Wen Wang Gua

Wen Wang Gua is one of the oldest divination systems in Chinese culture, originating from the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching as interpreted by King Wen over 3,000 years ago. It is based on the theory of yin-yang transformations in nature, revealing the patterns of how events unfold through hexagram combinations.

The I Ching, also known as the Zhou Yi, is the foremost of the Confucian Five Classics. It is not merely a book of divination but the wellspring of Chinese philosophy. Its concepts of yin-yang interdependence and the reversal of extremes have profoundly shaped Chinese civilization for millennia.

This site uses the Three Coin Method, the most widely practiced way to cast a Wen Wang hexagram. Three coins are tossed simultaneously — heads counts as 3, tails as 2. The sum of three coins yields values of 6, 7, 8, or 9, each corresponding to a different line type.

Each toss produces one line, building from bottom to top over six tosses to form a complete six-line hexagram. Values of 6 (old yin) and 9 (old yang) are changing lines, marking key positions where transformation is imminent.

The eight trigrams are the fundamental symbols of the I Ching. Each consists of three lines, representing eight natural phenomena:

Two trigrams stacked together form one of 64 hexagrams — the upper trigram is the outer, the lower is the inner — encompassing all aspects of human affairs.