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The Eight Trigrams and Their Changes JapaneseJournal ofReligious Studies 38/2: 329-368 ©2011 Nanzan Institute forReligion and Culture MatthiasHayek The Eight Trigrams and Their Changes An Inquiry into Japanese Early Modern Divination In thisarticle I willstudy a peculiardivination method involving the eight trigramsknown as hakkethat, I willattempt to show,was amongthe most populartechniques used in Japanfrom the end of the sixteenth to theend of theeighteenth century. My goal hereis to showhow this mantic knowledge was passedon througha specifickind of manual while undergoing several transformations.These changes, far from being coincidental, may be linked to theinner evolutions of Japanese society and cultureduring the Edo period. Thereforesuch an inquiryshould help us to gaina betterunderstanding of thereciprocal informing relationship between mantic knowledge (correlative thinking)and peoplesgeneral expectations and/or mentality. I will first pres- entthe nature of hakke-uranai, before tracking down how and by whom it was used.Finally, I will detail how its inner structure relates to theway the clients ofthe diviners were viewing fate, time, daily life, and the world. keywords:divination - hakke-uranai - printed manuals - correlativethinking - wayof yin and yang- popular knowledge MatthiasHayek is an associate professor inthe Department ofOriental Languages and Civilizations(lcao) andmember ofthe crcao, umr 8155, Paris Diderot University. 329 This content downloaded from 132.203.227.61 on Thu, 22 Oct 2015 08:53:39 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ( uranai bokusenЬй) in Japanhas yetto receiveatten- tionfrom scholars equivalent to thatwhich specialists of China have Divinationgiven to continentalmanteia. To be moreprecise, although seminal studiessuch as Blacker s (1975) havebeen conductedon "non-systemized"(or "shamanistic")divination (that is, divination that relies on theinner capacity of thediviner to directlycommunicate and transmitinformation from a superhu- man source),the same cannotbe said about "systemized"divination. Pioneer Westernscholars, first Severini (1874),but also Aston (1908) and others,did showsome curiositytoward the subject, and abouthalf a centurylater, French researcherBernard Frank (1998)produced a detailedstudy on a peculiaraspect of ancientJapanese hemerology1 that is stillregarded as an essentialcontribu- tionto thecomprehension of Heian cultureand lore. Evenin Japan,however, academic interest in whatI shalldefine as a corpus- based technicalknowledge used to deciphermundane events through a process of encodingand decodingreality in analogical/symbolicalterms rarely leaves theboundaries of ancient Japan. Although valuable studies about the social sta- tusof "religious specialists" whose activities included divination have provided us witha moredetailed understanding (Hayashi 2006), thecontents and the sourcesof these divination practices are still opaque. Eventhough Japanese systemized divination was closelyconnected to Chi- nese manticknowledge, considering how important(and numerous)the divin- ers seem to have been in premodernurban and ruralJapan, it deservesto be examinedfor its own sake. Given the triangular relation of information between diviners,their source(s) of knowledge, and theirclients (Zeitlyn 2001),it can be assumedthat by studying the nature of Japanese mantic practices, one could unveilthe specificities of the way people apprehend the surrounding world, fate, and everydayevents at thattime. 1.The various terms used in this article to refer to a precisetype of divination generally fol- lowsthe typology established bysinologists inKalinowski 2003. Hence, "cleromancy" refers toany divination involving todraw/throw/toss/flip anitem, in order to randomly obtain one ormore figure from a preset list. Classical Yi jing- based divination (achilleomancy) qualifies perfectlyfor this labeling as itconsists of one or two hexagrams, line by line or trigram by trigram,byseparating atrandom a pack fifty sticks, and subtracting sticks several times until a meaningfulnumber isreached. As for "hemerology," itis any kind of divination taking tem- poralparameters, such as year,month, day, hour, or any combination ofthese as itsprimary variableto determine either ones faith or the auspicious character ofa givendate regarding variousactivities. 330 This content downloaded from 132.203.227.61 on Thu, 22 Oct 2015 08:53:39 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions HAYEK:JAPANESE EARLY MODERN DIVINATION | 33I Thisis preciselywhat this article attempts, by paying particular attention to a peculiardivination method involving divinatory figures commonly known as theeight trigrams (Jp. hakka or hakke, Ch. baguaAíh). First,I willdescribe this technique,pointing out itsimportance in earlymodern Japan, before giving a briefoverview of its origins, characteristics, and mediaof diffusion. Then I will considerevidence of its use fromthe sixteenth to thetwentieth century, portray- ing itsusers by quotingtestimonies from contemporaneous sources. Finally, I shallpresent what the mechanics and structureof this method reveal about the preoccupationsand representationsofthe clients of the diviners. Prologue: What is a trigram? Beforegoing into the detailsof the Edo-periodusage of the eighttrigrams, I shalltry to clarifya fewpoints regarding the nature and originof these figures, as wellas theirrelationship to divinatorytechniques. The firstdifficulty faced when trying to understandthe hakke-uranai is that theeight trigrams are commonlyassociated with a specifickind of divination thatdiffers greatly from the one I willtry to discusshere. Indeed,when looking at a dictionarylike theNihon kokugo daijiten E№H we can see thatthe word hakke refers implicitly to thefamous Chinese classic,the Book of Changes, Yijing (Jp. Ekikyõ ЛИ), also knownas theChanges ofthe Zhou , Zhouyi(Jp. Shüeki Л): In thecontext of the Changes , the eight forms are composed of three divina- tionrods figuring yin (broken) and yang (plain) lines. Thisbook, assumed to havebeen firstput together around 700 все duringthe Zhou dynasty(Suzuki 1963,15), at itscore servesas a base and a referentfor a divinatorytechnique involving a randomdrawing of yarrow stalks in orderto obtainnumerical values (cleromancy).These values are used to form,step by step,a divinatoryfigure ultimately composed of two sets of three lines. Both the three-linefigure, or trigram,and thesix-line figure, or hexagram,are calledgua (Jp.ka , ke). The linescan be eitherplain (uneven,or yang)or broken(even, or yin),their status being determined by thenumbers which were drawn. More- over,depending on thevalues obtained,the capacityof each line to "change" fromyin to yangor fromyang to yinrespectively is also determined.Therefore, on a practicallevel, a gua is nothingless thana figurativeportent, to be inter- pretedby looking at the parts of the Book of Changes dedicated to eachhexagram. However,beside this practical aspect, the Yijing itself,and the bagua along withit, are also a base formetaphysical speculations. This particular side has been extensivelydeveloped since the beginning of Confucianism (the commen- tariescalled "tenwings" are attributedto Confuciushimself), and is a partof This content downloaded from 132.203.227.61 on Thu, 22 Oct 2015 08:53:39 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 332 I JapaneseJournal of Religious Studies 38/2(2011) SupremeUltimate yang ' шшв greatyang //^/sman yin smallyang greatyin ш я ш ш m ж & w Ken Da Ri Shin Son Kan Gon Kon diagram1. Formation ofthe trigrams. thecommon culture of the various intellectual and religioustraditions of China, includingof course Buddhism and Daoism. Thus,the formation of the trigrams is oftendepicted as a generativeprocess resultingfrom a successionof combinations starting from the emergence of the two poles,yin and yang(monads), fromthe SupremeUltimate (Taiji, Jp.tai- kyokuicffi). As such,this process can be consideredas a symbolicalexpression ofthe creation of the cosmos itself. Thiscosmological aspect is notabsent from the divinatory use ofthe Book of Changes: the trigram and hexagramrandomly obtained work as a symbolization ofthe state of the macrocosm at thetime of the consultation, and the"changes" whichmight occur to thelines express the cosmic dynamics the diviner should catchto foreseeupcoming developments. However,along withthe systematizationof the variouscosmological ele- mentsled by Han (202 BCE-220 ce) Confucianscholars like JingFang ЖМ (77-37все), thetrigrams were integrated in a broadercorrelative framework, as wellas thefive phases, the twelve branches, the ten stems, and othermarkers of space and time(Suzuki 1963).From these times onward, they were to be found in otherdivinatory techniques than the originalcleromancy, most notably in hemerologicalpractices. Contrary to cleromancy,which uses randomvariables (numberof rods/coins)unrelated to the subjects*individual data to obtaina portent,hemerology is based on calendricalelements and uses fixedvariables organicallylinked to thesubject (for example, the birth year of the client, the day and timean eventoccurred, and so on) as a basis forits prognostics. As such, This content downloaded from 132.203.227.61 on Thu, 22 Oct 2015 08:53:39 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions HAYEK:JAPANESE EARLY MODERN DIVINATION | 333 figure1. Hakke-bon, undated (Shidõ figure2. Hakket 1708 edition by Seishõ bunko,Keiõ Gijuku University). (Collègede France, ihej). whilecleromancy emphasizes the intervention of a divinedesign in thedrawing, thisset of techniques oifers
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