Chapter Six: Appending Statements to Determine Auspiciousness and Inauspiciousness — The Determinative Function of Yao

I. "Appending Statements to Determine What Is Auspicious or Inauspicious"

The final critical link in the passage: "appending statements to determine what is auspicious or inauspicious" (xi ci yan yi duan qi jiXiong).

"Appending statements" (xi ci) means attaching explanatory words beneath the hexagrams and lines. These words are what we see today as the hexagram statements and line statements.

"Determining what is auspicious or inauspicious" (duan qi jiXiong) — judging whether the course of events will turn out well or ill. This is the ultimate purpose of the entire process.

Here we must ask: why does the sage need to "determine auspiciousness and inauspiciousness"$28 What is the necessary connection to the preceding "perceiving profundity," "fashioning images," and "observing convergence"$29

The answer lies in the fact that the Zhouyi is fundamentally a "book for resolving doubt" — it arose from the anxiety and coping strategies of the people of high antiquity as they confronted uncertainty. The world's profundity is recondite and difficult to see; the world's movements shift in an instant. Amid all this, humans perpetually face dilemmas of choice — at such times, a reliable system of guidance is needed to assist in decision-making.

Chapter 11 of the Xi Ci Shang Zhuan states clearly:

"Therefore the Yi is images (xiang). Images are likenesses. Tuan (Judgment) is the assessment of materials. Yao (lines) are what model the movements of all under heaven. Therefore auspiciousness and inauspiciousness arise, and regret and disgrace become manifest."

"Yao are what model the movements of all under heaven" — the essence of yao is to "model" (xiao) — to simulate, to emulate — the movements of the world. The world's movements bring benefit and harm; human affairs involve gain and loss. The sage, through yao, simulates these trends of change and then, through appended statements, renders a judgment of "auspicious" or "inauspicious."

Here lies a profound insight: auspiciousness and inauspiciousness are not subjective judgments external to change, but intrinsic properties of change itself. If one follows certain trends of change, the result is "auspicious"; if one goes against them, the result is "inauspicious." When the sage "appends statements to determine auspiciousness and inauspiciousness," he is not making a moral evaluation but revealing the objective direction of trends of change.

II. The Archaic Origins of the Concepts of Auspiciousness and Inauspiciousness

The concepts of ji (auspicious) and xiong (inauspicious) were already deeply rooted in high antiquity. Oracle-bone script contains abundant instances of both characters. The oracle-bone form of ji depicts "scholar" (shi) above "mouth" (kou); its original meaning may be "a weapon placed safely in its case," extending to security and good fortune. The oracle-bone form of xiong depicts a pit or hollow (sometimes with an "X" inside); its original meaning is "trap" or "cavity," extending to danger and adversity.

In Shang-dynasty divination records, ji and xiong constitute the most basic classification of divination results. Every divination ultimately reduces to a verdict of ji or bu ji (not auspicious, i.e., xiong). This tradition continued directly into the Zhouyi.

But the Zhouyi's judgments of auspiciousness and inauspiciousness are far more nuanced than those of Shang divination. Shang divination typically had only two outcomes — ji or xiong (bu ji) — whereas the Zhouyi's line statements employ many gradations: ji (auspicious), xiong (inauspicious), hui (regret), lin (disgrace), wu jiu (no fault), li (beneficial), bu li (not beneficial), and more.

The Xi Ci Shang Zhuan offers a brilliant summary:

"Auspicious and inauspicious are images of loss and gain. Regret and disgrace are images of worry and concern." "Therefore: what ranks the noble and the base resides in the positions; what equalizes the great and the small resides in the hexagrams; what distinguishes the auspicious and the inauspicious resides in the statements."

"What distinguishes the auspicious and the inauspicious resides in the statements" — the discrimination of auspicious and inauspicious is accomplished through the line statements. This circles back to "appending statements to determine what is auspicious or inauspicious" — the purpose of appending words is to judge auspiciousness and inauspiciousness.

III. The Weight of the Word "Determine" (Duan)

Duan (断) in pre-Qin Chinese fundamentally means "to cut off." By extension it means "to decide," "to determine." The Hanfeizi (Nan San): "In affairs there is no constant teacher; the key is that the ruler excels at deciding" (shi wu chang shi, zhu shan wei duan).

The character duan in "appending statements to determine what is auspicious or inauspicious" emphasizes "definitive judgment" — not a vague intimation, not an ambiguous metaphor, but a clear determination that can serve as the basis for action.

This is also an important distinction between yao and xiang. Xiang provides figurative intuition — seeing an image, one may arrive at multiple understandings and associations. But line statements provide determinative judgments — "auspicious," "inauspicious," "it is beneficial to see a great person," "it is not beneficial to cross the great stream" — these are directives that can directly guide action.

From an epistemological perspective, xiang is open-ended; line statements are convergent. Xiang displays a rich field of meaning; line statements make concrete selections within that field. Together, the two constitute the Zhouyi's complete cognition-and-decision system.