Jing to Xun: a year in the raw silk trade

1897 (Meiji 30) · Takashima himself, divining the year's foreign trade · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 48 Jǐng (The Well), line 6 (top) moving, changing to Hexagram 57 Xùn (The Gentle Wind).

Original text

明治三十年。占貿易景況。筮得井之巽。爻辭曰。上六井收勿幕。有孚元吉。斷曰。此卦下巽木。上坎水。即彖所云巽乎水而上水。是爲汲引井水之象。至上爻。則井之功用已成。勿幕者。王弼所謂不擅其有。不私其利也。今外商與我商。從事貿易。我國不自輸出。待外商舶運而往。猶井水之待人而汲。內三爻井水不食。爲貨物不能旺消。外三爻則泉美可食。汲取者衆。四爻當七八月。五爻當九十月。上爻已在井口。當十一二月。正是百貨輻湊。消運興旺之時。即在生絲一業。大種輸出。爲貿易最好景況也。果於上半年。生絲商況不振。七八月以後。逐步發動。十一二月。時價漲至千弗以上。悉爲外商所買。國內機織塲。反爲之休業焉。

In plain words

In 1897 Takashima cast on the state of the year's foreign trade and got Jing with its top line moving, changing into Xun. The line reads: "Six at the top: the well is drawn from; do not cover it. There is trust; supreme good fortune."

Takashima's judgment: in this hexagram Xun, wood, is below and Kan, water, above; this is the commentary's "wood going into the water and bringing the water up", the image of drawing water from a well. At the top line, the well's work is complete. "Do not cover it" is what Wang Bi called not keeping what one has to oneself, not hoarding the benefit.

In our trade with foreign merchants, Japan does not ship its own goods abroad but waits for foreign ships to carry them away, just as well water waits for someone to draw it. The three lower lines, where the well water is not drunk, are goods that do not sell; the three upper lines, where the spring is sweet and drinkable, are many people coming to draw. The fourth line is July and August, the fifth September and October, and the top line, already at the mouth of the well, November and December, when goods pour in and sales are brisk. In raw silk especially there will be heavy exports, the best trading of the year.

In the event, the raw silk market was slack in the first half of the year, picked up steadily from July and August, and by November and December prices had risen above a thousand dollars. Foreign merchants bought it all, and domestic weaving mills actually had to stop work for lack of silk.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the top line of Jing is read, but the six lines are read in two halves.
The image is wood going into water and bringing it up: a bucket lowered and raised, read as goods waiting for buyers.
The two trigrams are two halves of the year: all three lower lines say the water is not drunk, read as slack sales in the first half; the upper three have sweet, drinkable water, read as brisk sales in the second.
Lines are matched to months: the fourth, fifth and top lines become July–August, September–October and November–December. It is Takashima's habit of timing by lines, here worked out in unusual detail.

About the outcome

This case records real prices: slack in the first half, rising in the second, above a thousand dollars by year-end. But the raw silk trade is seasonal, with new silk and foreign buying concentrated in the second half; matching that pattern to "not drunk below, drinkable above" needs no help from the hexagram. This site does not treat it as evidence.

Applying it to your situation

"The well is drawn from; do not cover it": let everyone drink. Takashima also noted that foreign buyers took all the silk and domestic mills had to stop. In what you are part of, where do the benefits flow, and is anyone left behind because of it?

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.

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