Huan to Song: was she on the ship that was wrecked?

Around 1874–75 (Meiji 7–8) · The family of Ōura O-Kei, a Nagasaki merchant · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 59 Huàn (Dispersion), line 4 moving, changing to Hexagram 6 Sòng (Conflict).

Original text

長崎女商大浦阿啓。明治七八年間。管理橫濱製鐵所。一日將乘名古屋船。歸鄉。豫電報知家人。期以某日到家。屆期有報。名古屋船於周防遭難。家人驚愕。急以電信問余。余不知大浦氏果否乘船。亦不知此船有否遇險。無已。乃爲一筮。筮得渙之訟。爻辭曰。六四渙其群。渙有邱。匪夷所思。斷曰。此卦巽爲木。坎爲水。舟浮海上之象。其辭曰。渙其群。元吉。渙有邱。匪夷所思。渙其群者。謂離衆人而出險也。渙有邱者。謂出險而獨在邱上也。匪夷所思者。謂不須憂慮也。由是觀之。知必脫其難也。余即以此占。電復長崎。長崎家人。得此報。疑信未決。未幾大浦有電到家。云已脫險。家人始安。

In plain words

Ōura O-Kei, a woman merchant of Nagasaki, was in charge of the Yokohama ironworks around 1874–75. One day she was to sail home on the ship Nagoya, and she wired her family ahead to expect her on a certain day. When the day came, news arrived that the Nagoya had been wrecked off Suō. Her family, alarmed, telegraphed Takashima at once. He did not know whether she had actually boarded, nor whether the ship had really come to grief. With nothing else to go on, he cast, and got Huan with its fourth line moving, changing into Song. The line reads: "Six in the fourth place: scattering the crowd; scattering, yet there is a hill; beyond what ordinary people would think."

Takashima's judgment: in this hexagram Xun is wood and Kan is water, the image of a boat afloat on the sea. The line says "scattering the crowd, supreme good fortune; scattering, yet there is a hill; beyond ordinary thought". "Scattering the crowd" means leaving the crowd and getting out of danger; "there is a hill" means that once out of danger she stands alone on high ground; "beyond ordinary thought" means there is no need to worry. From this he knew she must have escaped.

He wired this reading straight back to Nagasaki. The family, on receiving it, did not know whether to believe it. Before long a telegram came from Ōura saying she had escaped, and only then were they at ease.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the fourth line of Huan is read.
The image is wood on water: Xun wood over Kan water is a boat on the sea, matching the shipwreck in question.
The line is applied phrase by phrase: "scattering the crowd" is leaving the others and escaping; "there is a hill" is standing alone on high ground; "beyond ordinary thought" is no cause for worry.
Takashima says himself that he knew neither whether she had boarded nor whether the ship had really been lost; the judgment comes entirely from the lines.

About the outcome

That she "had escaped" is Takashima's record. The text does not say whether she was actually aboard: she may never have taken that sailing, or taken it and been rescued, and either would fit "scattering the crowd". A case with only two possible outcomes, recorded because it matched, is the least able to show that divination works. This site does not treat it as evidence.

Applying it to your situation

When waiting for bad news, the uncertainty is the hardest part. What Takashima gave the family, first of all, was a reason to set the fear down for a while. When people close to you are waiting anxiously, what kind of comfort can you offer?

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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