Plum Blossom numerology (梅花易數): numbers, time and Body and Use

Plum Blossom numerology (梅花易數) is a way of arriving at an I Ching hexagram without coins or stalks. Nothing is tossed. You take numbers instead, from the moment you ask, from a few numbers that come to mind, or from the words of your question, and turn them into trigrams. Tradition attributes the method to the Song-dynasty scholar Shao Yong (邵雍), and the name is usually explained by a story in which he cast a hexagram after watching two sparrows squabble on a plum branch.

The reading is short and direct, and at its heart is a single relationship: Body and Use (體用).

From numbers to trigrams

Each of the eight trigrams has a "Former Heaven" number (先天數):

• 乾 heaven 1, 兌 lake 2, 離 fire 3, 震 thunder 4
• 巽 wind 5, 坎 water 6, 艮 mountain 7, 坤 earth 8

To turn any number into a trigram, divide it by 8 and keep the remainder; a remainder of 0 counts as 8, which is 坤. To find the moving line, divide by 6; a remainder of 0 counts as 6, the top line. A Plum Blossom hexagram always has exactly one moving line.

Three ways to cast

Our calculator offers the three classic sources of numbers. The "hour number" below is the branch of the current two-hour period, counted from 子 = 1 to 亥 = 12, with 子 starting at 23:00.

• Numbers. With one number, the upper trigram comes from the number, and the lower trigram and moving line from the number plus the hour number. With two numbers, the first gives the upper trigram, the second the lower, and their sum plus the hour number the moving line. With three, the first two give the trigrams and the sum of all three the moving line.
• This moment (年月日時起卦). Add the number of the lunar year's branch (子 = 1 to 亥 = 12), the lunar month and the lunar day: that sum gives the upper trigram. Add the hour number too, and the new sum gives the lower trigram and the moving line. Here the year turns at Lunar New Year, as in the classical examples, and a leap month uses its own number.
• Your question. Count the letters or characters in it, ignoring spaces and punctuation. Half the count, rounded down, gives the upper trigram; the rest gives the lower; the whole count gives the moving line.

Teachers vary in the details, such as whether to add the hour or how to split an odd count. These are the choices the site makes, and the result page shows each step under "How the numbers were used".

A worked example

Say you pick 5 and 9 at 10:00, which is the 巳 hour (number 6).

• Upper: 5 gives 巽, wind.
• Lower: 9 divided by 8 leaves 1, which gives 乾, heaven.
• Moving line: 5 + 9 + 6 = 20, and 20 divided by 6 leaves 2, so the second line moves.

Wind over heaven is 小畜 (Small Accumulation, no. 9). Changing its second line turns the lower 乾 into 離, giving 家人 (Household, no. 37). Lines two to four and three to five form the nuclear hexagram (互卦), here 睽 (Divergence, no. 38).

Body and Use

The moving line splits the hexagram in two. The trigram without the moving line is the Body (體): you, the one asking. The trigram with it is the Use (用): the matter you asked about. In the example the moving line is in the lower half, so 乾 is Use and 巽 is Body.

The reading compares their elements. 乾 and 兌 are metal, 震 and 巽 wood, 坎 water, 離 fire, 艮 and 坤 earth.

• 用生體, Use produces Body: the matter feeds you. Read as supportive.
• 比和, the same element: Body and Use are in step. Supportive.
• 體剋用, Body controls Use: you can shape the matter. Supportive.
• 體生用, Body produces Use: you give more than comes back. Takes effort.
• 用剋體, Use controls Body: the matter presses on you. Takes effort.

In the example, 乾 metal controls 巽 wood, so Use controls Body: a matter that asks a lot of you. The two trigrams of the nuclear hexagram are compared with the Body in the same way to describe the process along the way, and the changed trigram (here 離 fire, which 巽 wood feeds) describes where things lean in the end. The site sums this up in one neutral word: supportive when the main and final relations are both supportive, takes effort when both take effort, as here, and mixed otherwise. It also notes how strong the Body's element is in the current season.

"Takes effort" is not a bad omen. It describes the shape of a situation, where energy has to go, and leaves the choices with you.

Plum Blossom and the I Ching

The hexagrams and their texts are the same sixty-four used in the three-coin method. Only the way of arriving at them, and the weight given to Body and Use, differ.

Arithmetic first

Every number, remainder, trigram and relation is worked out by code and shown step by step with the result. The AI is handed that derivation and writes a reading of it; it does not pick the trigrams or the summary word.