{"collection":"The I Ching, Legge tr.","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_ich_ic48_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_ich_ic48_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_ich_ic48_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/ich/ic48.htm","summary":"This is an excerpt from the *I Ching* (Book of Changes), presenting Hexagram 48 \u2014 \"Jing\" (The Well) \u2014 together with what appears to be a 19th-century scholarly commentary, likely James Legge's English translation, offering both the traditional line readings and a moralizing gloss. The central argument is that a well's defining qualities \u2014 permanence, depth, universal availability, and dependence on active use \u2014 make it an apt metaphor for good governance: just as a well's water is worthless unless drawn to the surface, inherited principles of righteous rule are worthless unless faithfully applied. The six individual line readings interpret the well's condition along a spectrum from a corrupt, unused well (line 1, representing unfit rulers) through a clear but neglected well (line 3, a capable minister ignored by an unwise king) to a freely flowing, uncovered well (line 6, signifying sincerity and inexhaustible good fortune). A distinctive claim in the commentary is that the hexagram's original character was pictorial, depicting a plot of land divided among eight farming families sharing a communal well at its center \u2014 grounding the political metaphor in a specific ancient agrarian institution. The commentary explicitly moralizes beyond the text, noting that one author \"was wise beyond his lines\" when reflecting on wasted talent, signaling a tension between mechanical symbol-reading and genuine ethical insight.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"The I Ching, Legge tr.: Text Section II: XLVIII. The &...","tradition":"The I Ching, Legge tr.","translated_text":null,"word_count":868}