---
title: Takashima Divines His Own Fate in Prison (1861) — Takashima Ekidan case study
lang: ja
canonical: https://ekidan.ai/ja/heritage/cases/takashima-own-fate-in-prison
alternates:
  - en: https://ekidan.ai/heritage/cases/takashima-own-fate-in-prison
  - zh-Hant: https://ekidan.ai/zh/heritage/cases/takashima-own-fate-in-prison
  - zh-TW: https://ekidan.ai/zh/heritage/cases/takashima-own-fate-in-prison
  - zh-HK: https://ekidan.ai/zh/heritage/cases/takashima-own-fate-in-prison
source: 高島易断 (Takashima Ekidan), public-domain 1893 English and 1901 Chinese editions
provider: ekidan.ai — AI-assisted I Ching reading grounded in 88 source-verified historical Takashima cases
license: Classical source text is public domain. This structured edition and its modern commentary are © ICHING LLC, ekidan.ai. Attribution requested when quoted.
---

# Takashima Divines His Own Fate in Prison

> Imprisoned as a young man, Takashima found a volume of the Book of Changes left in his cell, studied it for three years, then made paper ropes in place of yarrow stalks and cast a hexagram on his own fate.

- Year: 1861
- Hexagram: Hexagram 3 → 60 · Chun (屯) changing to Setsu (節), line 2
- Source: Takashima Ekidan, translated by Shigetake Sugiura (1893), public domain. Quotations are from that translation.
- Hexagram 3: [水雷屯 · Difficulty at Beginning](https://ekidan.ai/ja/library/3)
- Hexagram 60: [水澤節 · Limitation](https://ekidan.ai/ja/library/60)

## The Question

In the 6th year of Ansei (1859) Takashima was imprisoned for a crime he describes as committed "led on by the recklessness of my adolescence". In the cell he found the second volume of the Book of Changes, left behind by a previous prisoner, and studied it for three years until he felt he had grasped its principles.

In the first year of Bunkyū (1861) he made a set of paper ropes as a substitute for yarrow stalks and divined his own fate.

## The Cast

He obtained Chun (屯) changing to Setsu (節), with the second line moving: "Negative II is perplexed and receding; she mounts a horse, but is unable to advance."

From the commentary phrase "that she marries ten years hence" he reasoned that his difficulty would take ten years to resolve. From the water of Kan lying ahead of him in the diagram, he read that he would have to "wade water".

## The Outcome

By his own account: two years later he was banished to Tsukuda-jima — an island, and so the "wading of water". He was released in the first year of Keiō (1865).

In the 3rd year of Meiji (1870) — exactly ten years from the prison divination — he began the four enterprises he is known for: mail steamers, railways, gas-lighting, and a school.

## How to Read This Case Today

Chun is the hexagram of a beginning that cannot yet move: the sprout under the stone, the horse mounted but held. Its second line is not a promise of rescue but a description of a period that has to be lived through rather than forced.

For a modern reader stuck in a situation with no visible exit, the useful part is the reframing of the timescale — treating a hard passage as something with a shape and a duration, rather than as a permanent condition. That is a way of thinking, not a forecast.


Source: [高島易断 AI — ekidan.ai](https://ekidan.ai/ja/heritage/cases/takashima-own-fate-in-prison)