Harms and Punishments
Last updated 10/7/2026
Harms and punishments are branch relations. Detection is mechanical; interpretive weight is a separate decision.
Course lookup tables
For continuity with the Branch Relationships construction lesson, this course uses the following tables as explicit UAYA lookup conventions. Their exact membership is not attributed to the two Zengshan Buyi passages cited later, which address interpretive weight rather than supplying every row below.
Six harms
| Pair | Pair | Pair |
|---|---|---|
| Zi–Wei | Chou–Wu | Yin–Si |
| Mao–Chen | Shen–Hai | You–Xu |
Punishment configurations
| Configuration | Members |
|---|---|
| pair | Zi–Mao |
| three-member cycle | Yin–Si–Shen |
| three-member cycle | Chou–Xu–Wei |
| repeated-branch self-punishment labels | Chen, Wu, You, Hai |
These course tables identify branch membership. They do not establish a person, motive, event, severity, received consensus, or independent relevance to the selected target.
Weight in the checked chapters
The checked Zengshan Buyi chapters set a deliberately narrow boundary:
- the “Three Punishments” chapter says the pattern rarely carries a result by itself and describes it as a compounder when the selected line is already weak and controlled;
- the “Six Harms” chapter rejects the relation as yielding no reliable response in the author’s experience.
Accordingly, detection and relevance belong in separate columns. A visible punishment may be recorded as a possible compounder only when the target is already weak and controlled under the cited passage. A visible harm receives no independent predictive weight from the checked chapter.
Overlap trap
Some branch pairs occur in more than one relation table. For example, Si–Shen is a Six-Harmony pair and also belongs to the Yin–Si–Shen punishment cycle. Record both structural observations, then apply only the located source rule whose full conditions are present. If precedence matters and no source or declared lineage settles it, mark the weight unresolved.
Relevance exercise
Example type: invented mechanics exercise; no outcome.
| Observation | Course record |
|---|---|
| target participates in a harm pair but has no direct source-backed path | visible relation; no independent weight under the checked chapter |
| target is already weak, directly controlled, and participates in a punishment configuration | possible compounder; cite chapter 23 |
| Chen appears against Chen | self-punishment configuration visible; weight unresolved unless a located rule connects it to the target |
| harm/punishment occurs only between two lines unrelated to the target | background; drop from target trace |
“Ignore” is a valid result. It means the relation is visible but has no demonstrated role in the current target mechanism.
Trap and stopping condition
- Do not turn “harm” or “punishment” into moral, psychological, or literal outside-world language.
- Do not let a detected relation silently become lineage doctrine.
- Do not assign self-punishment independent weight without a located rule and target path.
- Do not count several secondary flags as a vote against the target.
- Stop when overlapping relations require precedence and the applied source or lineage rule is undeclared.
Source note
Received limits on interpretive weight: Zengshan Buyi, “Three Punishments” (三刑章), chapter 23, and “Six Harms” (六害章), chapter 24, checked composite printed p. 39. The lookup tables and visible relation / possible compounder / background / unresolved relevance record are explicit UAYA course conventions; the cited chapters are not presented as the source for every table entry.
Next, identify the whole-hexagram branch pattern without importing a verdict: Six-Clash and Six-Harmony Hexagram Types.