Tetragram for Holding Back

It marks withdrawal when difficulty calls for restraint.

The Tai Xuan Jing, an early Chinese divination text, names this figure 䎡; 𝌖 is its encoded sign. It is one of 81 four-line figures. The work was drafted around 2 BCE. Its opening gloss says yang, a force in Chinese cosmology, can be firm or gentle, active or resting, and withdraw when challenged. “Holding back” is a compact gloss.

The nine judgments qualify it: one favors advancing by retreat; another warns against retreating at the wrong time; the last regrets retreat but allows a later return. This is not a universal “stop.”

How does 𝌖 fit the Tai Xuan Jing?

It belongs to an 81-figure system with three line values.

The Tai Xuan Jing follows the Yijing, or Book of Changes, another Chinese divination classic. Its figures use heaven, earth, and human values where the Yijing uses two; each has four lines and nine judgments.

The earliest surviving version is a text revised by Fan Wang in the Jin dynasty, a later Chinese dynasty. Later commentaries preserve the figures in Chinese writing. A Western philosophical interpretation published in 2021 reads the work as a source of concepts; others emphasize cosmology, Confucian virtues, or political satire. Its specialist readers include Chinese classicists and linguists.

How do I type 𝌖?

Use Unicode input with 1D316.

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