Hexagram 39
Hexagram 39 (Obstruction) Water over Earth - An impasse, hardship, limping, the provocateur, obstacles.Hexagram 39
39: Obstruction
蹇 (jiǎn)
39: Obstruction
Themes / Alternate Names / StructureAn impasse, hardship, limping, the provocateur, obstacles
Water over Mountain.
Host: Line 5 (Yang)
Opposite Hexagram: 38 (Opposition)
Inverse Hexagram: 40 (Deliverance)
Mutual Hexagram: 64 (Before Completion)
Water Trigram
坎 kǎnWater Trigram
Correspondences / Themes#6
2nd son. Pig. Fetal. Ears. Winter. North. Water. Rivers. The Sea.
The Abysmal, to risk, facing danger, difficult, emotional, the occult, the depths.
Mountain Trigram
艮 gènMountain Trigram
Correspondences / Themes#7
3rd son. Dog. Maturity. Hands. Early Spring. NW. Stone. Mountains.
Keeping Still, to limit, rest, meditation, enduring, stabilizing.
The principal line of the hexagram on which the central theme for divination focuses. In most (but not all) cases, the host resides in the second or fifth place (central places within their trigrams), of which the fifth place is most common. Some hexagrams have more than one hosts.
When a hexagram is written in reverse order (Line 6 becomes Line 1, Line 5 becomes Line 2, etc), an Inverse Hexagram is created.
A hexagram's opposite is the hexagram where each Yin line is Yang and vice versa. For example, hexagram 1 (The Creative, all Yang lines) and hexagram 2 (The Receptive, all Yin lines) are opposites.
A mutual hexagram is formed by the "mutual" trigrams formed by Lines 2/3/4 and Lines 3/4/5.
Line Change Detail
This image shows what “change hexagram” results when each line changes from yin to yang (or vice versa).
The 6 flip boxes below show the changing hexagram pair for each line in larger detail.
Line 1
Line 1
Line 2
Line 2
Line 3
Line 3
Line 4
Line 4
Line 5
Line 5
Line 6
Line 6