Trigram

A trigram is a figure made of three solid or broken lines. There are eight of them, the Bagua, each associated with a natural image: Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Water, Mountain, Wind, Fire and Lake, as well as with qualities, family members and directions. In the I Ching, each hexagram is made up of a lower trigram and an upper trigram, whose meeting sheds light on the meaning of the figure. The eight trigrams also appear in other areas of Chinese thought.