Hexagram 48

Jǐng

The Well

Upper Trigram

Kǎn

WaterAbysmal

ElementWaterDirectionWestFamilySecond SonQualitiesdangerous, flowing, fluid

Lower Trigram

Xùn

WindGentle

ElementWoodDirectionSoutheastFamilyEldest DaughterQualitiesgentle, penetrating, persistent

Classical Texts

The Judgment

改邑不改井。无喪无得。往來井井。汔至亦未繘井。羸其瓶。凶。

The Image

木上有水,井。君子以勞民勸相。

The Lines

Line 1

初六 井泥不食。舊井无禽。

Line 2

九二 井谷射鮒。甕敝漏。

Line 3

九三 井渫不食。為我心惻。可用汲。王明。並受其福。

Line 4

六四 井甃无咎。

Line 5

九五 井冽。寒泉食。

Line 6

上六 井收勿幕。有孚元吉。

Aqueduct of Nero

Aqueduct of Nero

Giovanni Battista Piranesi, 1775

The Well

An 18th-century etching of Roman ruins. Giovanni Battista Piranesi documents the Aqua Claudia, an ancient aqueduct bringing mountain spring water to Rome across forty miles of stone arches. His architectural print shows the weathered structure cutting through the countryside, its repeated arches creating perspective depth. The infrastructure endures fifteen centuries after construction—built to serve generations, maintained across dynasties, the well that serves not one household but an entire city.

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Piranesi was an 18th-century Italian architect and printmaker who documented Roman ruins. This etching shows the remains of Aqua Claudia, an ancient aqueduct bringing water from mountain springs to Rome. The structure represents infrastructure that draws water from a distant source and distributes it to the city, relating to hexagram 48's image of the well. This is Jǐng (井), The Well, the hexagram representing the unchanging source that serves the changing community. The character depicts the grid pattern of fields surrounding a central well—eight families drawing from one shared source. The trigram structure places Water (Kǎn) above Wind (Xùn): water drawn upward by wood, the rope and bucket penetrating the depths to bring sustenance to the surface. Piranesi's aqueduct extends this principle monumentally—the ancient well become public infrastructure, mountain springs channeled through engineering to supply urban populations. The Judgment text states: "The Well. The town may be changed, but the well cannot be changed. It neither decreases nor increases. They come and go and draw from the well. If one gets down almost to the water and the rope does not go all the way, or the jug breaks, it brings misfortune." The text emphasizes the well's constancy—dynasties rise and fall, populations migrate, but the water source remains. Piranesi's aqueduct embodies this principle: Republican Rome becomes Imperial Rome becomes Papal Rome, yet the Aqua Claudia continues carrying water from the same Anio springs. The text also warns that the well requires proper maintenance—broken jugs and short ropes bring misfortune. Piranesi documents precisely this concern: the aqueduct endures but requires care, its weathered stones testimony to both Roman engineering and centuries of upkeep. The Image Text observes: "Water over wood: the image of The Well. Thus the superior person encourages the people at their work, and exhorts them to help one another." Water rests above wood in the hexagram structure, but the practical image is the wooden bucket drawing water upward—the tool that makes the well functional. Piranesi's aqueduct serves the same function on civic scale, the infrastructure that enables city life. In the I-Ching sequence, Jǐng follows Kùn (oppression): after exhaustion comes the reminder of the reliable source, the well that neither increases in abundance nor decreases in drought, requiring only maintenance and proper use. The aqueduct's repetitive arches create rhythm across the landscape, each section like another family drawing from the shared source, the ancient infrastructure still nourishing Rome fifteen centuries after the engineers who planned it returned to earth.

Yilin: Forest of Changes

From Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — the verse for Hexagram 48 in its unchanging form. A Han dynasty collection of four-character verses interpreting every hexagram transformation.

Yilin artwork for Hexagram 48
躓跛未起,失利後市,不得鹿子。

Stumbling and lame, unable to rise; arriving late at the market, he loses his profit and cannot catch the deer.

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Water drawn up through wood — but the well gazes into its own reflection and sees only stagnation. Stumbling and lame, unable to rise, one arrives too late at the market and fails to catch the young deer. The doubled well (source and target identical) intensifies the hexagram's inherent danger: a well that never changes, never moves, risks becoming a trap rather than a resource. The lame figure who misses the market recalls the well's line texts about fouled water and unused potential. From The Well to The Well, the pattern is self-referential: without transformation, the well's virtue calcifies. What should nourish becomes a prison of repetition, and opportunity slips away while the structure remains frozen in place.

中文注释

木上有水,井觀自身之影而見停滯——同卦相變,不動之極。躓跛未起——跌倒不能站起,失利後市——趕到集市時好物已售罄,不得鹿子。井變井,同卦重疊強化其固有之險:井不遷不變,水不流則腐。跛者失市如井爻辭「井泥不食」——潛力在而不能發揮。從井至井,無變化則井德僵固:養人者反成重複之牢籠,水清則養,水滯則害。