Great Vigor — 大壮

What Is Hexagram 34?

Hexagram 34, Dà Zhuàng (大壮, written 大壯 in the received text), Great Vigor, is Heaven below and Thunder above, ䷡, the fourth of the twelve figures in which the firm lines grow month by month and the one where that growth has reached four of the six places. Its judgment names no outcome at all, only a condition: what serves is to hold to what is correct.

The 序卦 arrives at the figure from the hexagram before it, 物不可終遯，故受之以大壯 — nothing can stay withdrawn to the end, and so Great Vigor follows. One sentence later it sets the same ceiling for this one, 物不可以終壯，故受之以晉: nothing can stay at full vigor to the end either, and so Progress takes its place. The 雜卦 sets the two figures against each other in eight characters, 大壯則止，遯則退也: Great Vigor is the figure of stopping, and Retreat the figure of stepping back. The book hands over maximum force and mentions, in the same breath, that it is not a place to live.

The name describes the diagram rather than a person. The 疏 says it plainly: 壯者，強盛之名。以陽稱大，陽長既多，是大者盛壯，故曰大壯 — 壯 is the word for what is strong and flourishing, the firm line is what the book calls great, and with the firm lines grown numerous the great is at its full, which is why the figure is called 大壯. English renderings divide over whether 大 belongs to the vigor or to the one who has it, and 王弼's note on the 彖 settles that question in five characters, 大者謂陽爻: the great is the firm line itself. What the figure shows is a shape, and the shape is four solid strokes with two hollow ones left at the top.

In the twelve-month reading of the figures this is the second month of the cycle, when four firm lines have come up and two places are still left to the yielding; its reverse, 遯, is the sixth. Four months apart on the same calendar, the two hexagrams carry the same count of firm lines, and the difference between them is which end of the figure those lines are growing from.

The verdicts are worth counting, because a hexagram of maximum strength is unusually sparing with them. 吉 appears three times: twice as a plain 貞吉, on the second and fourth lines, and once on the top line, where it is granted only to 艱, the hardship accepted. 凶 appears once, on the first line, 征凶; 厲 once, on the third; 悔亡 once and 无悔 once, on the fourth and fifth; 无攸利 once, again on the top. The character 咎 does not appear in any of the six lines at all. It occurs once in the whole figure, in the Small Says of the top line, and there it is a promise rather than a verdict, 咎不長也 — the trouble will not last. The book's most forceful figure has the least to say about what anyone deserves.

Two smaller facts belong here as well. The second line's entire text is two characters, 貞吉, and it carries no image, no animal and no warning: the shortest line in the figure is the one the fifth line will hand its business to. And the third and top lines share exactly the same four characters, 羝羊觸藩, a ram butting a hedge, the same mistake pictured once at the moment of charging and once at the moment when there is no longer any way to move at all.

Trigram Structure

Heaven below, Thunder above — 乾下震上 — ䷡. The 說卦 gives each trigram a single defining word in its short list, 乾，健也。震，動也: heaven is vigor and thunder is movement. The 彖 draws the conclusion in one clause, 剛以動，故壯, and the 疏 fills the contrast in, 乾剛而震動，柔弱而動，即有退弱；剛強以動，所以成壯 — a yielding thing that moves gives ground, while the firm thing that moves becomes vigor. Nothing in this figure is stationary, which is the first thing to notice about it, because the Image's instruction will turn out to be about standing still.

The family list puts the upper trigram where it belongs in the line of descent, 震一索而得男，故謂之長男: on the first exchange a son is obtained, and he is the eldest. Heaven is the father, 乾，天也，故稱乎父. The figure is the father below and the eldest son above, and the eldest son is the one who moves.

The raw material of the Image is the pair of pictures itself, 雷在天上, and the 疏 reads the scene in a single line, 震雷為威動，乾天主剛健 — thunder is awe in motion, and heaven is lord of the firm. The 說卦's chapter on the workings of things gives thunder its own superlative: 動萬物者，莫疾乎雷, of everything that sets other things moving, none is faster. Thunder at the top of the sky is as high as the book ever places this force.

Then the long catalog for 震: 震為雷、為龍、為玄黃、為敷、為大涂、為長子、為決躁、為蒼筤竹、為萑葦。其於馬也，為善鳴、為馵足，為的顙。其於稼也，為反生。其究為健，為蕃鮮 — thunder, dragon, the dark yellow of sky and earth mixed, spreading, the great highway, the eldest son, decisive rashness, green bamboo, reeds; among horses, one that calls well, one with white legs, one with a white-starred brow; among crops, the reverse-growing kind; and at its furthest, strength and lushness. 決躁, decisive rashness, is the trigram's own name for impatience, and it names precisely what the first and third lines do. 蒼筤竹 and 萑葦, green bamboo and reeds, are things that are strong, light and hollow at once, strength that gets its resilience from having nothing solid at the center. And 大涂, the great highway, sits in the same list among animals and weather: the trigram of movement is the one the book gives a road to.

Heaven's own list runs 乾為天、為圜、為君、為父、為玉、為金、為寒、為冰、為大赤、為良馬、為老馬、為瘠馬、為駁馬、為木果 — heaven, the circle, the ruler, the father, jade, metal, cold, ice, deep red, a good horse, an old horse, a lean horse, a piebald horse, fruit on a tree. Set the two lists side by side and the figure's composition is visible in them: one list is a ruler's inventory and nothing in it moves; the other is weather and animals, and nothing in it stays put.

Two structural relations complete the picture. Read the six strokes from the other end and they come out 艮下乾上, mountain below and heaven above, which is hexagram 33, 遯, Retreat, the figure the 序卦 and the 雜卦 both pair with this one. Reverse each line instead, firm for yielding, and the reading comes out 坤下巽上: hexagram 20, 觀, Contemplation, whose four yielding places sit at the bottom exactly where these four firm ones do.

The Judgment

大壯：利貞。

Dà Zhuàng: lì zhēn.

Our rendering: Great Vigor: what serves is to hold to what is correct.

Read character by character:

After the name, the entire judgment is two characters, and the 疏 spends its first sentence explaining why a hexagram this strong is given so little to do: 大壯，卦名也... 群陽盛大，小道將滅，大者獲正，故曰利貞. The mass of firm lines is at its height, the petty way is about to be extinguished, and because what is great has come to what is correct, the judgment says that what serves is to hold to it. There is no 亨 in this text, no promise of passage, and no 无咎. The condition is the whole content.

The 彖 takes the name apart twice and then makes a claim about the sky:

大壯，大者壯也。剛以動，故壯。大壯利貞；大者正也。正大而天地之情可見矣！

The 疏 marks the two readings as operating at different levels. 大者壯也 is 就爻釋卦名, the name read off the lines, since 陽爻浸長，已至於四, the firm lines have grown by degrees as far as the fourth place; while 剛以動，故壯 is 就二體釋卦名, the name read off the two trigrams. The judgment's 利貞 is then read back off the lines as well, 就爻釋卦德. One name, three passes, the same diagram every time.

What the 彖 closes on is a statement about heaven rather than about people, 正大而天地之情可見矣. 王弼's note turns that into a definition: 天地之情，正大而已矣。弘正極大，則天地之情可見矣 — the way of heaven and earth is nothing but what is correct and great, and when correctness is stretched to its full size the conditions of heaven and earth become visible. The 疏 then explains why the 彖 stops where it does, 不言萬物者，壯大之名，義歸天極，故不與咸、恒同也: the two figures it compares this one with name the ten thousand things as well, while this one names heaven and earth only, because vigor belongs to the extreme of heaven and not to the world of things. So the hexagram's praise stops at the sky and stops short of anything a person could hold.

Jungian reading: Jung treated the drive to power less as a motive than as a compensation, something that grows in proportion to a weakness that has not been admitted; he was equally clear that once it takes over the whole field it stops compensating and becomes an identification. The person for whom strength has become an identity cannot hear a limit as advice, because by his own definition a limit would be the end of him. That is the shape of this figure. Its danger is not defeat — both of its failures come from pushing something that was never going to move — and the hedge that does open, on the fourth line, opens because that line has given up one place to the yielding without giving up anything else. What Jung called inflation applies here: the size a person has taken on is usually not his own, and it is settled by spending the very strength it was meant to increase.

The Image

雷在天上，大壯；君子以非禮弗履。

Léi zài tiān shàng, Dà Zhuàng; jūn zǐ yǐ fēi lǐ fú lǚ.

Thunder at the top of the sky: Great Vigor. The noble one therefore takes no step that is not in keeping with what is fitting.

The 注 gives the reasoning in a single turn: 壯而違禮則凶，凶則失壯也。故君子以「大壯」而順體也 — to be strong and depart from what is fitting brings misfortune, and the misfortune takes the strength away, so the noble one takes Great Vigor and keeps to the structure of things. The 疏 sets the warning in its context, 盛極之時，好生驕溢: at the height of abundance people grow proud and spill over. What the instruction does is hold strength and propriety to be one concern. A strength that violates its own frame does not merely offend; it loses itself, and the note treats those as a single process.

The position is extreme. This is thunder at the top of the sky, and the trigram to which the 說卦 gives 決躁, decisive rashness, and 大涂, the great highway. If any figure in the sequence could be read as permission to move, it is this one. Instead the only instruction attached to the image of thunder in heaven is a limit on where a person's feet may go. The 履 of 非禮弗履 is the ordinary verb for treading, and it is also the name of hexagram 10, whose whole subject is the difference between a step that keeps its ground and one that loses it.

The Lines

初九：壯于趾，征凶，有孚。 (Zhuàng yú zhǐ, zhēng xiōng, yǒu fú.) Vigor in the toes: setting out brings misfortune; of that there is no doubt.

The 疏 begins with the body: 趾，足也。初在體下，有如趾足之象 — 趾 is the foot, and the first line sits at the floor of the figure, which is what a foot is for. Then it converts the picture into a person, 在下用壯，陵犯於物，以斯而行，凶其信矣: at the bottom and using strength, overrunning whatever is in the way; to go on like that is a misfortune one can take as certain. 王弼's note generalizes it into the figure's first principle, 夫得「大壯」者，必能自終成也。未有陵犯於物而得終其壯者 — whoever has Great Vigor must be able to bring it to its end, and no one has ever finished his strength by overrunning everything in front of him. The 孚 of the last clause is read as 信, certainty, rather than trust, and the Small Says turn it into a sentence of their own, 壯于趾，其孚窮也; 王弼's gloss on them is four characters, 言其信窮. This line is the floor of the figure, and it is already charging.

九二：貞吉。 (Zhēn jí.) Holding to what is correct: good fortune.

Two characters, and 王弼 explains both of them by position: 居得中位，以陽居陰，履謙不亢 — it holds the middle place, a firm line in a yielding one, walking modestly and not mounting up. The 疏 fills in the conduct, 以其居中履謙，行不違禮，故得正而吉也, in the middle and modest, so its steps do not depart from what is fitting; that is why it is correct, and correctness is the only thing this hexagram's judgment asks for. The Small Says reduce it to three characters, 以中也, because of the middle. This line describes a place rather than an action, and it is the one the fifth line will eventually hand its business to.

九三：小人用壯，君子用罔，貞厲。羝羊觸藩，羸其角。 (Xiǎo rén yòng zhuàng, jūn zǐ yòng wǎng, zhēn lì. Dī yáng chù fān, léi qí jiǎo.) The petty use strength; the noble one uses it as a snare. Holding to this: danger. A ram butts a hedge and tangles its horns.

The 疏 unfixes the four images first: 罔，羅罔也。羝羊，羖羊也。藩，藩籬也。羸，拘累纏繞也 — 罔 is a hunting net, a 羝 is a ram, a 藩 is a wattle hedge, and 羸 means caught and wound around. The position is the top of the lower trigram, 是健之極也, strength at its extreme, and 又「以陽居陽」，是健而不謙也, a firm line in a firm place, which is strength with no modesty in it. That combination, says the 疏, 必用其壯, will use its strength; then the same strength is handed to two different people. 小人當此，不知恐懼，即用以為壯盛: the petty one, seeing no reason to be afraid, takes it as his vigor. 君子當此即慮危難，用之以為羅罔於己: the noble one, seeing the same position, takes it as a net over himself. 王弼's note says the same in one clause, 故小人用之以為壯，君子用之以為羅己者也. The Small Says drop the verb from the second half and leave the noble one netting himself, 君子罔也. Later readers have often taken 罔 in its more common sense of 無, nothing, and read the line as the noble one making no use of strength at all. The 正義's reading is the net, and the distance between the two readings is the distance between refusing force and aiming it.

Then the image that the top line will repeat, and it is the whole hexagram: 羝羊觸藩，羸其角. The picture works because what a ram pushes with, it cannot pull back out of. The 疏 says what happens to a person in that position, 以壯為正，其正必危, taking vigor itself as the standard, and that is why the line attaches 貞 to 厲 as a warning rather than a verdict. This is the first of the figure's two 羝羊觸藩 lines, and it is the one that still has room behind it.

九四：貞吉悔亡，藩決不羸，壯于大輿之輹。 (Zhēn jí huǐ wáng, fān jué bù léi, zhuàng yú dà yú zhī fù.) Holding to what is correct: good fortune, and regret gone. The wattle gives way and no horn is caught in it; the vigor lives in the great cart's axle-brace.

The fourth line has the same strength as the third and a different position, and the whole difference is in 王弼's first clause: 下剛而進，將有憂虞。而以陽處陰，行不違謙，不失其壯 — the firm advancing in the lines below creates something to worry about, but this line is firm in a yielding place, so its going does not depart from modesty, and for that reason it does not lose its strength. 已得其壯，而上陰不罔己路，故藩決不羸: the line has its vigor, the yielding line above it is not blocking the way, and the hedge opens. The 疏 draws the pair, 九三以壯健不謙，即被羸其角。九四以謙而進，謂之上行 — the third is strong without modesty and tangles its horns, the fourth goes forward modestly and is called ascending. Two adjacent lines with the same strength, and two outcomes, and the variable is not the amount of force but whether the line's position has any give in it. The cart's 輹, the brace that binds axle to body, is the part that holds strength and motion together; 王弼 says of it, 無有能說其輹者，可以往也, with nothing able to slip it off, one may go. The Small Says add the figure's most cautious permission, 藩決不羸，尚往也, and the 疏 reads 尚 as 庶幾, perhaps, almost: one may just about go on.

六五：喪羊于易，无悔。 (Sàng yáng yú yì, wú huǐ.) The ram is let go on level ground: no regret.

The 注 starts from the situation rather than the line: 居於大壯，以陽處陽，猶不免咎，而況以陰處陽，以柔乘剛者乎 — in a time of Great Vigor even a firm line in a firm place does not escape blame, and this line is yielding in a firm place and riding on the firm lines below. Then it says why a ram is in the sentence at all: 羊，壯也. The 疏 states the reason in a single clause, 羊，剛狠之物，故以譬壯 — a ram is a hard, stubborn animal, which is why it serves as the picture of vigor. Letting the ram go is losing the strength, and the line is told to lose it 于易, on level ground rather than hard: 能喪壯于易，不於險難，故得無悔, giving the vigor up while the ground is still even instead of after the trouble has arrived. 王弼's summary is the practical half of the whole hexagram, 委之則難不至，居之則敵寇來: hand it over and the difficulty never comes, hold the seat and the opposition arrives. The 疏 describes the handover, 若於平易之時，逆舍其壯，委身任二，不為違拒，亦剛所不害 — let go early, entrust yourself to the second line, do not resist, and the firm lines will not harm you. The Small Says name the reason, 位不當也: the seat is not one this line can hold. This is the figure's ruling place, and the one sitting in it is advised to give away the very thing the hexagram is named for.

The 疏 records an argument here. An earlier reader, 莊氏, objected that 王弼 used the phrase 喪羊 twice with two different senses and therefore contradicted himself, 二理自為矛盾. Kong Yingda's answer is not a defense but a dismissal: 竊謂莊氏此言，全不識《注》意, in my view this reader has not understood the note at all. In a commentarial tradition that usually smooths such things over, this is one of the places where an earlier reader is named and told he missed the point.

The 易 of 喪羊于易 is read here as 平易, level ground, and the 疏 confirms the reading by opposing it to 險難, hard ground. Other readers have taken 易 otherwise, as a boundary or as a place name, which is why the two characters have been argued over for a very long time. The reading followed on this page is the one under the 正義.

上六：羝羊觸藩，不能退，不能遂，无攸利，艱則吉。 (Dī yáng chù fān, bù néng tuì, bù néng suì, wú yōu lì, jiān zé jí.) The ram butts the hedge: it can neither draw back nor get through; nothing is favorable — accept the hardship, and there is good fortune.

The 注 explains the paralysis by the line's one connection: 有應於三，故不能退。懼於剛長，故不能遂 — it answers the third line below and so cannot withdraw; it fears the growth of the firm lines and so cannot get through. 持疑猶豫，志無所定，以斯決事，未見所利: hesitating, with the will unsettled, deciding anything on that footing, no advantage appears. The 疏 fixes the two verbs, 退謂退避。遂謂進往. Then the 注 gives the way out, and it is not a movement: 雖處剛長，剛不害正。苟定其分，固志在一，以斯自處，則憂患消亡，故曰「艱則吉」也 — even in the growth of the firm lines, the firm does not harm what is correct; if the line settles its own share and fixes its will on one thing, and stands there, the trouble dissolves. The Small Says add the single occurrence of 咎 in the classic's own text of this figure, in the form of a promise, 艱則吉，咎不長也, and they also explain what is wrong with the ram, 不能退，不能遂，不詳也, with 詳 read as 祥 and 祥 as 善: to stand undecided between forward and back is not a good state to be in.

The same four characters opened the third line, and the difference between the two is instructive. The third line has a hedge that holds it. The top line has no way to move in either direction, and it is caught there because of the tie to the third. The ram is stuck on its own answer, not on the hedge.

How This Hexagram Shows Up in Daily Life

The instruction this figure keeps giving is a limit on expression, not on strength. The strength is simply given, four lines of it, and the judgment never asks anyone to be weaker; it asks that the vigor be spent inside a frame that can hold it. 王弼's note on the Image is an argument rather than a rule, 壯而違禮則凶，凶則失壯也: overrun the frame and you lose the vigor itself. That is a mechanism a person can check against his own history. Whatever is used to overrun something tends to come back smaller, and strength spent on a hedge that did not need pushing is strength that is not there for the work that mattered.

The lines that fail here all fail by pushing: the first advances with nothing in front of it and is told 征凶, the third charges a hedge that does not move. The three lines that come out well all do something else. The second says nothing about action and is called correct because of where it sits. The fourth, which could have charged, is content to stand in a place with give in it. The fifth is the seat of rule, and its instruction is to hand the ram over before the ground gets rough, 委之則難不至，居之則敵寇來. Read as a set, the figure's counsel is not modesty for its own sake. It is the observation that among people the pressure applied and the result obtained stop lining up at some point, and everything after that point is loss.

The top line is the one to keep for a bad week. It can neither retreat nor advance, it is not favorable in either direction, and the commentary's diagnosis is not that the situation is impossible but that the will is unsettled, 志無所定. The exit it prescribes is the least dramatic option in the chapter: 苟定其分，固志在一, settle your share and fix on one thing, accept the hardship, 艱則吉. Note what the line does not offer. There is no cutting of the hedge, no second ram, no better answer to be found by pushing harder. Its 吉 is the hardest one in the figure to collect, because it is granted after the difficulty has been accepted and not instead of it.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What does Hexagram 34 mean in one sentence?

That strength is worth having only where it can be spent correctly, and that this one condition is the whole judgment. 大壯：利貞 is the entire text; the 疏 reads it as 群陽盛大，小道將滅，大者獲正，故曰利貞, and the 彖 adds 大者正也. There is no promise of passage in the judgment and no line in the figure that rewards pushing. The lines that push all end badly, and the three that come out well are the ones that keep the strength and give up the ground.

Why does a hexagram named Great Vigor keep telling a person not to move?

Because the book's concern here is what happens to force once it has been used, not whether it should exist. The 注 on the Image states the mechanism, 壯而違禮則凶，凶則失壯也: to be strong and violate what is fitting brings misfortune, and the misfortune takes the strength. The first line charges and is told 征凶; the third butts the hedge and tangles its horns; the fourth opens the same hedge by holding modestly in a yielding place, 以陽處陰，行不違謙，不失其壯. Nothing in the figure is weak, and only one line is told that it may go, the fourth, where even the Small Says qualify the permission with 尚, read as 庶幾, perhaps.

What does 羝羊觸藩 mean, and why does it appear on two different lines?

It means a ram butting a wattle hedge. The 疏 defines the pieces: 罔，羅罔也。羝羊，羖羊也。藩，藩籬也。羸，拘累纏繞也. It appears on the third line, 羝羊觸藩，羸其角, and again on the top line, 羝羊觸藩，不能退，不能遂. The third line is the top of the lower trigram, strength at its extreme in a firm place, 健而不謙, and it charges; the hedge holds it. The top line is the last line of the figure and it answers the third, 有應於三，故不能退, so it can neither back out of the connection nor get through the obstacle, and the diagnosis is a will that has not been settled, 志無所定. The image is used twice because the same mistake has two moments: the charge, and the deadlock.

How does 大壯 relate to 遯 (Hexagram 33)?

They are the same six-stroke shape read from opposite ends. 大壯 is 乾下震上, four firm lines at the bottom; turn the figure over and it is 乾上艮下, 遯, four firm lines with the two yielding ones at the bottom instead of the top. The 序卦 links them directly, 物不可終遯，故受之以大壯, and the 雜卦 states the difference as a pair of verbs, 大壯則止，遯則退也. In the twelve-month reading of the figures 遯 is the sixth month and 大壯 the second, four steps apart on the same cycle, with the same count of firm lines in both and only the growing end changed.

The I Ching is a mirror for reflection, not a prediction machine.