Upper trigram
☶
Mountain (Gen) above
Stillness and limit.
FamilyYoungest son
ElementEarth
Hexagram 26 of 64
I Ching hexagram 26 ☶☰ Great Taming
I Ching hexagram 26, Great Taming, is mountain above, heaven below. In brief: power held in reserve and built up. Counting from the bottom, its solid lines sit in places 1, 2, 3 and 6 and its broken lines in 4 and 5.
- Lines, bottom up
- ⚊⚊⚊⚋⚋⚊ 111001 · 1 = solid
- Trigrams
- Mountain over Heaven Gen ☶ / Qian ☰
- Every line changed
- № 45 Gathering Together
- In Legge, 1882
- p. 112 Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16
Legge, The Yî King, 1882.
Lower trigram
☰
Heaven (Qian) below
Creative force.
FamilyFather
ElementMetal
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What the text says, in plain terms
The Judgement and the Image of hexagram 26
The Judgement
Great restraint that builds strength. Holding energy in reserve, studying and staying disciplined prepares you for a large undertaking; it is a good time to serve publicly.
The Image
Heaven contained within a mountain. The lesson is to learn from the words and deeds of the past and store that knowledge to strengthen character.
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 26 in James Legge’s translation
“Under the conditions of Tâ Khû it will be advantageous to be firm and correct. (If its subject do not seek to) enjoy his revenues in his own family (without taking service at court), there will be good fortune. It will be advantageous for him to cross the great stream.”
“(The trigram representing) a mountain, and in the midst of it that (representing) heaven, form Tâ Khû. The superior man, in accordance with this, stores largely in his memory the words and deeds of former men, to subserve the accumulation of his virtue.”
The lines
- Line 1 · bottom The first line, undivided, shows its subject in a position of peril. It will be advantageous for him to stop his advance.
- Line 2 The second line, undivided, shows a carriage with the strap under it removed.
- Line 3 The third line, undivided, shows its subject urging his way with good horses. It will be advantageous for him to realise the difficulty (of his course), and to be firm and correct, exercising himself daily in his charioteering and methods of defence; then there will be advantage in whatever direction he may advance.
- Line 4 The fourth line, divided, shows the young bull, (and yet) having the piece of wood over his horns. There will be great good fortune.
- Line 5 The fifth line, divided, shows the teeth of a castrated hog. There will be good fortune.
- Line 6 · top The sixth line, undivided, shows its subject (as) in command of the firmament of heaven. There will be progress.
James Legge, trans., The Yî King, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), p. 112 — 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.
Great Taming for a decision
Accumulate before you spend: build skills, savings and knowledge, then commit to the big move. Discipline now makes the later effort succeed.
I Ching 26 in love and relationships
Restraint and patience that make a bond stronger. Not every feeling needs acting on immediately.
Hexagram 26 at work
Training, research and saving resources for a major project. Taking on public or service roles is favored.
The six lines of hexagram 26
Read from the bottom up. This figure runs yang yang yang yin yin yang — what each position means.
4 yang and 2 yin lines. Three of the six stand in their proper place, and the pairs 1–4 and 2–5 answer.
What the two trigrams do to each other
Inner and outer
Heaven below — creative force — is the private, inner side of hexagram 26.
Mountain above — stillness and limit — is the world that side meets.
The five-element relation
Earth above generates Metal below, so the movement runs downward — the outer situation is feeding the inner one. Support arrives from outside rather than being generated within.
Read as a family
The youngest son sits above and the father below. A child over a parent — an inversion of the expected order, and usually read as a situation where the junior position carries the initiative.
Calculated from the lines
Hexagrams connected to hexagram 26
Nuclear hexagram
54 · The Marrying Maiden
What is happening beneath the surface.
Lines 2–4 give Dui (Lake) as the lower trigram, lines 3–5 give Zhen (Thunder) as the upper.
Opposite hexagram
45 · Gathering Together
The situation turned inside out.
Change all six lines and Mountain over Heaven becomes Lake over Earth.
Inverse hexagram
25 · Innocence
The situation seen from the other side.
Turn the figure upside down and Mountain over Heaven becomes Heaven over Thunder.
None of these are assigned by an author — each follows from the arrangement of lines.
The image
Mountain above, Heaven below.
Mountain over Heaven: stillness and limit meeting creative force.
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 26: Great Taming.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/i-ching/hexagram/26/
For Wikipedia
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