Upper trigram
☲
Fire (Li) above
Clarity and attachment.
FamilyMiddle daughter
ElementFire
Hexagram 35 of 64
I Ching hexagram 35 ☲☷ Progress
I Ching hexagram 35, Progress, is fire above, earth below. In brief: steady advance in daylight. Counting from the bottom, its solid lines sit in places 4 and 6 and its broken lines in 1, 2, 3 and 5.
- Lines, bottom up
- ⚋⚋⚋⚊⚋⚊ 000101 · 1 = solid
- Trigrams
- Fire over Earth Li ☲ / Kun ☷
- Every line changed
- № 5 Waiting
- In Legge, 1882
- p. 131 Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16
Legge, The Yî King, 1882.
Lower trigram
☷
Earth (Kun) below
Receptive yielding.
FamilyMother
ElementEarth
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What the text says, in plain terms
The Judgement and the Image of hexagram 35
The Judgement
Progress, like the sun rising. Advancement comes easily, recognition follows, and those in authority are generous toward someone who serves well.
The Image
The sun climbing over the earth. The lesson is to let your own good qualities show more clearly as you rise.
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 35 in James Legge’s translation
“In Zin we see a prince who secures the tranquillity (of the people) presented on that account with numerous horses (by the king), and three times in a day received at interviews.”
“(The trigram representing) the earth and that for the bright (sun) coming forth above it form Zin. The superior man, according to this, gives himself to make more brilliant his bright virtue.”
The lines
- Line 1 · bottom The first line, divided, shows one wishing to advance, and (at the same time) kept back. Let him be firm and correct, and there will be good fortune. If trust be not reposed in him, let him maintain a large and generous mind, and there will be no error.
- Line 2 The second line, divided, shows its subject with the appearance of advancing, and yet of being sorrowful. If he be firm and correct, there will be good fortune. He will receive this great blessing from his grandmother.
- Line 3 The third line, divided, shows its subject trusted by all (around him). All occasion for repentance will disappear.
- Line 4 The fourth line, undivided, shows its subject with the appearance of advancing, but like a marmot. However firm and correct he may be, the position is one of peril.
- Line 5 The fifth line, divided, shows how all occasion for repentance disappears (from its subject). (But) let him not concern himself about whether he shall fail or succeed. To advance will be fortunate, and in every way advantageous.
- Line 6 · top The topmost line, undivided, shows one advancing his horns. But he only uses them to punish the (rebellious people of his own) city. The position is perilous, but there will be good fortune. (Yet) however firm and correct he may be, there will be occasion for regret.
James Legge, trans., The Yî King, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), p. 131 — 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.
Progress for a decision
Move forward — conditions support advancement. Put your work in front of the people who can recognize it and keep your conduct transparent.
I Ching 35 in love and relationships
A relationship moving into the open, with growing confidence on both sides.
Hexagram 35 at work
Promotion, visibility and rapid progress. Share credit with the people above and below who made it possible.
The six lines of hexagram 35
Read from the bottom up. This figure runs yin yin yin yang yin yang — what each position means.
2 yang and 4 yin lines. One of the six stands in its proper place, and the pairs 1–4 and 3–6 answer.
What the two trigrams do to each other
Inner and outer
Earth below — receptive yielding — is the private, inner side of hexagram 35.
Fire above — clarity and attachment — is the world that side meets.
The five-element relation
Fire above generates Earth 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 middle daughter sits above and the mother 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 35
Nuclear hexagram
39 · Obstruction
What is happening beneath the surface.
Lines 2–4 give Gen (Mountain) as the lower trigram, lines 3–5 give Kan (Water) as the upper.
Opposite hexagram
5 · Waiting
The situation turned inside out.
Change all six lines and Fire over Earth becomes Water over Heaven.
Inverse hexagram
36 · Darkening of the Light
The situation seen from the other side.
Turn the figure upside down and Fire over Earth becomes Earth over Fire.
None of these are assigned by an author — each follows from the arrangement of lines.
The image
Fire above, Earth below.
Fire over Earth: clarity and attachment meeting receptive yielding.
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 35: Progress.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/i-ching/hexagram/35/
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