Basic feng shui series
Later heaven ba gua - Hou tian ba gua
by Jayashree Bose

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The birth of the trigrams

Explanation of the image
From Wu Ji (nothingness) was born Tai Ji (the union of yin and yang) - Yin(broken line(yao)) and Yang(unbroken line(yao)) further divided to Greater/Old Yin, Lesser/Young Yang, Lesser/Young Yin and Greater/Old Yang. From these four further divisions took place and the eight triagrams were born. From greater/old yang we have Qian and Dui, from greater/young yin comes Kun and Gen, from lesser/young yang comes Kan and Xun, from lesser/young yin comes Li and Zhen.

In family relationships Qian(heaven) represents the father, kun(earth) represents the mother, zhen(thunder) represents the elder son, xun(wind) represents the elder sister, kan(water) represents middle son, li(fire) represents the middle daughter, gen(mountain) represents younger son, dui(lake) represents younger daughter.

These eight triagrams are placed in different order, in the early heaven ba gua and the later heaven ba gua. In this article, I will be explaining the later heaven ba gua.

Later heaven ba gua
Fu Hsi's diagram of the eight triagrams was further studied by King Wan (born BC1231) and he then incorporated his own interpretations to develop the later heaven ba gua. Unlike the early heaven ba gua that represented the perfect universe, the later heaven ba gua represents change. Most feng shui applications are based on the later heaven ba gua.

The numbers in the later heaven ba gua are as follows
Li - 9
Kun -2
Dui-7
Qian- 6
Kan - 1
Gen - 8
Zhen - 3
Xun - 4

The numbers in the later heaven ba gua are different from the early heaven ba gua. The arrangement of the numbers in the later heaven ba gua is in accordance with the dots in the Lo shu. ((To read more on Lo shu click here).)

Looking at the image above :
1) The sum of numbers whether added diagonal or vertical always gives a result of 10.

Example
Li(9) + Kan (1) = 10
Kun (2) + Gen (8) = 10

2) Following an anti-clockwise direction from kan(1) we see that
Kan (1) + Qian (6) = 7 (Dui is the next gua and the number of dui is 7)
Dui (7) + Kun (2) = 9 (Li is the next gua and the number of li is 9)

3) If we divide the later heaven sequence into two halves from xun to qian as shown below. Then we have all the female triagrams on the upper right side - xun, li, kun and dui. On the lower left we have all the male triagrams - qian, kan, gen, zhen.