the whole distillation, at every level
Search
One query is run against the source lines, the section records, the claims filed under each dimension, the essay-level syntheses and the concepts the essays define. A hit is shown in the form it has in the edition, with the work it belongs to.
19,850 source lines · 8,531 claims · 3,103 sections · 733 essay synthesis · 4,998 key concepts · 80 profile terms are indexed. Classical Chinese may be entered directly; the index is character-based, so a two-character phrase is enough.
What a search returns
A result is not a document ranked by relevance. It is a row of the edition at the level where it was recorded: a source line returns to its place in the text, a claim returns to the section that produced it and to the lines it quotes, an essay-level sentence returns to the synthesis it belongs to. Following a hit therefore lands the reader in the middle of the distillation, not at the top of it.
When the query service is unavailable the page answers from a small index built at the same time as these pages — the titles of the works, the concepts the essays define, and the names of the ten dimensions. It says so when it does, because an incomplete answer that does not announce itself is worse than no answer.