Dodecagrams of the I Ching

(Copyright © 2003 C. J. Lofting)

The hexagrams of the I Ching, when considered in their fullest expression as being made-up of six CHANGING lines reflect a compaction of 4096 possible expressions into 64 forms. The 4096 stem from the fact that 4⁶ = 4096 where each line position can have one of four possible states, yin, yang, yang changing into yin, and yin changing into yang.

This mapping of 4⁶ reflects the mapping of 2¹² 'static' symbols - twelve-line symbols reflecting yin/yang relationships. These pages layout all of these 4096 patterns and in doing so demonstrating that they reflect a relationship of hexagrams to hexagrams in the relationship of text-to-context.

In these 12-dimension symbols, patterns of change in the hexagrams are expressed where the 12 lines are formed into PAIRS and change is reflected in pairs that take on the form of 01 or 10 (0 = yin, 1 = yang). Pure yang is reflected as a pair of 11 and pure yin as a pair of 00.

Thus a dodecagram of the form 111111-111000 converts to a changing-line hexagram with a moving line in the 5th position - 1111X0 in that the X reflects a changing line, manifest in the PAIR of values of 10 in the dodecagram 9th and 10th positions (reading from left to right reflecting bottom to top).

There are 64 files here, each with 64 patterns and so overall 4096 possible expressions. I have included the traditional line comments but as you will see these form but a fraction of what is expressed since they only apply to single line changes. The order of the files is in the BINARY order of the I Ching from 111111 to 000000 where these are the CONTEXT hexagrams in the TEXT-CONTEXT relationships we identify in this material.

The table as such does NOT reflect dodecagrams but the CONTEXT hexagrams for dodecagrams, click on the links to derive the dodecagram files.