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I Ching hexagram 1 ☰☰ The Creative

I Ching hexagram 1, The Creative, is heaven above, heaven below. In brief: pure initiative — the moment to act with full force. All six of its lines are solid, which makes it pure yang.

Lines, bottom up
⚊⚊⚊⚊⚊⚊ 111111 · 1 = solid
Trigrams
Heaven over Heaven Qian ☰ / Qian ☰
Every line changed
№ 2 The Receptive
In Legge, 1882
p. 57 Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16

Legge, The Yî King, 1882.

Paired with it line by line — changed, turned over or read from the inner lines: 2, The Receptive.

Also with Heaven above: 6, Conflict, 10, Treading and 12, Standstill.

Also with Heaven below: 5, Waiting, 9, Small Taming and 11, Peace.

To draw a hexagram of your own, cast the I Ching with three coins.

I Ching Hexagram 1: The Creative

Upper trigram

☰

Heaven (Qian) above

Creative force.

FamilyFather
ElementMetal

Lower trigram

☰

Heaven (Qian) below

Creative force.

FamilyFather
ElementMetal

What the text says, in plain terms

The Judgement and the Image of hexagram 1

The Judgement

A time of pure initiative. Energy is abundant and things succeed when you commit to them and keep going, rather than spending the force in one burst.

The Image

Heaven doubled: the sky never stops turning. The lesson drawn from it is steady self-renewal — effort that is maintained day after day, not saved for a single push.

A summary of meaning written for this site, not a translation — James Legge’s 1882 translation of the full text follows below. How the Judgement and the Image are read, and which translations to use →

Primary source

Hexagram 1 in James Legge’s translation

The Judgement
“Khien (represents) what is great and originating, penetrating, advantageous, correct and firm.”
The Image
“Heaven, in its motion, (gives the idea of) strength. The superior man, in accordance with this, nerves himself to ceaseless activity.”

The lines

  1. Line 1 · bottom In the first (or lowest) line, undivided, (we see its subject as) the dragon lying hid (in the deep). It is not the time for active doing.
  2. Line 2 In the second line, undivided, (we see its subject as) the dragon appearing in the field. It will be advantageous to meet with the great man.
  3. Line 3 In the third line, undivided, (we see its subject as) the superior man active and vigilant all the day, and in the evening still careful and apprehensive. (The position is) dangerous, but there will be no mistake.
  4. Line 4 In the fourth line, undivided, (we see its subject as the dragon looking) as if he were leaping up, but still in the deep. There will be no mistake.
  5. Line 5 In the fifth line, undivided, (we see its subject as) the dragon on the wing in the sky. It will be advantageous to meet with the great man.
  6. Line 6 · top In the sixth (or topmost) line, undivided, (we see its subject as) the dragon exceeding the proper limits. There will be occasion for repentance.
  7. All six lines (The lines of this hexagram are all strong and undivided, as appears from) the use of the number nine. If the host of dragons (thus) appearing were to divest themselves of their heads, there would be good fortune.
James Legge, trans., The Yî King, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), p. 57 — read the original text. Words in parentheses are Legge’s own: in his preface he explains that they supply what the original writer left unsaid. “Undivided” and “divided” are his terms for yang and yin lines, counted from the bottom. The Image comes from the second appendix of the book, the Treatise on the Symbolism.

The Creative for a decision

Act, and act with your whole weight. This hexagram does not advise waiting for more information; it describes a moment when the initiative is yours and hesitation is the main risk. The caution is sustainability: choose a pace you can hold.

I Ching 1 in love and relationships

Strong, direct energy that can lead a relationship forward. It works when both people want momentum, and strains when one partner sets every direction without checking in.

Hexagram 1 at work

Favors starting projects, taking charge and setting ambitious targets. The warning is burnout — the image is of constant motion, so rest has to be built into the plan.

The six lines of hexagram 1

Read from the bottom up. This figure runs yang yang yang yang yang yang — what each position means.

Hexagram 1: Heaven over Heaven
Hexagram 1, The Creative, line by line from the bottomlineplace · answer1Line 1 · yang, solidin its placeno answer from 42Line 2 · yang, solidout of placeno answer from 53Line 3 · yang, solidin its placeno answer from 64Line 4 · yang, solidout of placeno answer from 15Line 5 · yang, solidin its placeno answer from 26Line 6 · yang, solidout of placeno answer from 3LowerQianHeavenUpperQianHeavenKing Wen sequence · read bottom to topastrohot.com

All six lines are yang. Three of the six stand in their proper place, and none of the three pairs answer each other.

What the two trigrams do to each other

Inner and outer

Heaven below — creative force — is the private, inner side of hexagram 1.

Heaven above — creative force — is the world that side meets.

The five-element relation

Both trigrams are Metal, so nothing in the figure pulls against anything else. That makes the reading unusually single-minded — and unusually short of internal correction.

Read as a family

The father sits both above and below. The same figure doubled — the purest form of what the trigram describes.

Calculated from the lines

Hexagrams connected to hexagram 1

Hexagram 1, The Creative

Nuclear hexagram

1 · The Creative

What is happening beneath the surface.

Lines 2–4 give Qian (Heaven) as the lower trigram, lines 3–5 give Qian (Heaven) as the upper.

Hexagram 2, The Receptive

Opposite hexagram

2 · The Receptive

The situation turned inside out.

Change all six lines and Heaven over Heaven becomes Earth over Earth.

Hexagram 1 turned upside down is itself

Inverse hexagram

Symmetrical

Hexagram 1 reads the same upside down: Heaven over Heaven, turned over, is still Heaven over Heaven. Only eight of the sixty-four do.

None of these are assigned by an author — each follows from the arrangement of lines.

The image

Heaven above, Heaven below.

Heaven over Heaven: creative force meeting creative force.

← 64 · All 64 · 2 →

2 The Receptive 3 Difficulty at the Beginning 4 Youthful Folly 5 Waiting 6 Conflict 7 The Army 8 Holding Together

Sources

  1. James Legge, trans., The Yî King, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), p. 57

Statements of fact on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. How we choose and check sources: editorial policy.

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