The sun sinks into the earth and its light is wounded: a hexagram about keeping one's integrity in a dark time by veiling one's brightness instead of abandoning it.
Kun ☷, earth, yielding, lies over Li ☲, fire, bright and clinging: the sun has gone down into the ground. Zhu Xi glosses the name as light that is wounded, and sees a ruler of darkness in the top line with the fifth line close beside it. The judgment asks for steadfast correctness under hardship, together with a deliberate dimming of one's own light.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
明夷，利艱貞。
Ming Yi: it is fitting to stay correct and firm through hardship.
Zhu Xi glosses 夷 as 'wound.' The sun has gone down into the earth, and its brightness is hurt. He also sees a ruler of darkness in the top line, with the fifth line pressed close beside it. In such a time the text asks for two things at once: to stay correct and firm while things are hard, and to dim one's own brightness instead of displaying it. Keeping the light and showing it are different matters, and this hexagram asks for the first without the second.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
明入地中，明夷。君子以莅衆，用晦而明。
Brightness goes down into the earth: Light Obscured. In overseeing the many, the noble person keeps to the shadows and yet is bright.
The picture is the sun inside the earth, unseen but not put out. Zhu Xi adds no note to this sentence, and it reads plainly: when dealing with many people, the noble person does not put all his clarity on show, yet that clarity is still at work.
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, yang (初九)changing line in the shared reading
明夷于飛，垂其翼。君子于行，三日不食。有攸往，主人有言。
Light Obscured, in flight: it lets its wings droop. The noble person on the road goes three days without eating. There is somewhere to go; the host has words against him.
A bird hurt in flight drops its wings, a traveler goes days without food, and wherever he arrives the host finds fault. Zhu Xi reads all three as one thing: in this dark time the first line (初九) fits nowhere it goes, and that is simply what the time demands. It cannot be dodged. Seeing that the mismatch belongs to the season can take some of the sting out of it.
Line 2, yin (六二)changing line in the shared reading
明夷，夷于左股，用拯馬壯，吉。
Light Obscured: wounded in the left thigh. Rescue comes with a strong horse. Good fortune.
The wound is to the left thigh, painful but not to the core. Zhu Xi's note is brief: harm that has not gone deep can be escaped if help comes quickly, and the strong horse is that speed. The second line (六二) is central and correct, and it still has time on its side.
Line 3, yang (九三)changing line in the shared reading
明夷于南狩，得其大首，不可疾貞。
Light Obscured, on a hunt in the south: the great chief is captured. It must not be hurried. Stay correct and firm.
The third line (九三) is strong in a strong place, at the top of the bright lower trigram, and paired directly with the dark ruler at the top. Zhu Xi reads the southern hunt as a turn toward the light that removes the harm by catching its chief. But it must not be rushed. He names Tang rising from Xiatai and King Wen rising from Youli as fitting this line, and adds that small affairs follow the same pattern.
Line 4, yin (六四)changing line in the shared reading
入于左腹，獲明夷之心，于出門庭。
Entering the left side of the belly, it finds the heart of Light Obscured in going out through the gate and courtyard.
Zhu Xi says plainly that the meaning of this line is unclear, and offers only a guess. The left belly may be a deep, hidden place; finding the heart in going out the gate may mean getting one's wish by leaving for somewhere far away. The fourth line (六四) is yielding and correct and has only just entered the dark upper trigram, so it can still leave. The fifth is pressed closer, and the top is darkness itself.
Line 5, yin (六五)changing line in the shared reading
箕子之明夷，利貞。
The Light Obscured of Jizi. It is fitting to stay correct and firm.
The fifth line (六五) sits in the darkest region, right beside the dark ruler at the top. Zhu Xi sees Jizi in it: someone in that position who still keeps his will correct. He calls it correctness at its utmost, and reads 'it is fitting to stay correct and firm' as a caution to whoever receives the line. The light survives here by being hidden, not by being given up.
Top line, yin (上六)changing line in the shared reading
不明晦，初登于天，後入于地。
No light, only darkness. First it climbs up to heaven; later it goes down into the earth.
The top line (上六) is the dark ruler the rest of the hexagram has been enduring. A yin line at the very top of earth, it lets its own virtue go dark. Zhu Xi traces its course: first it sits high and uses that height to wound the brightness of others, and in the end it wounds itself and falls, losing its mandate. The text adds no separate verdict, since the outcome is already in the picture.
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 — Top line, yin (上六): 不明悔 → 不明晦 · image: 涖衆 → 莅衆