The Song philosopher Shao Yong (1011 to 1077) set out the numerological "earlier heaven" sequencing of the eight trigrams still cited today, and Richard Wilhelm's German translation of the Yijing, published in 1924 and rendered into English by Cary Baynes in 1950, carried the trigram system to a wide Western readership. 2
Attributed Author / Compiler
By tradition: the eight trigrams to the legendary Fu Xi, and with them the xiantian arrangement that bears his name. 2Tradition: Xiantian (Earlier Heaven) arrangement of Shao Yong
Attributed Author / Compiler
No named author. The trigram doctrine - attributes, family positions, directional arrangement - is a Warring States and Han commentarial system, and the xiantian arrangement ascribed to Fu Xi is Shao Yong's, of the eleventh century. 2
Language
Classical Chinese 3
Attributions
Polarity
Yang 1
Rival Systems
A Rival System's Attribution
Earlier Heaven (xiantian) arrangement: northeast. Shao Yong's arrangement, ascribed to Fu Xi, disagrees with the Shuo Gua on all eight trigrams. 2Tradition: Xiantian (Earlier Heaven) arrangement of Shao Yong
A Rival System's Attribution
Later Heaven (houtian) arrangement: east 3Tradition: Houtian (Later Heaven) arrangement of the Shuo Gua
A Rival System's Attribution
This is the direction recorded here. 3Tradition: Houtian (Later Heaven) arrangement of the Shuo Gua
Identity
Trigram Image
Thunder 1
Family Position
Eldest Son 1
Element
Wood 1
Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting Source
The Shuo Gua gives Zhen as thunder and arousing movement, the eldest son, and among animals the dragon. 3Tradition: Zhou Yi and the Ten Wings
Learn More
Zhen, the Arousing, Thunder

Zhen is one of the eight trigrams (bagua) of the Yijing. It is composed of a single yang line beneath two broken yin lines, and its attribute is Thunder, the Arousing, associated with sudden movement, shock, and the quickening force that stirs things into action. In the family symbolism it is the Eldest Son, the first yang line to appear, and its polarity is yang. Its associated element is Wood, and in the Later Heaven arrangement of the bagua its direction is due east, the place of sunrise and spring. Each of the eight trigrams combines with another to form the sixty-four hexagrams of the Yijing. These are the conventions of the Chinese cosmological and divinatory tradition, in which Zhen, the thunder that breaks the stillness, marks the rousing of new life.

The family member and attribute scheme used throughout the eight trigrams, Zhen among them, is drawn from the Shuogua zhuan, the Explanation of the Trigrams, a commentary appended to the Yijing as one of the Ten Wings; tradition credits it to Confucius, but modern scholarship does not accept that attribution, and manuscript evidence places its compilation toward the end of the Warring States period or the start of the Han, later than the core text it explains. In the Earlier Heaven or Fu Xi arrangement, an older and more static ordering than the Later Heaven sequence used for compass direction above, Zhen stands in the northeast rather than the east.

Sources Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in ChinaRichard J. Smith with The I Ching, or Book of ChangesRichard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.), The Five "Confucian" ClassicsMichael Nylan

Zhen in the Two Arrangements

Zhen sits in the northeast in the Earlier Heaven arrangement attributed to Fuxi, opposite Xun in the southwest. In the Later Heaven arrangement attributed to King Wen it takes the east, and the east is where the applied traditions expect to find it.

Later Heaven is ordered by the cycle of the year, and the east is the spring and the sunrise, the quarter where things begin. A trigram whose attribute is thunder, the shock that starts movement, belongs at exactly that point, and the Shuogua says as much when it opens its account of the cycle with the god coming forth in Zhen. This is one of the places where the Later Heaven order is not merely conventional but argued for in the text itself.

In the Later Heaven order Zhen belongs to the phase Wood, which it shares with Xun, and to early spring. From the Shuogua it takes the dragon among animals, a creature associated with thunder and with the spring rains, and the foot among the parts of the body, since the foot is what moves first. In the family scheme Zhen is the eldest son, having taken the first yang line at the bottom.

Because Zhen and Xun share a phase and stand adjacent in the Later Heaven order while facing each other across the Earlier Heaven one, they are a good pair to test any diagram against when the arrangement is not labelled.

Sources Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in ChinaRichard J. Smith with The I Ching, or Book of ChangesRichard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.), The Five "Confucian" ClassicsMichael Nylan

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Baguazhang, Disciplines

One of the eight palm changes is named for and mapped onto this trigram, Zhen, whose attribute is Thunder.

Source Lost T'ai-chi Classics from the Late Ch'ing DynastyDouglas Wile
Northeast, Directions

In the Earlier Heaven arrangement of the eight trigrams, attributed to Fu Xi, Zhen the Arousing stands in the northeast. The Later Heaven arrangement used in feng shui puts Gen there instead, so a source that names a trigram for a direction has already chosen an arrangement, usually without saying which.

Source Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in ChinaRichard J. Smith

Attested In

The Ten Wings, Scripture Portions

The Shuogua, one of the Wings, is the treatise that gives the trigrams their attributes and their families.

Contained In

Earlier Heaven Bagua, Sacred Geometry

One of the eight trigrams the arrangement places. Both arrangements order the same eight; they differ only in where each one sits.

Later Heaven Bagua, Sacred Geometry

One of the eight trigrams the arrangement places. Both arrangements order the same eight; they differ only in where each one sits.

Disciplines That Use This

I Ching, Disciplines

The eight bagua trigrams, each hexagram being a pair of them.

Source Zhouyi: The Book of ChangesRichard Rutt (trans.)

Originates in Language

Classical Chinese, Languages
Source The I Ching, or Book of ChangesRichard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.)
Sources
1. The Five "Confucian" Classics
Michael Nylan, Yale University Press, 2001On the Changes, the Ten Wings, and the formation of the Five ClassicsView the Source
2. Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in China
Richard J. Smith, University of Virginia Press, 2008The bagua and its Earlier and Later Heaven arrangements in Chinese cosmology and divinationView the Source
3. The I Ching, or Book of Changes
Richard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.), Princeton University Press, 1980Shuogua (Discussion of the Trigrams): trigram attributes, images and family symbolismView the Source

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