The Eight Trigrams: How to Read a Bagua Diagram
Learn the eight symbols, understand why Earlier and Later Heaven charts differ, and identify the decorative chart on our home page.
The golden chart on YUAN’s home page is inspired by the bagua (八卦), the eight trigrams. Each trigram contains three lines, either unbroken or broken. Eight combinations are possible.
A trigram is not a zodiac sign or a personal score. It belongs to the symbolic vocabulary of the Yijing, also known as the I Ching or Book of Changes, and to later interpretive traditions.
Meet the eight symbols
| Symbol | Name | Chinese | Common image |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☰ | Qian | 乾 | Heaven |
| ☷ | Kun | 坤 | Earth |
| ☳ | Zhen | 震 | Thunder |
| ☴ | Xun | 巽 | Wind |
| ☵ | Kan | 坎 | Water |
| ☲ | Li | 离 | Fire |
| ☶ | Gen | 艮 | Mountain |
| ☱ | Dui | 兑 | Lake |
These images help introduce the vocabulary. They do not give each symbol one fixed meaning for every question. A full hexagram contains six lines, so it is also different from the three-line symbols above.
Read the lines from the bottom up
When describing how a trigram is built, begin with its lowest line. An unbroken line is conventionally yang; a broken line is yin. A trigram combines three such positions. With two possibilities in each of three positions, there are eight combinations.
Take Gen, Mountain, ☶. Its lowest and middle lines are broken, while its highest line is unbroken. Starting at the top would reverse the description. Compare Zhen, Thunder, ☳: its unbroken line is at the bottom. The two symbols contain the same counts of broken and unbroken lines, but their positions make them different trigrams.
This is a useful first exercise because it can be checked by looking at the drawing. You can identify a symbol before deciding how a particular text interprets it.
Why two charts can look different
Two widely discussed arrangements are called Earlier Heaven (xiantian) and Later Heaven (houtian). Their positions differ. Some traditional diagrams also place south at the top, unlike the north-up maps familiar to many English readers.
In a conventional Later Heaven arrangement, Zhen is east, Xun southeast, Li south, Kun southwest, Dui west, Qian northwest, Kan north and Gen northeast. Qian and Xun are opposite, as are Kun and Gen. Rotating a diagram does not change those relationships.
Do not mix that table with an Earlier Heaven illustration and conclude that one of the diagrams must be wrong. First identify the arrangement and its orientation.
A diagram-checking checklist
Before using a chart you found online, ask:
- Are you looking at eight three-line trigrams, or six-line hexagrams?
- Does the chart name its arrangement?
- Where does it place north and south?
- Does it identify a textual tradition or a modern room-mapping method?
For example, if you are checking the Later Heaven directions listed above, find Kan and Li first: Kan is north and Li is south. In a south-up chart, Li appears above the center and Kan below it. That appearance does not move north to the south; the drawing has a different orientation.
A room-placement chart can introduce additional conventions. It should explain those conventions rather than presenting every diagram labeled “Bagua” as the same instrument.
What our home-page chart does
The hero uses an Earlier Heaven-inspired arrangement, drawn with south at the top. It is decorative. The falling star, the glowing center and the illustrated guide are original presentation devices; they do not perform a reading or measure a direction.
You can explore the symbols without submitting a birth date or asking the chart to make a decision for you. We do not generate a personal divination result on this page.
A useful way to begin
Choose one image, such as Mountain. Describe what you actually notice before assigning it a meaning: stillness, a boundary, an obstacle, or a place to pause. Several readings can be possible. The point of the exercise is to ask a more precise question, not to dress up an unsupported prediction.
For a traditional text associated with the trigrams, see the Shuo Gua in the Book of Changes. For an accessible scholarly introduction to the text and its symbols, read Chinese Philosophy of Change, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. English translations and later commentators differ, so always identify the text and interpretation being used. See also Yin and Yang and Five Elements, Five Phases.
Cultural introduction. The website’s diagram is an illustration, not a compass, building assessment or divination service.