Upper trigram
☶
Mountain (Gen) above
Stillness and limit.
FamilyYoungest son
ElementEarth
Hexagram 22 of 64
I Ching hexagram 22 ☶☲ Grace
I Ching hexagram 22, Grace, is mountain above, fire below. In brief: form and beauty, but on a small scale. Counting from the bottom, its solid lines sit in places 1, 3 and 6 and its broken lines in 2, 4 and 5.
- Lines, bottom up
- ⚊⚋⚊⚋⚋⚊ 101001 · 1 = solid
- Trigrams
- Mountain over Fire Gen ☶ / Li ☲
- Every line changed
- № 47 Oppression
- In Legge, 1882
- p. 103 Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16
Legge, The Yî King, 1882.
Lower trigram
☲
Fire (Li) below
Clarity and attachment.
FamilyMiddle daughter
ElementFire
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What the text says, in plain terms
The Judgement and the Image of hexagram 22
The Judgement
Grace and adornment. Beauty and good form help in small matters, but appearance cannot carry decisions of real consequence on its own.
The Image
Fire at the foot of a mountain, lighting its surface. The lesson is to handle everyday affairs with clarity while not deciding serious matters by appearances alone.
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 22 in James Legge’s translation
“Pî indicates that there should be free course (in what it denotes). There will be little advantage (however) if it be allowed to advance (and take the lead).”
“(The trigram representing) a mountain and that for fire under it form Pî. The superior man, in accordance with this, throws a brilliancy around his various processes of government, but does not dare (in a similar way) to decide cases of criminal litigation.”
The lines
- Line 1 · bottom The first line, undivided, shows one adorning (the way of) his feet. He can discard a carriage and walk on foot.
- Line 2 The second line, divided, shows one adorning his beard.
- Line 3 The third line, undivided, shows its subject with the appearance of being adorned and bedewed (with rich favours). But let him ever maintain his firm correctness, and there will be good fortune.
- Line 4 The fourth line, divided, shows one looking as if adorned, but only in white. As if (mounted on) a white horse, and furnished with wings, (he seeks union with the subject of the first line), while (the intervening third pursues), not as a robber, but intent on a matrimonial alliance.
- Line 5 The fifth line, divided, shows its subject adorned by (the occupants of) the heights and gardens. He bears his roll of silk, small and slight. He may appear stingy; but there will be good fortune in the end.
- Line 6 · top The sixth line, undivided, shows one with white as his (only) ornament. There will be no error.
James Legge, trans., The Yî King, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), p. 103 — 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.
Grace for a decision
Presentation matters, but check the substance underneath. Good for improving how something looks or feels; not a basis for major commitments.
I Ching 22 in love and relationships
Charm, romance and attention to how things are shared. Enjoy it — and make sure there is depth beneath the surface.
Hexagram 22 at work
Design, branding and presentation work. Polish is valuable when it serves a solid product, not when it hides a weak one.
The six lines of hexagram 22
Read from the bottom up. This figure runs yang yin yang yin yin yang — what each position means.
3 yang and 3 yin lines. Four of the six stand in their proper place, and the pair 1–4 answers.
What the two trigrams do to each other
Inner and outer
Fire below — clarity and attachment — is the private, inner side of hexagram 22.
Mountain above — stillness and limit — is the world that side meets.
The five-element relation
Fire below generates Earth above in the five-element cycle: the lower trigram feeds the upper. Energy moves upward and outward, which is the more productive of the two directions.
Read as a family
The youngest son sits above and the middle daughter below. A brother and a sister, the younger one on top — siblings rather than parent and child, with the junior one taking the lead.
Calculated from the lines
Hexagrams connected to hexagram 22
Nuclear hexagram
40 · Deliverance
What is happening beneath the surface.
Lines 2–4 give Kan (Water) as the lower trigram, lines 3–5 give Zhen (Thunder) as the upper.
Opposite hexagram
47 · Oppression
The situation turned inside out.
Change all six lines and Mountain over Fire becomes Lake over Water.
Inverse hexagram
21 · Biting Through
The situation seen from the other side.
Turn the figure upside down and Mountain over Fire becomes Fire over Thunder.
None of these are assigned by an author — each follows from the arrangement of lines.
The image
Mountain above, Fire below.
Mountain over Fire: stillness and limit meeting clarity and attachment.
Sources
Statements of fact on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. How we choose and check sources: editorial policy.
Cite this page
AstroHot. “I Ching Hexagram 22: Grace.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/i-ching/hexagram/22/
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