A hexagram about gain that moves downward. Increase describes something taken from above and given below, and its Judgement is one of the few in the book with no condition attached to it at all.
Forty-second in the King Wen order. The Sequence places it after Decrease: reduction carried on without end turns into its opposite, so increase follows, and yi means to add or augment.
The Judgement is two clauses and nothing else: Increase. It furthers to undertake something. It furthers to cross the great water.
What is missing is the interesting part. There is no condition, no warning, no perseverance clause, no qualification of scale. Its paired hexagram spends its Judgement explaining the terms on which reduction is acceptable; this one simply approves twice. Crossing the great water is the book's phrase for a substantial and irreversible undertaking, so the second clause is stronger than the first rather than a restatement of it. Very few entries are this unhedged.
The Image: wind and thunder. Increase. The noble person, when he sees good, moves toward it; when he has faults, he corrects them.
Wind and thunder amplify each other, which is the mechanism. What the Xiang draws from it is a pair of movements in opposite directions, and the symmetry is the point: go toward what is good, and remove what is not. Both are described as immediate. Neither involves acquiring anything. It is one of the plainest instructions in the book and one of the least quoted, probably because it contains no image at all once the weather is stripped out.
Increase is the inverse of Decrease and it describes the same transfer running the other way. Something is taken from the upper part of the figure and added to the lower, and the classical reading is emphatic about the direction: this is increase of those below at the expense of those above. It is not a hexagram about acquiring things.
That direction explains why the Judgement is unconditional. Reduction needs justifying and the previous hexagram spends its Judgement doing so. Giving downward does not, and the text simply approves it twice, including for a large and irreversible undertaking. Four of the six lines are correctly placed and the second and fifth are both central and correspond, which by the structural rules is close to the best a figure can do.
The last line is where it turns. He increases no one; someone strikes him; his heart is not steady; misfortune. It is the only bad verdict in the hexagram and it describes the exact reversal of everything above it. What the question changes is which direction you are facing. Asked by someone with something to give, this figure is about as favourable as the book gets. Asked by someone hoping to receive, it is describing what other people are doing, and the top line is a warning about being on the wrong end of it.
In a relationship question Increase describes one person putting something in without expecting the exchange to balance. Effort, attention, patience, material help. The hexagram is warm about this and it is specific that the movement is downward, toward whoever has less.
The top line is the counterweight and it is the only unfavourable line in the figure. He increases nobody, somebody strikes him, his heart is not constant. What the text is describing is the person who has stopped giving and expects the arrangement to continue, and it treats the resulting hostility as a consequence rather than as bad luck. Where a relationship has run for years on one person's contribution, that line is the one to sit with, whichever end of it you are at.
At work this is investment in people below you. Training, delegation, budget pushed down, credit given away, a decision made in favour of the team at the cost of the department's position. The hexagram is unusually direct that this is what increase means, and it does not describe promotion.
The third and fourth lines are the practical pair and they share a phrase. Walk in the middle and report to the prince. Both describe someone acting through the proper channel and keeping the person above informed, and the fourth adds that the prince then follows. Read as workplace advice it is precise: the way influence from a middle position becomes real is by routing it upward openly rather than around.
In money questions Increase describes money moving toward whoever has less of it. Support given, a rate reduced for someone who needed it, a share of something passed down rather than kept.
The hexagram is favourable and it is not describing return. Nothing in the Judgement or the lines promises that what goes down comes back, and the second line's windfall arrives from outside rather than as a consequence. Nothing here is advice about any particular decision. What the figure does supply is the direction: it is a hexagram about outflow that is approved of, and readers who draw it hoping for incoming money have the movement the wrong way round.
Give something downward this week, to someone with less standing than you, and route it through the proper channel rather than doing it privately. The third and fourth lines both insist on reporting it, which is not modesty being overridden but the mechanism working: increase that nobody above knows about does not become anything. Then do the second half of the Image and fix one fault you already know you have.
A yang line in the bottom place, a yang position, correctly placed. It is the line that has been added from above, so it is the increase itself. The text: it furthers to undertake great works. Supreme good fortune. No blame.
The strongest verdict in the hexagram sits on its lowest line, which is the whole argument about direction stated structurally. Resources have arrived at the bottom and the text immediately says to do something large with them. Note that no caution is attached about scale, which is unusual for a first line. Changing it gives Hexagram 20, Contemplation.
A yin line in the second place, a yin position, correctly placed, central, and corresponding to the strong fifth line. The text: someone increases him with ten pairs of tortoises. It cannot be refused. Constant perseverance brings good fortune. The king presents him before God. Good fortune.
The tortoise sentence is identical to the fifth line of Decrease, and the positions are the ones inversion maps to each other. Here it gains a second half: presentation at the highest sacrifice. Changing it gives Hexagram 61, Inner Truth.
A yin line in the third place, a yang position, so it is incorrectly placed. The text: one is increased by means of unfortunate events. No blame. Be sincere, walk in the middle, and report to the prince with a jade token.
The only line in the hexagram where the gain comes out of something going wrong. What the text requires in exchange is procedure: sincerity, the middle path, and a formal report with the appropriate seal. Gain from a disaster is permitted and it is not permitted quietly. Changing it gives Hexagram 37, The Family.
A yin line in the fourth place, a yin position, correctly placed, directly below the ruler. The text: walking in the middle, report to the prince and he follows. It furthers to be relied on in moving the capital.
The second half of the pair begun in the third line, and this time the report produces agreement. Moving a capital was among the largest undertakings a Zhou state could attempt, involving the relocation of an entire population, and the line puts a yielding official in the position of being depended on for it. Changing it gives Hexagram 25, Innocence.
A yang line in the fifth place: correct, central, the ruling line, and corresponding to the yielding second line below. The text: with sincerity, a kind heart. Do not ask. Supreme good fortune. Sincerely, kindness will be recognised as your virtue.
Do not ask is the striking phrase. The line forbids the question, which in a divination text is a remarkable instruction: this is the one position where consulting the oracle is beside the point. What follows is not a promise of reward but of recognition. Changing it gives Hexagram 27, The Corners of the Mouth.
A yang line in the top place, a yin position, so it is incorrectly placed, and it is the only line in the figure with a bad verdict. The text: he increases no one. Indeed, someone strikes him. He does not keep his heart steady. Misfortune.
The hexagram's argument, inverted at the last position. Five lines describe giving downward; this one describes a strong line at the top that has stopped, and the consequence is not neglect but attack. The clause about the unsteady heart supplies the cause. Changing it gives Hexagram 3, Difficulty at the Beginning.
Zhen, thunder, sits below Xun, wind. The Image pairs them as two things that amplify each other, and the trigrams also give the direction: movement at the bottom, penetration from above, which the commentators read as something coming down and setting something below in motion.
The line placement is close to ideal. Four of the six are correctly placed, and the second and fifth are both central and in correspondence, one yielding and one firm. On the structural rules alone this should be a favourable figure, and the Judgement agrees without attaching a single condition.
The nuclear hexagram is Hexagram 23, Splitting Apart, which is the uncomfortable part. Splitting Apart is erosion from below, five yielding lines removing the last strong one. Inside a hexagram about giving downward sits the figure for a structure being worn away. That is not a contradiction so much as a cost: increase of those below is described in this system as a transfer, and the interior says where the material is coming from.
Yi means to add, to augment, to benefit. The character shows water overflowing a vessel, which is a picture of surplus rather than of accumulation, and it is the same word still used in modern Chinese for benefit and profit.
The line texts are unusually political. Reporting to a prince with a jade token was a formal act with a specific instrument: gui tablets were rank insignia carried at court, and producing one authenticated the report. Moving the capital in the fourth line refers to something the Zhou actually did, more than once, and it was among the largest projects a state could undertake. This is a hexagram about how a middle-ranking official gets something done, described from inside the machinery.
The ten pairs of tortoises in the second line repeat the fifth line of Hexagram 41 word for word, and the two positions are the ones that map onto each other when a figure is turned upside down. That is unlikely to be accidental, and it is one of the clearest signs that the two hexagrams were compiled as a unit. Legge translated the text in 1882 and Wilhelm into German in 1924.
Increase is read as a hexagram about receiving, and it is about giving. The classical commentary is explicit that the transfer runs downward, from those above to those below, and every favourable line in the figure describes someone in a position to hand something over. A querent who draws this hoping for money or advancement has the direction reversed, and the top line is what the text says happens to the person who wants the arrangement without contributing to it.
The second misreading is that the unconditional Judgement means an unconditional situation. It does not. What is unconditional is the approval of giving downward, which needs no justification in this system in the way that taking upward does. The lines are full of conditions: report it, walk in the middle, produce the token, keep the heart steady. The Judgement is short because the argument is elsewhere.
The third is treating the second line's windfall as the point. Ten pairs of tortoises arrive unasked, and readers reach for it. It is one line out of six, its verdict depends on constancy afterwards, and the identical sentence appears in the paired hexagram, where nobody reads it as the hexagram's meaning. It is a formula, not a forecast.
Put a real question to the coins.