Hexagram 7 · Line 3
The Army — 三六
Shi · San Liu
The Line
The army perhaps carries corpses in the wagon. Misfortune!
Interpretation
One explanation points to a defeat resulting from someone other than the appointed leader interfering in the command. The other explanation agrees in sense, only that the expression "carrying corpses in the wagon" is interpreted differently. At funerals and offerings to the dead in China, it was customary for the deceased, to whom the offering was made, to be represented by a boy of the family, who sat in the place of the corpse and was honored in the place of the deceased. From this, this explanation takes the sense that a "corpse-boy" sits on the wagon, that is, that authority does not proceed from the place appointed for it, but is usurped by others. Perhaps the whole difficulty can be resolved by assuming a scribal error (fan, "all," for shih, "corpse"). Then the sense would simply be: if the multitude in the army makes itself lord (rides on the wagon), that is disastrous.