Khăng-ȝze

Khăng-ȝze appears in the book as an interpreter whose readings clarify how the position and qualities of a line shape a hexagram’s judgment. The cited passages associate his commentary with two contrasting problems: the proper exercise of authority and the recovery of unity amid division. His brief interventions are part of a wider account of how the I Ching’s figures and divinatory practice acquired moral and political meanings.

Commentarial Method

In the discussion of the fifth line of the Gentle and Penetrating hexagram, Khăng-ȝze identifies the line as the honored seat and the ruler’s position, from which commands issue. Its centrality and correctness, he argues, require the line’s subject to display the hexagram’s qualities at their highest. Those qualities are docility and conformity to what is right; firm correctness is therefore essential to a favorable outcome. The commentator’s reading joins structural position to political responsibility: the ruler’s authority is not sufficient by itself but must be exercised with disciplined responsiveness to right.

The book places this interpretation beside its account of line-position rules, in which centrality, correctness, and relation to other lines help explain the judgment. Khăng-ȝze’s formulation is thus not an isolated gloss on a favorable omen. It specifies the conduct required of the person occupying the highest seat and makes the outcome conditional on that conduct.

Reading Danger and Union

His interpretation of the second line of the Dispersion hexagram begins from a less secure position. The line is strong but occupies an even place, and although that place is central, it belongs to the lower trigram associated with peril. These features make action dangerous. Khăng-ȝze’s reading, as reported in the book, turns on the subject’s decision to look to the line below and take shelter in union with its subject. The line’s danger is not simply erased; it is met through reliance on a relationship that offers protection.

The book notes that this interpretation had been followed since Khăng-ȝze’s commentary. In the account of the hexagram, dispersion is a condition to be remedied: a minister brings dissenting factions to an end and gathers people who had been divided. The second-line reading complements that larger movement by treating union as a practical response to peril, rather than as an abstract ideal.

Interpretive and Political Context

Elsewhere, the book presents the I Ching’s hexagrams as short, symbolically expressed essays on moral, social, and political matters. Its example of the Hosts hexagram links the organization of an army to the structure of the lines: the central undivided line represents the leader, while the other lines are expected to follow or obey. The commentary on the fifth line distinguishes defensive or rightful war from disorderly command, and the final line warns against assigning important positions to unworthy people. Such readings form the interpretive setting in which Khăng-ȝze’s emphasis on right conduct, authority, and reliance can be understood.

The book also distinguishes divination from absolute foreknowledge. It describes the stalk procedure as a means of forming a hexagram so that its judgments can be consulted about whether a contemplated plan or set of circumstances is likely to prove fortunate. Forty-nine stalks were manipulated three times for each line, requiring eighteen manipulations to form a hexagram; the resulting figures were interpreted through the judgments associated with King Wen and the line statements associated with the Duke of Zhou. Khăng-ȝze’s cited glosses belong to the later work of making those judgments intelligible as practical guidance about how to act under particular conditions.