62 小過 Xiǎo Guò Small Excess

This site's reading

卦辭 亨。利貞。可小事，不可大事。飛鳥遺之音，不宜上宜下，大吉: it gets through; firmness advantageous; small things, not great things. The flying bird leaves its cry: not up, down, greatly good. Excess in small things, downward, is the whole counsel.

彖 The commentary: the small exceeds and gets through; exceeding with firmness goes with the time. The yielding is central, so small things are good; the firm has lost its place and is not central, so great things cannot be done. The bird's cry: going up is against the grain, going down is with it.

大象 Thunder on the mountain: the noble person in conduct exceeds in respect, in mourning exceeds in grief, in spending exceeds in thrift. A little too much, in the right direction.

爻 The lines: the flying bird, evil; passing the grandfather and meeting the grandmother, not reaching the lord but meeting the minister, no blame; not exceeding in guarding, and someone attacks, evil; no blame, meeting without exceeding, going is dangerous, be warned; dense clouds and no rain from the western outskirts, the duke shoots the one in the cave; and at the top not meeting but exceeding, the flying bird caught, evil, disaster. Downward and modest (line 2) is right; upward and flying (lines 1 and 6) is wrong.

Written from the text above and checked against it by Lun (2026-10-24). It is a way of reading the hexagram, not a prediction.

The text, with Legge

Judgment 卦辭

The six lines

1. Line 1 初六

   飛鳥以凶。

   fēi niǎo yǐ xiōng.

   The first line, divided, suggests (the idea of) a bird flying, (and ascending) till the issue is evil. (Legge, 1882)

   The Image 小象

   飛鳥以凶，不可如何也。

   fēi niǎo yǐ xiōng, bù kě rú hé yě.

   Changing, this line leads to 55 豐 Fēng.

2. Line 2 六二

   過其祖，遇其妣；不及其君，遇其臣；无咎。

   guò qí zǔ, yù qí bǐ; bù jí qí jūn, yù qí chén; wú jiù.

   The second line, divided, shows its subject passing by his grandfather, and meeting with his grandmother; not attempting anything against his ruler, but meeting him as his minister. There will be no error. (Legge, 1882)

   The Image 小象

   不及其君，臣不可過也。

   bù jí qí jūn, chén bù kě guò yě.

   Changing, this line leads to 32 恒 Héng.

3. Line 3 九三

   弗過防之，從或戕之，凶。

   fú guò fáng zhī, cóng huò qiāng zhī, xiōng.

   The third line, undivided, shows its subject taking no extraordinary precautions against danger; and some in consequence finding opportunity to assail and injure him. There will be evil. (Legge, 1882)

   The Image 小象

   從或戕之，凶如何也。

   cóng huò qiāng zhī, xiōng rú hé yě.

   Changing, this line leads to 16 豫 Yù.

4. Line 4 九四

   无咎，弗過遇之。往厲必戒，勿用永貞。

   wú jiù, fú guò yù zhī. wǎng lì bì jiè, wù yòng yǒng zhēn.

   The fourth line, undivided, shows its subject falling into no error, but meeting (the exigency of his situation), without exceeding (in his natural course). If he go forward, there will be peril, and he must be cautious. There is no occasion to be using firmness perpetually. (Legge, 1882)

   The Image 小象

   弗過遇之，位不當也。往厲必戒，終不可長也。

   fú guò yù zhī, wèi bù dāng yě. wǎng lì bì jiè, zhōng bù kě zhǎng yě.

   Changing, this line leads to 15 謙 Qiān.

5. Line 5 六五

   密雲不雨，自我西郊，公弋取彼在穴。

   mì yún bù yǔ, zì wǒ xī jiāo, gōng yì qǔ bǐ zài xué.

   The fifth line, divided, (suggests the idea) of dense clouds, but no rain, coming from our borders in the west. It also (shows) the prince shooting his arrow, and taking the bird in a cave. (Legge, 1882)

   The Image 小象

   密云不雨，已上也。

   mì yún bù yǔ, yǐ shàng yě.

   Changing, this line leads to 31 咸 Xián.

6. Line 6 上六

   弗遇過之，飛鳥離之，凶，是謂災眚。

   fú yù guò zhī, fēi niǎo lí zhī, xiōng, shì wèi zāi shěng.

   The sixth line, divided, shows its subject not meeting (the exigency of his situation), and exceeding (his proper course). (It suggests the idea of) a bird flying far aloft. There will be evil. The case is what is called one of calamity and self-produced injury. (Legge, 1882)

   The Image 小象

   弗遇過之，已亢也。

   fú yù guò zhī, yǐ kàng yě.

   Changing, this line leads to 56 旅 Lǚ.

Related hexagrams

• 61 中孚 Zhōng Fú, Inner Sincerity its pair in the King Wen sequence
• 28 大過 Dà Guò, Great Excess its nuclear hexagram 互卦, lines 2 to 4 under 3 to 5
• 61 中孚 Zhōng Fú, Inner Sincerity its opposite 錯卦, every line flipped
• 62 小過 Xiǎo Guò, Small Excess its inverse 綜卦, the figure turned upside down

Where the name comes from

Legge's note (1882)

Legge's title for the hexagram: small excesses.

LXII. The name Hsiâo Kwo is explained both by reference to the lines of the hexagram, and to the meaning of the characters. The explanation from the lines appears immediately on comparing them with those of Tâ Kwo, the 28th hexagram. There the first and sixth lines are divided, and between are four undivided lines; here the third and fourth lines are undivided, and outside each of them are two divided lines. The undivided or yang lines are great, the divided or yin lines are called small. In Hsiâo Kwo the divided or small lines predominate. But this peculiar structure of the figure could be of no interest to the student, if it were not for the meaning of the name, which is ‘small excesses’ or ‘exceeding in what is small.’ The author, accepted by us as king Wăn, had in his mind our distinction of essentials and non-essentials. Is it ever good to deviate from what is recognised as the established course of procedure? The reply is—never in the matter of right; but in what is conventional and ceremonial—in what is non-essential—the deviation may be made, and will be productive of good. The form may be given up, but not the substance. But the thing must be done very carefully—humbly and reverently, and in small matters. The symbolism of the bird is rather obscure. The whole of it is intended to teach humility. It is better for the bird to descend, keeping near to where it can perch and rest, than to hold on ascending into the homeless regions of the air. Line 1 is weak, in an odd place, and possessed by the ‘idea of exceeding,’ which belongs to the hexagram. Its correlate is the strong 4, belonging to the trigram Kăn, the attribute of which is movement. There is nothing to repress the tendency of 1; rather it is stimulated; and hence the symbolism. Line 2 is weak, but in its proper place, and in the centre. Its correlate is 5, which is also a weak line. The lines 3 and 4 between them are both strong; and are supposed to represent the father and grandfather of the subject of 2; but he or she goes past them, and meets with the grandmother in 5. Again, 5 is the ruler’s seat. The subject of 2 moves on to him, but not as an enemy; but humbly and loyally, as his minister according to the attributes of a weak line in the central place. It must be allowed that this view of the symbolism and its interpretation is obscure and strained. The subject of line 3 is too confident in his own strength, and too defiant of the weak and small enemies that seek his hurt. Line 4 is also strong, but the exercise of his strength by its subject is tempered by the position in an even place. He is warned, however, to continue quiet and restrain himself. Line 5, though in the ruler’s seat, is weak, and incapable of doing anything great. Its subject is called king or duke because of the ruler’s seat; and the one whom in the concluding sentence he is said to capture is supposed to be the subject of 2. The first part of the symbolism is the same as that of the Thwan under hexagram 9, q.v. I said there that it probably gave a testimony of the merit of the house of Kâu, as deserving the throne rather than the kings of Shang. That was because the Thwan contained the sentiments of Wăn, while he was yet only lord of Kâu. But the symbolism here was the work of the duke of Kâu, after his brother king Wû had obtained the throne. How did the symbolism then occur to him? May we not conclude that at least the hsiang of this hexagram was written during the troubled period of his regency, after the accession of Wû’s son, king Khăng? The Khang-hsî editors find in the concluding symbolism an incentive to humility:—‘The duke, leaving birds on the wing, is content to use his arrows against those in a cave.’ Line 6 is weak, and is at the top of the trigram of movement. He is possessed by the idea of the hexagram in an extreme degree, and is incapable of keeping himself under restraint.

Sources

• Chinese text: 周易, 維基文庫, page (revision 10643238); the text is public domain, the site's edits CC BY-SA 4.0.
• English: James Legge, The Yî King, Sacred Books of the East vol. XVI, Oxford 1882 (public domain), where this hexagram is “Hsiâo Kwo”.
• Glyph images: 小學堂 字形演變, Academia Sinica (CC0 1.0).
• Pinyin: Unihan (Unicode License v3) with this site's readings for the classical cases. English gloss, relations, the idiom glosses, the English of the chronicle passages and the plain reading: this site.