井 → 大畜
Hexagram 48: The Well → Hexagram 26: Great Taming
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 5, 6).
Line 1
初六 井泥不食。舊井无禽。
Six at the beginning means: One does not drink the mud of the well. No animals come to an old well.
Line 5
九五 井冽。寒泉食。
Nine in the fifth place means: In the well there is a clear, cold spring From which one can drink.
Line 6
上六 井收勿幕。有孚元吉。
Six at the top means: One draws from the well Without hindrance. It is dependable. Supreme good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
千門萬戶，大福所處。黃屋左纛，龍德獨有。
A thousand gates, ten thousand doors; the dwelling place of great fortune. The yellow roof, the yak-tail standard at its left; the virtue of the dragon belongs to him alone.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water drawn up through wood, the well anchors a settlement — and here it anchors an empire. A thousand gates and ten thousand doors mark where great fortune resides. The yellow canopy and left-sided pennant: only the dragon's virtue possesses these. The 'yellow roof' (黃屋) and 'left pennant' (左纛) are exclusive imperial insignia of the Han dynasty, reserved for the Son of Heaven alone. From The Well to Great Taming, heaven stored within the mountain accumulates power over generations. The well's communal nourishment, concentrated and elevated to imperial scale, becomes the mountain that contains heaven itself — vast reserves of virtue and authority that only the legitimate sovereign may command.
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