Cuogua and Zonggua Explained: Inverted or Reversed — The Structural Relations Between the 64 Hexagrams • TIMEACTOR

Cuogua and Zonggua — The Two Structural Relations of the 64 Hexagrams

Cuogua and Zonggua — You and the Person Across From You Are Two Sides of the Same Card

Read the I Ching long enough and one thing stands out: the 64 hexagrams are not 64 isolated squares. They are linked in pairs. The two most important links are called cuogua and zonggua. Cuogua reverses all six lines' yin and yang — Qian's opposite is Kun, Tai's opposite is Pi, Ji Ji's opposite is Wei Ji. Zonggua turns the whole hexagram upside down — Zhun inverted is Meng, Tai inverted is Pi. You might say, Tai's cuogua is Pi and its zonggua is also Pi, so are they the same thing? No. Tai just happens to have both cuo and zong land on Pi; most hexagrams are not like this. In the Tang dynasty, Kong Yingda did something remarkable in the Zhouyi Zhengyi: he paired the 64 hexagrams from start to finish and found a clean rule — 'either inverted or reversed.' Every pair of hexagrams is either fu (turned upside down, which is zong) or bian (all yin and yang reversed, which is cuo). No exceptions. This structure is no word game. It directly shapes how you read: when a line does not come through, flip to its cuogua or zonggua, and it often clicks at once.

Cuogua = all yin and yang reversed (bian). Zonggua = turned upside down (fu). The 64 hexagrams pair up, either inverted or reversed. Twenty-eight pairs are zonggua; another four pairs are the eight pure trigrams, which come back to themselves when turned over, so they can only pair by cuogua — thirty-two pairs in all. How to use it: when a line jams, check its cuogua for the opposite face and its zonggua for the flipped face. Put the two side by side and the situation gains depth.

What Is Cuogua — The Opposite Face Where All Six Lines Reverse

Cuogua is also called biangua or duigua. The method is simple: reverse all six lines' yin and yang — yang to yin, yin to yang — and the new hexagram is its cuogua. Qian's six lines are all yang; its cuogua is Kun, all yin. Tai has Qian below and Kun above; reverse all six and you get Kun below and Qian above — Pi. So Tai's cuogua is Pi. Ji Ji has all six lines fitting their places; reverse it and you get Wei Ji, all six missing. Deep reading: cuogua does not show 'the opposite result.' It shows what the same thing looks like from the opposite face. Tai says 'the small goes, the great comes. Good fortune and success' — free flow, top and bottom communicating. Its cuogua Pi says 'the great goes, the small comes' — closed, top and bottom cut off. Put the two cards together and you have the whole thing: flow taken to the extreme turns to blockage, and blockage taken to the bottom flows back. Read Tai and you see only the smooth side; read its cuogua Pi and you see how far the smooth side can go before you must be on guard. How to find it: first fix the yin and yang of the original six lines, reverse them one by one, and rebuild the hexagram. Read the reversed hexagram's line texts as 'the other face' — it often flags a risk or a chance the original overlooks.

What Is Zonggua — The Other Angle of the Whole Hexagram Turned Upside Down

Zonggua is also called fugua or fangua. The method is to turn a whole hexagram upside down: the original first line becomes the top, the original top becomes the first, the second becomes the fifth, the third becomes the fourth, and so on, and the new hexagram is its zonggua. Look at Zhun (Zhen below, Kan above). Turn it upside down and it becomes Kan below and Zhen above — Meng. So Zhun's zong is Meng. Look at Xu (Qian below, Kan above). Turn it over and it becomes Song (Kan below, Qian above); Xu's zong is Song. In the Xugua, after 'Heaven and Earth exist, then the ten thousand things are born; what fills Heaven and Earth is the ten thousand things alone, so it is followed by Zhun,' Meng, Xu, and Song come right after — these paired hexagrams are mostly zonggua relations. Deep reading: zonggua shows the same thing seen from across, or at a different point in time. Turn Zhun into Meng and you get a fascinating contrast: Zhun speaks of 'hard and soft first meeting and difficulty arising,' the hardship of breaking ground; Meng speaks of 'nurturing the young with correctness,' the work of teaching beginners. The same thing, one side in the hardship of starting up, one side in the confusion of teaching juniors — two faces of one structure, flipped up and down. When you read, zonggua gives you a path to change places: take a line you cannot read, flip it to the matching line in the paired hexagram, and reread from that angle; the fog often lifts.

Either Inverted or Reversed — The Rule for Pairing the 64 Hexagrams

The pairing Kong Yingda did in the Zhouyi Zhengyi comes down to four words: either inverted or reversed. He laid out the 64 hexagrams and found they pair up naturally, thirty-two pairs in all. In each pair, the relation is either fu (upside down, which is zong) or bian (all yin and yang reversed, which is cuo). There is no third relation, and none is left alone. This rule agrees in secret with the Xugua's order — the Xugua keeps saying 'things cannot stay connected forever, so it is followed by Pi' and 'things cannot stay blocked forever, so it is followed by Tong Ren,' moving pair by pair. Deep reading: why does this matter? Because it turns the 64 hexagrams from a scattered list into a structured web. What you remember is thirty-two pairs, not sixty-four isolated hexagrams. In each pair the two faces explain each other. When you cannot finish reading a hexagram, flip to its partner and the path often reconnects. 'Either inverted or reversed' is the anchor of this structure — it guarantees the 64 hexagrams can be paired completely, none missing. So when you read, ask on purpose: who is this hexagram's partner? Is the relation fu or bian? What is the partner saying? Reading the pair together goes far deeper than reading one alone.

Why Eight Hexagrams Have Only Cuo and No Zong

Pair them all and you find eight hexagrams do not take part in the fu pairing. They are Qian, Kun, Yi, Da Guo, Kan, Li, Zhong Fu, and Xiao Guo. The reason is plain: turn these eight upside down and they look exactly as before. Qian's six lines are all yang; turned over, still all yang. Kun's six are all yin; turned over, still all yin. Yi (Zhen below, Gen above) turned over is still Zhen below and Gen above. Kan and Li are symmetric top to bottom and do not change when inverted. They cannot find a partner 'that becomes another hexagram when inverted,' so they jump to the bian path and pair by cuogua: Qian's cuo is Kun, Yi's cuo is Da Guo, Kan's cuo is Li, Zhong Fu's cuo is Xiao Guo — exactly four pairs, eight hexagrams. Deep reading: these eight are the 'skeleton' of the 64. They are the axisymmetric or centrally symmetric ones, pure in nature, coming back to themselves when reversed. Notice that the major hexagrams Confucius and the commentators kept discussing are all among them — Qian and Kun at the start, Kan and Li in the middle, Yi nurturing and Da Guo, Zhong Fu's sincerity and Xiao Guo's caution. They either stand alone or pair as the sharpest opposites: Qian and Kun, pure yang against pure yin; Kan and Li, entrapment against brightness; Zhong Fu and Xiao Guo, sincerity against overstepping. So to read these eight pure trigrams, go to their cuogua and you see the most extreme contrasts.

How to Use Cuogua and Zonggua — Two Fallbacks When a Line Jams

The greatest use of cuogua and zonggua is to give you two fallbacks when reading. The first is cuogua, the opposite face. You read a line of a hexagram and find it too smooth, with no crisis in sight — flip to the matching line in its cuogua, and another face is often hiding there. Read Tai, free flow; flip to Pi, closed; put both cards down and 'how to guard against blockage when things flow' comes out on its own. The second is zonggua, the flipped face. You read a line and find the angle too narrow — turn the whole hexagram over and read the matching line in the zonggua. Zhun and Meng, Xu and Song, Shi and Bi, Xiao Chu and Lü — each pair is two faces of one structure. The original speaks one side; the zonggua speaks the other. Deep reading: behind these two fallbacks is an attitude — never treat any hexagram as an isolated answer. The I Ching itself paired the 64 up, precisely so you would not stare at one face. When a line does not come through, first ask: what is its cuogua saying? What is its zonggua saying? Lay two or three faces together and the line that jammed often lights up on its own. This is where structural reading beats memorizing line texts. You are not reciting sixty-four answers; you are finding a place in a web.

Steps — Given a Hexagram, How to Find Its Cuogua and Zonggua

Here is how to do it, step by step. First, write the figure. Lay out the original six lines from bottom to top and mark yin and yang — for example, Zhun is 'yang yin yin yin yin yin' (Zhen below, Kan above). Second, find the zonggua (fugua): reverse the order of all six lines — first and top swap, second and fifth swap, third and fourth swap — and you get the zonggua. Zhun reversed gives Kan below and Zhen above, which is Meng. Third, find the cuogua (biangua): reverse each line's yin and yang — yang to yin, yin to yang — and you get the cuogua. Reverse Zhun's six lines one by one and you get Ding, Dui below and Li above, and so on; reverse each hexagram to get its own. Fourth, judge whether this hexagram has a zonggua: if it comes out exactly the same when inverted (Qian, Kun, Yi, Da Guo, Kan, Li, Zhong Fu, Xiao Guo), it belongs to the eight pure trigrams, has only a cuogua, and goes straight to step three to pair by cuo. Fifth, read the two hexagrams against each other. Take Tai: Tai has Qian below and Kun above; inverted it is Pi, so Tai's zong is Pi. Tai with all yin and yang reversed is also Pi, so Tai's cuo is also Pi — a rare case where both cuo and zong point to Pi. Reading Tai's 'the small goes, the great comes,' flip to Pi's 'the great goes, the small comes.' Put the two together and the truth stands: flow and blockage are the flip of one structure. Take Bo (Kun below, Gen above) as another example: Bo inverted is Fu (Zhen below, Kun above), so Bo's zong is Fu. Bo with all yin and yang reversed is Guai (Qian below, Dui above), so Bo's cuo is Guai. Put the three together — Bo is yang energy nearly spent, Fu is one yang returning, Guai is the decision that removes yin — three readings of one structure.

Can You Really Use Cuogua and Zonggua?

Given a hexagram, can you call out its cuogua and zonggua within ten seconds — cuogua for all yin and yang reversed, zonggua for upside down?
Do you know why Qian, Kun, Yi, Da Guo, Kan, Li, Zhong Fu, and Xiao Guo have only cuo and no zong — when you turn them over, they come back to themselves?
When a line does not come through, do you think to flip to its cuogua or zonggua — staring only at the original hexagram, you often cannot break through.

Common Breakers

Treating cuogua and zonggua as the same thing. Cuo is all yin and yang reversed (Tai's cuo is Pi); zong is upside down (Tai's zong is Pi). Tai happens to point both ways at Pi, but Bo's zong is Fu and Bo's cuo is Guai — not the same. Mix them and the logic falls apart.
Thinking every hexagram has a zonggua. The eight pure trigrams come back to themselves when turned over, with no zong, so they can only pair by cuo. Look for Qian's zonggua and you will not find it — it is itself a fu hexagram.
Taking cuogua as 'fortune reversed.' Cuogua shows the opposite situation and angle, not a direct flip of good into bad. Tai's cuo is Pi — that does not mean if Tai is auspicious then Pi is ominous. They are two faces of the same structure, each with its own reading.

Cuogua and Zonggua in Four Dimensions: Career, Relationships, Personality, and Health

Career & Wealth

In career, the most valuable use of cuogua and zonggua is 'look at the opposite face' and 'look at the flipped face.' A project in your hands runs smooth, like Tai — go look at its cuogua Pi. Flow taken to the extreme often starts to block; should you keep a card in reserve and pave a backup road in advance? You find your current situation hard to start — look at its zonggua. Change the time, change the stand, and the same thing grows into what shape? In deciding, run both 'the smooth line' and 'what if it flips' — then you will not go blind in good times. Money is the same: when to expand and when to contract — the answer is often not in your current hexagram but in its partner face.

Love & Relationship

In love, cuogua and zonggua are the ancient method of 'changing places to think.' If you cannot understand why the other person acts this way, turn your situation upside down and read it — stand in his place and see what this thing looks like (zonggua). Or look straight at its opposite face (cuogua): you think you are giving, and the wrong face may be that you are controlling. Many dead knots in relationships come from reading only your own side. Lay out both the cuo and the zong and you will find the two of you are often not fighting — you are two faces of one card. See that through and the talk shifts from 'who is right' to 'how to fit the two faces back into one card.'

Personality

People who habitually use cuogua and zonggua love to flip. Give them a conclusion and their first reaction is: what about the reverse? What about another angle? Such people see things in depth and are hard to fool with a single story — excellent advisors and devils' advocates. The downside is flipping for its own sake, sliding into relativism — everything has two sides, everything can be argued, and they cannot decide. The practice: flipping is for seeing clearly, not for dodging the choice. Once both cards are seen, you still have to lay one down. Seeing both faces is skill; choosing one is character.

Health

Applied to the body, cuogua and zonggua describe a sense that 'when the balance breaks, you must look back toward the other side.' Body and schedule are a paired structure: the yang you spend by day and the yin you nurture by night are two faces of one thing. If you are badly overdrawing now, this face is overused — go look at its opposite, and bring back the replenishment. Chinese medicine says 'yang loss reaches yin, yin loss reaches yang' — that is a cuogua logic: when one end breaks down, the other end follows sooner or later. Do not fixate on one end in health: if you are madly toning and training, check whether you have ignored the other face — rest, rhythm, mood. Care for both faces and the structure holds.

Classic Passages on Cuogua and Zonggua with Plain English Translation

How to Apply Cuogua and Zonggua

Give the Line You Cannot Read a Comparison Table: When reading jams, do not force it. Write out three figures — the original hexagram, its zonggua, its cuogua — side by side in a row. Compare line by line: the original line says smooth; what does the matching line in the zonggua say? What does the line in the cuogua say? Three statements in a row and the line's situation gains depth. Many times you cannot read through because you saw only one face.
Before a Big Decision, Read the 'Opposite' Once: You plan to do something — cast a hexagram and also mark its cuogua and zonggua. The original speaks your current situation and choice; the cuogua speaks what happens if it reverses completely; the zonggua speaks what happens at a different time, from a different stand. Look at all three, then decide. This is not to make you hesitate. It is to let you see the worst face before you act — not be the person who plunges in headfirst.
Use the Eight Pure Trigrams as Skeleton to Remember the 64: Do not memorize the 64 in order by rote. First pull out the eight pure trigrams (Qian, Kun, Yi, Da Guo, Kan, Li, Zhong Fu, Xiao Guo) and remember the four cuo pairs. From there, remember each zonggua pair (Zhun-Meng, Xu-Song, Shi-Bi ...) as two faces of one story. The 64 hexagrams stop being a list and become a web with nodes. Remembering structure is easier and sticks better than remembering entries.

Cuogua and Zonggua: Common Questions

Q:Cuogua and zonggua — which do I look at first?

It depends on what you want. To know 'what this thing looks like at the opposite extreme,' look at the cuogua (all yin and yang reversed). To know 'what this thing looks like from another angle, at another time,' look at the zonggua (upside down). Stuck on 'too smooth to see the crisis,' flip to the cuogua; stuck on 'the angle is too narrow,' flip to the zonggua. Tai is special: both cuo and zong point to Pi, so you see both faces at once.

Q:Why is it said the 64 hexagrams are really only 32 pairs?

Because every hexagram finds its partner. Twenty-eight pairs are zonggua (upside down into another hexagram); the other four pairs are the eight pure trigrams pairing by cuogua (Qian's cuo Kun, Yi's cuo Da Guo, Kan's cuo Li, Zhong Fu's cuo Xiao Guo). Twenty-eight plus four is thirty-two pairs, covering all sixty-four. This is what Kong Yingda meant by 'they pair up two by two, either inverted or reversed' — no hexagram is left alone.

Q:Does cuogua just mean reading the fortune reversed?

No. Cuogua shows the opposite situation and angle, not a direct swap of the character 'auspicious' for 'ominous.' Tai's cuo is Pi — that is not 'so Tai is auspicious and Pi is ominous, done.' It means connection and blockage are the flip of one structure, each with its own reading. Treat the cuogua as a 'negative of fortune' and you read the structure shallow. It gives you one more eye, not a ready-made answer.