Shi He to Yi: how a business dispute will end

Date not recorded · A businessman Takashima knew · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 21 Shì Kè (Biting Through), line 4 moving, changing to Hexagram 27 Yí (Nourishment).

Original text

相識某。因商業上生一大紛議。請占其結果如何。筮得噬嗑之頤。爻辭曰。九四噬乾胏。得金矢。利艱貞吉。斷曰。此卦有隔絕彼我於中。謀攫大利者。首當用力除去其害。今占得四爻。曰噬乾胏。乾胏堅靱難噬。知其人必剛暴難治。曰得金矢。金矢貴重之品。想所以爭訟者。即在此貴重之金矢也。就金矢取象。金剛象。矢直象。必得一剛直之人。方能判決。然處置甚難。非一時可了。故曰利艱貞。始終忍耐。雖多紛議。自然歸結。可勿勞心也。後果如此占。

In plain words

A businessman Takashima knew had become embroiled in a major commercial dispute and asked how it would end. The cast gave Shi He with its fourth line moving, changing into Yi. The line reads: "Nine in the fourth place: biting dried meat on the bone, one finds a bronze arrow. It is favourable to persevere in hardship; good fortune."

Takashima's judgment: this hexagram shows something lodged between the two sides, with someone trying to seize a large gain; the first task is to bite through and remove the obstruction. The fourth line says "biting dried meat on the bone": tough and hard to chew, so the other party must be hard and difficult to deal with. It says "finds a bronze arrow": a bronze arrow is a thing of value, so what the two sides are fighting over must be something of value.

Taking the image of the bronze arrow: bronze is hard and the arrow is straight, so it will take a firm and upright person to settle the matter. But it will be hard to resolve and cannot be done quickly; hence "favourable to persevere in hardship". Be patient throughout; for all the wrangling, it will reach its end of its own accord, and there is no need to worry.

It turned out as the reading said.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the fourth line of Shi He is read.
The hexagram is read as biting through: something between the jaws must be bitten through before they can close, matching the obstacle to be removed in the dispute.
The image is unpacked in layers: the tough dried meat is the difficult opponent; the valuable bronze arrow is what is being fought over; and bronze's hardness and the arrow's straightness also give the firm, upright arbiter. One image is made to carry two meanings.
"Favourable to persevere in hardship" becomes: a long process that calls for patience, but a good end.

About the outcome

"It turned out as the reading said" is Takashima's own record; it does not say how the dispute ended or who settled it. Disputes dragging on and eventually ending is the normal course of things. This site does not treat it as evidence; what is worth reading is how one "bronze arrow" is read as both the prize and the arbiter.

Applying it to your situation

In a dispute we often want a quick win. "Persevere in hardship" suggests that a tough bone can only be gnawed slowly, and that keeping to what is right and finding someone both sides can accept as fair matters more than winning fast. In your dispute, who could be that firm and upright person?

Original: Takashima Kaemon, Takashima Ekidan (expanded edition), recorded by Yanagida Ikusaku, Chinese text by Wang Zhiben, 1901. Translation, notes and reflection by this site.

These are historical records kept by the diviner himself. The outcomes are his own account; this site uses them to study how the lines were read, not as evidence that divination predicts events.

Cast a hexagram · All of Takashima's cases · The 64 hexagrams