The sun rising over the earth: a hexagram of advancing into favor, carried by compliance, attachment to brightness, and a light hold on gain and loss.
Above is Li ☲, fire, bright and clinging; below is Kun ☷, earth, yielding: the sun coming up over the land. Zhu Xi reads Jin as advancing, and the lord of the judgment, honored with gifts and audiences, as one who brings peace to his state. Compliance below, attachment to brightness, and a yielding line rising to the ruler's seat are the qualities that, in his reading, earn such favor.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
晉，康侯用錫馬蕃庶，晝日三接。
Jin: a lord who brings peace to his state is presented with horses in great numbers and received three times in a single day.
Zhu Xi glosses the name as advancing. The lord is one who keeps his state at peace, and the horses and repeated audiences mean generous gifts and open, personal courtesy from the ruler. He finds three reasons in the figure: the sun rising above the earth; a lower trigram that complies and attaches itself to great brightness; and, in his reading of how the figure changed from Hexagram 20, Guan, a yielding line moving up to the fifth place. The favor belongs, he says, to whoever brings those three qualities.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
明出地上，晉。君子以自昭明德。
Brightness rises above the earth: Advancing. The noble person makes his own bright virtue shine.
The sun clearing the horizon is the plainest picture of advance. Zhu Xi glosses 昭 as 'to make bright.' The noble person does for his own virtue what sunrise does for the land, and the word 'own' (自) keeps the work in his own hands.
Lines (爻辭)
From the bottom line to the top. In the line names, nine (九) marks a yang line and six (六) a yin line.
Line 1, yin (初六)changing line in the shared reading
晉如摧如，貞吉。罔孚，裕无咎。
Advancing, then pushed back. Being correct and firm brings good fortune. If others do not trust you, stay easy in yourself. No blame.
A yin line at the bottom, neither central nor correct, tries to go forward and is pushed back. Zhu Xi attaches two conditions to the first line (初六): keep to what is right, and if others do not yet trust you, meet that with ease instead of strain. Trust that has not been given cannot be forced, and the line does not try to force it.
Line 2, yin (六二)changing line in the shared reading
晉如愁如，貞吉。受茲介福，于其王母。
Advancing, yet anxious. Being correct and firm brings good fortune. One receives this great blessing from one's grandmother.
The second line (六二) is central and correct but has no partner above to pull it up, so its advance comes with worry. Steadfastness still prevails. Zhu Xi identifies the grandmother (王母) with the fifth line, a yin line in the ruler's seat, from whom the blessing comes. He reads it as a favorable sign for offerings to a departed ancestress, and says any yin figure in an honored seat can fill that role.
Line 3, yin (六三)changing line in the shared reading
衆允，悔亡。
The many trust it. Regret vanishes.
On its own the third line (六三) would have reason for regret, being neither central nor correct. But it stands at the top of three yin lines that all want to rise together, and the two below trust it. Shared purpose carries what position alone could not. Being trusted by those beside one can matter more than holding the ideal seat.
Line 4, yang (九四)changing line in the shared reading
晉如鼫鼠，貞厲。
Advancing like a rat. Even when correct, there is danger.
The fourth line (九四) is a yang line out of place, neither central nor correct, sitting just below the ruler. Zhu Xi sees someone who has slipped into a high seat, greedy for more yet afraid of others: hence the rat. A position held that way is precarious, and even doing what is right does not make it safe. The line turns attention to how a place was gained.
Line 5, yin (六五)changing line in the shared reading
悔亡，失得勿恤，往吉，无不利。
Regret vanishes. Do not worry over loss and gain. Going forth brings good fortune; there is nothing that is not favorable.
A yin line in a yang seat would normally bring regret, but the fifth line (六五) is the center of the bright upper trigram, and everything below follows it. Zhu Xi reads 'do not worry over loss and gain' as setting aside every calculation of credit and profit; with that done, going forth is favorable. He adds that the reading holds only for someone with the virtue to match it.
Top line, yang (上九)changing line in the shared reading
晉其角，維用伐邑，厲吉，无咎，貞吝。
Advancing with the horns. Use it only to subdue one's own town. Danger, then good fortune, and no blame. Even when correct, there is humiliation.
Horns are hard and sit on top, like the top line (上九), where forceful advance reaches its limit. Zhu Xi restricts its use: turned on one's own domain, the force is risky but ends well and without blame. Still, bringing that much hardness to bear on something so small is a cause for shame, even when it is right. Strength at its peak is safest when aimed at what is one's own to correct.
If you drew this hexagram
Which text to read depends on how many lines are changing. With none, read the judgment; with one, read that line; with more, follow Zhu Xi's rules in the Yixue qimeng.
Text: Zhu Xi, Yuanben Zhouyi benyi (原本周易本義), Siku Quanshu Wenyuange copy, as transcribed by the Kanseki Repository (KR1a0031), corrected and punctuated by K-magpie. Translation and explanation: written by AI (Claude) from Zhu Xi's commentary and checked against the text and commentary. Sources and the list of corrections are on the Today's Hexagram page.
Characters corrected in this hexagram — judgment: 晝三日接 → 晝日三接 · Line 5, yin (六五): 得失勿恤 → 失得勿恤