Taking over a project with disorganized records, or discovering that a longstanding practice no longer fits, can leave us angry and unsure where to begin. This hexagram examines accumulated decay and its repair, often expressing inheritance through relationships between parents and children. It can inspire repair, but cannot establish a family member’s guilt or prove that ancestors brought a curse.
Identifying the hexagram
Gǔ is hexagram 18 in the traditional King Wen sequence, with the symbol ䷑. Its lower trigram is Xun ☴ and its upper trigram is Gen ☶; their traditional images are wind and mountain, respectively. Count the lines from the bottom: 初六, 九二, 九三, 六四, 六五, 上九. A solid line is yang and a broken line is yin. Nine and six in the line headings identify yang and yin; they do not indicate additional lines.
The six lines are numbered from the bottom upward; the figure below displays their actual positions from top to bottom.
━━━━━━ 上九
━━ ━━ 六五
━━ ━━ 六四
━━━━━━ 九三
━━━━━━ 九二
━━ ━━ 初六
Hexagram statement
蠱：元亨。利涉大川。先甲三日，後甲三日。
Editorial rendering: Work on What Has Decayed: great favorable progress. It is favorable to cross the great river. Three days before jia and three days after jia.
Legge understands gu as corruption and difficult affairs needing attention, connecting crossing the river with the effort required for repair. In his explanation, “three days before jia, three days after jia” calls for examining the causes before a turning point and the measures after it. This is an explicitly attributed reading.
Jia belongs to a traditional day-counting system. Without explanation, it cannot become an instruction to wait six actual days. The useful contemporary direction is to include both causes and follow-through in repair, rather than merely removing the most visible problem.
[zhouyi-18; legge1882-18]
Interpretation in the Ten Wings
The Commentary on the Judgment (Tuan zhuan) and the Commentary on the Images (Xiang zhuan) belong to the Yi zhuan, the commentaries commonly called the Ten Wings. Their interpretations are kept separate below from the hexagram and line statements, followed by applications for contemporary learning.
The Commentary on the Images uses wind beneath the mountain and speaks of “振民育德,” invigorating the people and cultivating virtue. The Commentary on the Judgment develops change through an ending that becomes a new beginning. The commentaries connect repair with the re-formation of order.
This article uses that to discuss the conditions needed for things to function again: do people understand the new practice, has someone taken responsibility, and can the old problem recur? These are contemporary applications; the ancient text does not directly supply a technical maintenance checklist.
[zhouyi-18; hon-sep]
Six lines, from bottom to top
The quotations below are line statements; the explanations that follow are original learning commentary. Good fortune, no blame, and regret belong to ancient divinatory language and cannot be turned directly into guarantees about an individual’s future.
初六 · Taking over a problem requires action
幹父之蠱，有子，考无咎，厲終吉。
Editorial rendering: Repairing the father’s decay: there is a child, and the father is without blame. Danger, but good fortune in the end.
Gan here means setting right or dealing with something; kao refers to the father. Legge reads this line as children repairing problems caused by the parental generation so that its faults are remedied.
A contemporary instance is taking over disorder left by a predecessor and first clarifying the records and effects, rather than finding someone to bear all the humiliation. Responsibility requires specific facts, and repair does not require concealing someone else’s errors.
[zhouyi-18; legge1882-18]
九二 · Adapt the way you correct things to the situation
幹母之蠱，不可貞。
Editorial rendering: Repairing the mother’s decay: one must not insist on rigid constancy.
Legge reads this as dealing with a problem caused by the mother, without pushing firmness in right conduct to excessive rigidity. His explanation has an ancient parent–child role structure behind it.
When explaining a problem to someone accustomed to an old practice, identify its actual effects and offer understandable new steps. Gentleness does not mean leaving it untreated; firmness need not mean harsh blame.
[zhouyi-18; legge1882-18]
九三 · Repair may involve accepting limited imperfection
幹父之蠱，小有悔，无大咎。
Editorial rendering: Repairing the father’s decay: a little regret, but no great blame.
The line still concerns correction but acknowledges a little regret. Legge discusses the possibility of overdoing the effort while retaining the judgment that there is no great blame.
Make an important correction first, then refine it through feedback. Do not leave a confirmed problem unaddressed while waiting for a perfect plan; equally, good intentions are no reason to skip checking the effects.
[zhouyi-18; legge1882-18]
六四 · Indulging old problems lets them persist
裕父之蠱，往見吝。
Editorial rendering: Indulging the father’s decay: going onward brings cause for regret.
In Legge’s interpretation, yu leans toward indulgence, allowing an old problem to remain. This differs from the active correction in the preceding lines.
If everyone knows an instruction sheet is obsolete but only says things have always been done that way, someone needs to propose specific updating steps. Consideration for feelings cannot substitute for addressing real effects.
[zhouyi-18; legge1882-18]
六五 · Recognize appropriate repair
幹父之蠱，用譽。
Editorial rendering: Repairing the father’s decay brings recognition.
Legge reads this as completing repair in a suitable way and receiving praise. The focus remains on dealing with the matter, rather than claiming merit merely for pointing out the problem.
Recognize the different contributions of identifying a problem, making changes, and maintaining them. Supporting the people responsible afterward is more reliable than telling a story in which one person saves everyone.
[zhouyi-18; legge1882-18]
上九 · There is also a choice not to enter these affairs
不事王侯，高尚其事。
Editorial rendering: Not serving kings or lords, one holds one’s own undertaking in high regard.
The final line turns to someone who does not serve kings or lords and attends to their own undertaking. Legge understands this as a person cultivating themselves outside public affairs of power.
A contemporary association is deciding which repairs are truly your responsibility and which should be declined or handed to someone suitable. Withdrawing is not automatically noble, and taking over is not automatically right; relationships, capacity, and consequences still need explanation.
[zhouyi-18; legge1882-18]
Repairing a club’s unmaintained records
Original contemporary scenario
The following contemporary scenario was created for learning.
When a new member takes over a club’s records, he finds contradictions among registration instructions, event times, and contact lists. He first marks which documents are still used and which errors could send participants to the wrong place, then asks the former coordinator to verify the unclear parts.
Next, he updates the main access point, adds clear replacement notices to old files, and agrees who will maintain them. To prevent recurrence, the group writes down a few updating steps that can actually be followed.
The process acknowledges past mistakes without equating people with the problem itself. Here, the hexagram points toward repair and continuity; it cannot replace actual investigation and communication.
Common misreadings
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This hexagram does not establish poisoning, witchcraft, curses, or hereditary illness, and does not justify blaming parents or ancestors on that basis.
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The ancient language of parents and children is part of the text’s structure. Modern responsibility still depends on facts, capacity, and defined relationships; no one can be required to clear up every problem unconditionally.
Three practices
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Write down one confirmed inherited problem and its specific effects, temporarily setting aside judgments about the person who caused it.
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Separate effects needing immediate containment, causes needing investigation, and aspects needing maintenance after repair.
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Confirm who has agreed to take each step, so that repair does not itself depend on unclear responsibility again.
Related reading
Following (hexagram-17)
Following asks what you have continued to use; Work on What Has Decayed asks whether it has ceased to function. Respecting the past and correcting it can happen together.
Closing question
When reading this hexagram, perhaps the most useful question is: besides correcting the error, what conditions must be added for this undertaking to function again?
Textual note
The first six retains the source’s wording but, following the selected traditional reading, punctuates it “有子，考无咎.” The punctuation is an editorial choice in this article.
Sources
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legge1882-18: The Yî King — Hexagram 18, chapter XVIII, judgement, six lines and notes
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unicode-hexagrams: Yijing Hexagram Symbols — U+4DC0–U+4DFF
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legge-scan-rights: Sacred Books of the East volume16 scan metadata
Classical quotations retain the Chinese source’s character forms and modern punctuation. The commentary is translated from original Simplified Chinese learning prose. The historical English source and received Chinese text are used together, and interpretations by later translators are attributed in the article. This article is not a basis for medical, investment, or other professional decisions.