What Is Mai Hoa Dịch Số, and Did Thiệu Ung Really Write It?

What Is Mai Hoa Dịch Số?

Mai Hoa Dịch Số is a method of I Ching divination in which the hexagram is built from observed surroundings, not by tossing coins or using yarrow stalks. The book recounts that Thiệu Ung (1011-1077) one day watched plum blossoms, saw two sparrows fight over a branch and fall to the ground, then used the numbers of that year, month, day and hour to build a hexagram, and judged that on the following evening a girl would come to pick blossoms, be chased by the gardener, fall and hurt her thigh. The name "Mai Hoa" (梅花, plum blossom) comes from that story.

The core point of this school lies in the line the book gives to Thiệu Ung when asked whether blossoms too have number: "mạc bất hữu số" (莫不有數, nothing is without number). Every object, every sound, every number, every moment can yield a hexagram. The diviner needs no ritual implements, only the rules for dividing numbers into trigrams and the moving line, then judges by the five-phase relation between ti (body) and dung (use). The Chinese text of Mai Hoa Dịch Số opens the "觀梅數訣序" section with: "嗟呼，《易》豈易言哉！蓋《易》之為書，至精微，至玄妙。然數者，不外乎易理也。" (Alas, how hard the I Ching is to speak of! The I Ching is a book most subtle, most mysterious. Yet number does not go outside the principle of the I Ching.)^[1]

Did Thiệu Ung Really Write Mai Hoa Dịch Số?

Tradition attributes it to Thiệu Ung, but this is a traditional attribution with no confirming evidence. Trần Trọng Kim in his book Nho giáo (1930), discussing Song-era xiangshu studies, wrote: "The study of images and numbers issued from Trần Đoàn and only took form with Thiệu Ung," and listed Thiệu Ung's works "transmitted in the world" as Hoàng cực kinh thế, Tiên thiên đồ, Ngư tiều vấn đối, Vô danh công truyện. Mai Hoa Dịch Số is not on that list.

This does not prove Thiệu Ung did not write Mai Hoa Dịch Số, because Trần Trọng Kim's list records only the books "transmitted in the world" that he knew of. But it shows that in the 1930s, a Vietnamese scholar writing on Confucianism and xiangshu studies still never mentioned Mai Hoa Dịch Số as a work of Thiệu Ung. The biography of Thiệu Ung in the Song History, appended at the end of the Wikisource edition, likewise names his works only as Hoàng cực kinh thế, Quan vật nội ngoại thiên, Ngư tiều vấn đối and the verse collection Y Xuyên kích nhưỡng tập^[1].

The Chinese text itself does not claim to be from the hand of Thiệu Ung. The preface at the head of the Wikisource edition tells how he obtained a book, then judged from watching plum blossoms, and writes "hậu thế tương truyền, toại danh Quan mai số" (後世相傳，遂名《觀梅數》): later generations passed it on and only then gave it the name. The example cases all speak of him in the third person as "Khang Tiết tiên sinh". The appendix quotes Quý Bản of the Ming dynasty saying that Mai hoa số is also called Quan mai số and was originally titled "Khang Tiết Mai hoa số". The Song History for its part remarks that people of his time would pick up things that had already happened and say Thiệu Ung had foretold them, though he was not necessarily so^[1].

How Does Mai Hoa Dịch Số Build a Hexagram?

The book teaches many ways to build a hexagram, all based on converting things into numbers, then dividing those numbers by fixed rules. Three main ways:

• Numbers from the moment: use the lunar year, month, day, and hour, divided into the upper trigram, lower trigram, and moving line.
• Numbers from objects: count the objects observed, for example the number of birds, the number of knocks on a door, the number of people passing.
• Numbers from sound or characters: count the number of sounds, the number of strokes in a character, then divide into trigrams.

Once the hexagram exists, the diviner identifies "thể" (body) and "dụng" (use): of the two trigrams, the one without the moving line is thể and the one with the moving line is dụng; thể stands for oneself, dụng for the matter. The five-phase relation between thể and dụng decides fortune or misfortune. The book says: when thể overcomes dụng all matters are good, when dụng overcomes thể all matters are bad; when thể generates dụng there is loss, when dụng generates thể there is gain; when thể and dụng are of the same phase everything goes smoothly.

The book also has a "八卦萬物屬類" (Bát quái vạn vật thuộc loại, things grouped under the eight trigrams) section classifying things under the eight trigrams. For the Ly trigram, for example: "靜物：火、書、文、甲胄、干戈... 數目：三、二、七。方道：南。五色：赤、紫、紅。五味：苦。" (Static objects: fire, books, writing, armor, weapons... Numbers: 3, 2, 7. Direction: South. Five colors: red, purple, crimson. Five flavors: bitter.)^[2] For the Cấn trigram: "人物：少男、閒人、山中人。人事：阻隔、守靜、進退不決、反背、止住、不見。" (People: youngest son, idler, mountain dweller. Human affairs: obstruction, keeping still, indecision, turning the back, stopping, not seeing.)^[2]

What Is Included in the Table of the Eight Trigrams According to the "Bát quái vạn vật thuộc loại" Section?

The number column comes from the "Chu Dịch quái số" entry at the start of volume one; the other columns are drawn from the "Bát quái vạn vật thuộc loại" section of the Chinese text^[2]. The book itself adds at the end of that section: "右萬物之象，庶事之多不止於此。占者宜各以其類而推之耳。" (The images of all things above: the multitude of affairs is not limited to these. The diviner should extend them by category.)^[2]

How Does Mai Hoa Dịch Số Differ from Other I Ching Divination Methods?

The fundamental difference is that it uses no divination implements. Classical I Ching methods such as yarrow-stalk divination (thệ) or tossing three coins all require a physical operation to produce a random hexagram. Mai Hoa Dịch Số takes any event currently happening as the data for building a hexagram, turning the whole world around the diviner into "divination tools."

The second difference is its emphasis on the ti hexagram and dung hexagram. In Bát Tự and Tử Vi, judgment rests on a system of stars and stem-branch values fixed by birth date. In Mai Hoa Dịch Số, each divination answers a specific question, and the result depends on the moment the question is asked. So the same person asking about the same matter at two different moments can get two different hexagrams.

The third difference is its emphasis on trigram qi and season. The book teaches that a trigram can be good in one season but bad in another, depending on the five-phase value of the trigram against the five-phase value of the season. The Ly trigram, for example, belongs to fire, so it is prosperous in summer and weak in winter.

What Are the Specific Judgment Cases in the Book?

Mai Hoa Dịch Số has a "變卦式八則" (eight rules of changing hexagrams) section giving examples. The first example, which is also the hexagram of the plum blossom story, is Trạch Hỏa Cách, where ti is metal, the mutual hexagram is Tốn wood, and it changes into Trạch Sơn Hàm. The book judges: "離卦初爻，陽動變陰，變艮卦兌金，為少女，離火克之。巽為股，乾金克之，曰：傷股。得艮土生，入兌金，斷曰：不至於死。" (The Ly hexagram's first line, yang moving changes to yin, changes into the Cấn hexagram; Đoài metal is the youngest daughter, Ly fire overcomes it. Tốn is the thigh, Càn metal overcomes it, so it says: injury to the thigh. Receiving generation from Cấn earth and entering Đoài metal, the judgment says: not to the point of death.)^[3]

This passage shows how the school works: divide the hexagram into ti and dung, examine the five-phase relations, examine the mutual hexagram (the trigrams hidden inside), examine the changed hexagram (the hexagram after the moving line), then combine the images (thigh, youngest daughter, metal...) to reach a judgment. The final result is a judgment with a degree ("not to the point of death"), not an absolute statement.

What Are the Points to Keep in Mind When Reading Mai Hoa Dịch Số?

First, the authorship of the book is not established. Tradition attributes it to Thiệu Ung, but neither the Song History nor the list given by Trần Trọng Kim counts this book among his works. Readers should treat it as a book carrying the name of Thiệu Ung by tradition, not yet as a verified work of his.

Second, the versions circulating today have many variants, with additions and omissions across periods. When reading a specific version, one should note which version it is, in what year it was printed, and who edited it, rather than speaking generally of "the book Mai Hoa Dịch Số."

Third, the judgment examples in the book were written after the outcome was known. This is a common feature of many old divination books: examples are selected to illustrate the method, not as statistical evidence for the method's effectiveness. Readers should distinguish between "how to judge" and "proof of effectiveness."

Gợi ý của Nhật Nguyệt

Mai Hoa Dịch Số is an interesting branch of the I Ching, worth reading to understand how people of the past observed the world and turned those observations into a system of signs. But today's reader should approach it as a tradition of cultural interpretation, not as a predictive tool with a scientific basis. If you want to study it, start from the original Chinese text (which can be checked on Wikisource) to compare with current translations and interpretations, rather than reading only one translation and treating it as the original. And remember: whether or not it is attributed to Thiệu Ung, the value of the book lies in its systematized way of thinking, not in the author's name.