大畜
“Great Accumulating” — King Wen #26
Great reserves held firm. Halt where needed and gather strength for a major advance.
The Judgment 卦辞
利貞，不家食，吉；利涉大川。
Under the conditions of Da Xu it will be advantageous to be firm and correct. (If its subject do not seek to) enjoy his revenues in his own family (without taking service at court), there will be good fortune. It will be advantageous for him to cross the great stream.— The I Ching, trans. James Legge, 1899 (public domain)1
The Six Lines 爻辞
有厲，利已。
The first NINE, undivided, shows its subject in a position of peril. It will be advantageous for him to stop his advance.
輿說輹。
The second NINE, undivided, shows a carriage with the strap under it removed.
良馬逐，利艱貞。曰閑輿衛，利有攸往。
The third NINE, undivided, shows its subject urging his way with good horses. It will be advantageous for him to realise the difficulty (of his course), and to be firm and correct, exercising himself daily in his charioteering and methods of defence; then there will be advantage in whatever direction he may advance.
童牛之牿，元吉。
The fourth six, divided, shows the young bull, (and yet) having the piece of wood over his horns. There will be great good fortune.
豶豕之牙，吉。
The fifth six, divided, shows the teeth of a castrated hog. There will be good fortune.
何天之衢，亨。
The sixth NINE, undivided, shows its subject (as) in command of the firmament of heaven. There will be progress.
Reading the Picture
Hexagram 26 places heaven (乾) beneath mountain (艮) —creative force pressing upward below, stillness holding its ground above. This is why the tradition reads it as “Great Accumulating”:great reserves held firm. Halt where needed and gather strength for a major advance Whenever you cast this figure, the classical reading points back to that turning of forces.
Questions About Hexagram 26
What does 大畜 (dà xù) mean?
Hexagram 26 of the I Ching is named 大畜 (dà xù), usually rendered "Great Accumulating" in English editions. Its figure pairs heaven (乾) below with mountain (艮) above.
Which trigrams form hexagram 26?
艮 (Mountain) sits above and 乾 (Heaven) sits below — the classical picture is creative force pressing upward beneath stillness holding its ground.
How is hexagram 26 related to the other hexagrams?
Changing every line of hexagram 26 gives hexagram 45 — 萃 (Clustering). Turned upside down it becomes hexagram 25 — 无妄 (Without Embroiling). Its nuclear hexagram — the inner pattern of lines 2 through 5 — is hexagram 54 — 歸妹 (Converting the Maiden).
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1 Legge, James. The Yi King, Sacred Books of the East vol. XVI (1899), public domain. Classical Chinese from the received Zhouyi text. · For reflection and entertainment — not financial, medical, or life advice.