The 64 I Ching hexagrams are the complete received King Wen sequence of six-line figures, each composed of a lower trigram (Lines 1 through 3) and an upper trigram (Lines 4 through 6) drawn from the eight traditional trigrams, and they occupy a single dedicated Unicode block from U+4DC0 through U+4DFF with one official English name per entry. A reference catalogue built on this block lets you look up any hexagram by its King Wen number, the visible hexagram character, the Unicode code point, the official Unicode English name, or a trigram term, and inspect its exact structure without performing a divination cast. The I Ching Hexagram Meanings tool is one such catalogue: it holds all 64 entries in a fixed local table, runs search and filtering entirely in the browser, and pairs every entry with verified Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy line codes so the lower and upper trigrams can be checked directly against an independent scholarly source.
The 64 I Ching Hexagrams as a Unicode Block
The Unicode Standard reserves a single contiguous block of 64 code points — U+4DC0 through U+4DFF, officially titled Yijing Hexagram Symbols — for the 64 I Ching hexagrams in their King Wen order. Each code point carries exactly one official Unicode English name, and the sequence begins with ䷀ at U+4DC0, named HEXAGRAM FOR THE CREATIVE HEAVEN, and ends with ䷿ at U+4DFF, named HEXAGRAM FOR BEFORE COMPLETION. Between those two bookends sit the remaining 62 entries, and no two entries share a code point.
This encoding is the structural backbone of the reference catalogue. Because every hexagram maps to exactly one code point with exactly one Unicode name, a search by number, by pasted character, by typed code point, or by name fragment can resolve to the same entry without ambiguity. The catalogue is built as a literal 64-row oracle: the King Wen number, the visible character, the code point, and the official name are stored as fixed facts rather than generated, so the production code cannot manufacture or alter an expected identity. That design choice is what keeps a lookup honest — the answer you see is the answer encoded in Unicode and in the scholarly source, not a paraphrase.
Reading Lower and Upper Trigrams
Each of the 64 hexagrams in the King Wen sequence is built by stacking two of the eight traditional trigrams. In the catalogue's display convention, lines are read from the bottom upward, so the lower trigram is formed by Lines 1 through 3 and the upper trigram is formed by Lines 4 through 6. The catalogue filter lists the same eight trigrams on both sides — Qian, Dui, Li, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Gen, and Kun — and an entry matches only when both selected filters agree with the bottom-to-top line code split.
The following table shows the eight trigrams that appear in the lower and upper filter menus.
| Trigram | English | Position in catalogue |
|---|---|---|
| Qian | Heaven | Lower or upper filter |
| Dui | Lake | Lower or upper filter |
| Li | Fire | Lower or upper filter |
| Zhen | Thunder | Lower or upper filter |
| Xun | Wind | Lower or upper filter |
| Kan | Water | Lower or upper filter |
| Gen | Mountain | Lower or upper filter |
| Kun | Earth | Lower or upper filter |
A worked structural example: the first catalogue entry is ䷀ at U+4DC0, HEXAGRAM FOR THE CREATIVE HEAVEN. Its six lines are all unbroken (yang), so the bottom three lines match Qian or Heaven and the top three lines also match Qian or Heaven — the lower filter and the upper filter both resolve to Qian, and the detail panel shows that structural decomposition directly beside the hexagram symbol. The same bottom-to-top convention applies to every entry from ䷀ through ䷿, so the catalogue's lower and upper trigram labels can always be re-derived from the line code rather than read off the English title.
How to Search the 64 I Ching Hexagrams Catalogue
The catalogue accepts five kinds of lookup input, and the same entry can be reached by any of them. The table below summarizes what each input form matches.
| Lookup input | Example | What it matches |
|---|---|---|
| King Wen number | 1 or 64 | The hexagram at that position |
| Hexagram character | ䷀ or ䷿ | The Unicode entry containing that character |
| Unicode code point | U+4DC0 | The entry at that code point |
| Official Unicode name | CREATIVE HEAVEN | The entry with that name |
| Trigram term | Heaven | Entries whose lower or upper trigram is Qian |
Follow these steps to use the lookup.
- Open the I Ching Hexagram Meanings catalogue in your browser. All 64 entries load into a fixed local table; no account, sign-in, or fetch is required.
- Type a King Wen number (for example "1" or "64"), paste a hexagram character such as ䷀, enter a Unicode code point like U+4DC0, type an official Unicode name fragment such as "CREATIVE HEAVEN", or type a trigram term like "Heaven" or "Lake" into the search field.
- Narrow the result list by selecting one trigram in the lower filter (Lines 1–3) and one trigram in the upper filter (Lines 4–6). The visible result count updates with each change, and an empty state explains how to recover when the filters have no intersection.
- Click any matching entry to open its detail panel and inspect the exact Unicode code point, the official Unicode name, the King Wen number, and the lower and upper trigram symbols and names.
- Use Reset catalogue to clear the search field, remove both trigram filters, restore all 64 entries, and return to Hexagram 1. Closing or refreshing the page also removes any transient filter state.
What the Catalogue Will Not Do
This is a structural reference, not a divination engine. The catalogue does not toss coins, select a random entry, calculate changing lines, reproduce a modern commercial translation, attach an unsourced fortune, or claim that a hexagram predicts an event. The short display name helps identify an entry; the official Unicode name remains visible as the exact encoding label so the lookup can be verified against the source.
All operations are local. The component makes no fetch request, uploads no query, uses no account, and writes neither localStorage nor sessionStorage. Search and filtering are client-side operations over a fixed 64-row table, which means the only input that matters is what is typed or clicked during a session. On narrow screens the list and detail panel reflow into one column, native search and select controls provide keyboard access with at least a 44-pixel target, and long Unicode labels wrap rather than widen the page. If a mechanical three-coin cast with primary and transformed hexagrams is needed, the separate I Ching Reading tool performs that operation locally and inspects every changing line without submitting a personal question.
The reference also stays within the limits of its sources. The 8-by-8 King Wen lookup matrix is not inferred from the English title — it is independently locked against the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy appendix, which publishes bottom-to-top yin and yang line codes for all eight trigrams and all 64 hexagrams. Correctness means reproducing the cited catalogue structure, not validating any divinatory interpretation.
Sources Behind the Reference
The catalogue draws on two independent authorities so the structural facts can be checked from more than one place. Unicode Standard 17.0, Chapter 22, together with Unicode NamesList for the Yijing Hexagram Symbols block, supplies the encoding identity — the code point, the visible character, and the exact official English name for every entry from U+4DC0 through U+4DFF. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Yijing appendix supplies the bottom-to-top yin and yang line codes for all eight trigrams and all 64 hexagrams; splitting each six-line code after the third line produces the lower and upper trigrams used by the catalogue's filters.
The verified scope is deliberately narrow: all 64 literal number, character, code-point, and Unicode-name identities; all 64 Stanford line codes; the complete 8-by-8 matrix; eight unique trigrams; representative lower and upper combinations; search; both filters; reset; privacy boundaries; and the absence of predictive claims. Anything outside that scope — interpretation, changing-line commentary, predictive advice — belongs to a reading tool, not a reference catalogue, and the page is designed to stop at the structural facts.
Related reading: Book of Changes Oracle: Cast a Three-Coin Hexagram Online.