Hexagram for Return

It means return, especially the first turn toward renewal.

The Yijing, also called the I Ching or Book of Changes, is a Chinese text used for divination. In a reading, return can mean correcting a mistake, resuming a practice, or reopening contact; the question and six-line reading shape which fits.

It is a turn back toward a course, not a rewind that restores everything unchanged.

Why is ䷗ a turning point, not a reset?

It begins a cycle of change; it does not finish one.

The divinatory practices behind the text trace to the Western Zhou, an early Chinese dynasty (1046–771 BCE). Later commentaries added philosophical and cosmological readings; by 135 BCE, they had joined the core text in the received Yijing. A bamboo manuscript from around 350 BCE preserves only seven characters from the Return chapter: an early textual witness, not the hexagram’s origin date.

Han-period commentators placed Return at the start of a waxing sequence, followed by Approach ䷒ and Peace ䷊, then further hexagrams until the Creative ䷀. The active force called yang—represented by unbroken lines—grows along that half; after the waning half, the sequence returns to Return. So the symbol marks renewal’s beginning, not its finished result.