The I Ching — all 64 hexagrams explained in English

The I Ching, also called the Book of Changes, is the oldest of the Chinese classics. It describes 64 situations — each one a hexagram built from six lines — and gives advice on how to move through each of them well. Its full text is short: 64 judgments and 384 lines, plus two extra "use" lines attached to Qian and Kun.

There are 64 hexagrams. Each is made of two trigrams stacked on top of each other — eight possible lower trigrams and eight possible upper trigrams, giving 8 × 8 = 64 combinations. Every hexagram carries one judgment, one commentary on that judgment, one image commentary, and six line texts.

Read the hexagram from the bottom line up. The lower trigram describes the inner, earlier or hidden situation; the upper trigram describes the outer, later or visible one. The judgment states the overall situation and whether it favours action or patience, and the six line texts mark the stages within it.

Every hexagram pairs with an opposite hexagram (错卦), in which all six lines are flipped, and an inverse hexagram (综卦), in which the whole figure is turned upside down. The opposite shows the situation at its extreme; the inverse shows the same situation seen from the other side. Reading a hexagram with its pair is the traditional way to see how a situation may turn.

No. Each page here gives the original judgment and line texts in translation, followed by the classical commentaries and a plain-English reading. The Chinese names are kept alongside the English so you can match a hexagram to other sources.