The I Ching, Legge tr.

The I Ching, Legge tr.: The Yî King Text: Section I...

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This is an excerpt from a classical Chinese divination text — specifically Hexagram 17 (Sui, "Following") from the *I Ching* (Book of Changes), accompanied by traditional commentary in the style of the Ten Wings attributions. The hexagram's core teaching is that following — whether one follows others or others follow oneself — brings great success, but only when guided by firmness, correctness, and sincerity rather than mere convenience or self-interest. Each of the six lines is interpreted individually: some warn against clinging to the weak or lesser over the strong and experienced, others caution a powerful minister that accumulating followers can threaten rightful authority unless his loyalty is transparently genuine. The commentary grounds its interpretations in the structural properties of the hexagram's lines (strong/weak, correct/incorrect placement, correlate relationships between positions), treating these as the mechanical basis for the moral lessons drawn. A distinctive historical claim appears at the end: the "western mountain" reference is identified as Mount Khî, the ancestral seat of the Zhou dynasty circa 1325 BCE, and the mention of "king" is taken as evidence the text dates to the reign of King Wu rather than the legendary King Wen. The overall argument is that following is a natural human dynamic, but its auspicious or inauspicious outcome depends entirely on whether it is rooted in what is proper — making this as much an ethical treatise as a divination guide.

The I Ching, Legge tr.: The Yî King Text: Section I...

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