 | Lunheng |  |
I. APPENDIX I.
The Theory of the Five Elements and the Classifications based thereon.
I. A Sketch of Chinese Natural Philosophy.
The theory of the Five Elements is no doubt of Chinese origin and
its existence in ancient times proved by many old documents. We read
in one of the first books of the Shuking, the "Counsels of the Great
Yü," [OMITTED]:
"Yü said,"[1908]
Well! may Your Majesty think of it. Virtue implies
good government, and government consists in nourishing the people. Water,
fire, metal, wood, earth, and grain must be attended to. The rectification
of virtue, the supply of all useful things, and ample provision for the necessaries
of life must be well balanced. These nine achievements succeed
each other, and the nine successive steps are praised in songs.—Caution
the people with kindness, govern them with majesty, and incite them with
the nine songs, in order that there may be nothing amiss."
The emperor[1909]
said, "Yes,[1910]
the earth is undisturbed now, heaven is
in perfect order, and the six treasuries and three affairs properly managed.
Ten thousand generations may perpetually rely on them. All this is your
doing." (Legge, Classics Vol. III, Part I, p. 55 seq.)
What does it mean that the Five Elements: water, fire, metal, wood,
and earth must be controlled by the Emperor? How can he exercise any
power on nature?—By regulating his administration on the natural sequence
of the elements, doing only those things which are in harmony with the
element ruling for the time being. Natural phenomena are thus affected
by the actions of the son of Heaven, being either disturbed or kept in
their regular course. The Liki will give us the necessary details.
The elements are here enumerated in the series in which they overcome
or destroy one another, for which the terms [OMITTED] or [OMITTED] are used. This
compilers of the Shuking.
The above passage is quoted and explained by the Tso-chuan, Duke
Wên 7th year, and its genuineness thus firmly established. The corresponding
passage of the Tso-chuan reads thus:
"The book of Hsia[1911]
says, `Caution the people with kindness, govern
them with majesty, and incite them with the nine songs, that there may
be nothing amiss.' The virtues of the nine achievements may be sung,
and are called the nine songs. The six treasuries and the three affairs
are called the nine achievements. Water, fire, metal, wood, earth, and grain
are called the six treasuries. The rectification of virtue, the supply of all
useful things, and ample provision for the necessaries of life are called the
three affairs."[1912]
(Cf. Legge, Classics Vol. V, Part I, p. 247.)
In another book of the Hsia dynasty, entitled "the Speech at Kan"
[OMITTED], the following words are attributed to the Emperor Ch`i [OMITTED], who
is supposed to have spoken them in 2194 B.C.:
"The Lord of Hu offers violence and insult to the Five Elements, and
neglects and discards the three commencements (of the seasons). Therefore
Heaven employs me to destroy and cancel his appointment. Now I
merely reverently mete out the punishment of Heaven."[1913]
(Legge, Classics
Vol. III, Part I, p. 153.)
Legge rightly observes that the crime of the Lord of Hu is stated
in a somewhat obscure and mystical language. The Five Elements are not
to be taken in the simple physical sense, for then they could not be outraged
by a sovereign, but are metaphysical terms, equivalent almost to the
four seasons [OMITTED], as one commentator points out. The seasons are
nothing else than the result of the revolutions of the Five Elements, and
a ruler commits a crime, if for his administrative acts he does not choose
the proper time, neglecting the seasons. At all events there is some theory
at the bottom of the very concise expression.
Another criminal of this sort is introduced to us in the chapter
Hung-fan [OMITTED] (The Great Plan) of the Shuking, where the Viscount
of Chi says: "I have heard that of old K`un by damming up the Great
Flood threw the Five Elements into confusion. God was highly incensed at
(Legge, Classics Vol. III, Part II, p. 323.)
I suppose that the imaginary guilt of K`un did not so much consist
in his illtreating the element water as in not observing the propitious
time for his draining work, thereby disturbing the Five Elements i. e., the
Five Seasons and thus bringing down calamities upon his people.
Further on the Hung-fan informs us of the nature of the Five Elements,
the fullest description to be found in the Shuking:
"First the Five Elements: the first is termed water; the second, fire;
the third wood; the fourth metal; the fifth, earth. Water is described as
soaking and descending; fire as blazing and rising; wood as crooked and
straight; metal as yielding and changing, whereas the nature of earth
appears from sowing and reaping. That which is soaking and descending
becomes salt; that which is blazing and rising becomes bitter; that which
is crooked and straight becomes sour; that which is yielding and changing
becomes acrid; and the produce of sowing and reaping becomes sweet."[1915]
(Legge, Classics Vol. III, Part II, p. 325.)
The sequence of the Five Elements is different from that in the
Hsia-shu insomuch as here wood precedes metal. It is the sequence in
which originally the elements were created. This at least is the opinion
of Chu Hsi, which we shall examine later on. The nature of the Five
Elements is described, and another category, that of the Five Tastes: salt,
bitter, sour, acrid, and sweet connected therewith i. e., we have here the first
classification based on the five elements. From this one to the others
there is only one step. It is just this book of the Shuking which shows
us the great partiality of the ancient Chinese to numerical categories and
classifications. We find already the [OMITTED] Five Businesses: [OMITTED]
[OMITTED] demeanour, speech, seeing, hearing, and thinking, immediately following
upon the five elements, and further on the [OMITTED] Five Manifestations,
or [OMITTED] Five Atmospheric Influences as they are now called, viz.
[OMITTED] rain, sunshine, heat, cold, and wind (Legge, loc. cit.
p. 339) which subsequently were combined with the Five Elements. The
love of symbolism, and the tendency of discovering analogies between natural
and moral phenomena appears already in what the Hung-fan has to
say on the Five Manifestations:
"There are the auspicious manifestations:—self-possession is related
to seasonable rain; orderliness, to seasonable sunshine; judiciousness, to
seasonable heat; discretion, to seasonable cold; and sageness, to seasonable
wind. There are likewise the evil manifestations:—excitement is related to
incessant rain; confusion, to incessant sunshine; fickleness, to incessant
heat; impetuosity, to incessant cold; and dullness, to incessant wind.
It is said that the emperor pays attention to the year; his ministers
and high officers, to the months, and the petty officials, to the single days.
When, during a year, a month, or a day, the seasonableness does not
change, then all the crops ripen, the administration is enlightened, excellent
persons become illustrious, and the people enjoy peace and happiness.
But, when during a day, a month, or a year, the seasonableness
changes, then the crops do not ripen, the administration is beclouded and
unenlightened, excellent persons remain in obscurity, and the people do
not enjoy quietude."[1916]
(Legge, loc. cit. p. 340 seq.)
Already at the beginning of the Chou dynasty, in the 11th century
B.C., the Chinese had discovered some resemblance between heaven and
earth, and the four seasons with the six ministries, which appears from
the names of these departments recorded in the Chou-li. There is the
prime minister, the chief of the Civil Office [OMITTED] or [OMITTED] Officer of
Heaven; the minister of the interior and of revenue [OMITTED] or [OMITTED]
Officer of Earth; the minister of ceremonies [OMITTED] or [OMITTED] Officer of
Spring; the minister of war [OMITTED] or [OMITTED] Officer of Summer; the
minister of punishments [OMITTED] or [OMITTED] Officer of Autumn; and the
minister of works [OMITTED] or [OMITTED] Officer of Winter.
We learn from the same source that the vice-president of the Board
of Ceremonies "erected altars to the Five Emperors in the four suburbs:"
[OMITTED] (Cf. Le Tcheou-li par E. Biot Vol. I, p. 421, 441 and
Vol II, p. 324). These Five Emperors were five old rulers subsequently
deified and venerated as the deities of the Five Points.
These are two more corner stones added to the system of the Five
Elements. We have no literary evidence to show that this was done already
at the commencement of the Chou epoch, althongh there is nothing
later, for in the Tso-chuan we see the theory pretty well evolved
from the nucleus observed in the older sources.
We read under Chao-kung 29th year: "Therefore there were the
officers of the Five Elements, who accordingly were called the Five Officers.
They, in fact, received their family and clan names, and were appointed
high dignitaries. As divine spirits they were sacrificed to, and honoured,
and venerated at the altars of the Spirits of the Land and Grain and the
Five Sacrifices. The ruler of wood was called Kou Mang, that of fire
Chu Yung, of metal Ju Shou, of water Hsüan Ming, and of earth Hou Tu . . . . .
Viscount Hsien inquired of which families were these Five Officers partaking
of the oblations to the Spirits of the Land and Grain and the Five Sacrifices.
Tsai Mê replied: `At the time of Shao Hao there were four men:
Chung, Kai, Hsiu, and Hsi, who were able to regulate metal, wood, and
water. Chung was made Kou Mang, Kai was made Ju Shou, and Hsiu and
Hsi, Hsüan Ming. They never were remiss in discharging their duties and
in assisting Ch`iung Sang (Shao Hao). For these are the Three Sacrifices.
Chuan Hsü had a son named Li, who become Chu Yung; Kung Kung had a
son named Kou Lung, who became Hou Tu. For these are the Two Sacrifices.
Hou Tu became Spirit of the Land and Grain and director of the
fields."
Here we have five sons of old legendary rulers raised to the dignity
of spirits of the Five Elements after their deaths. They partake of the
Five Sacrifices offered to the Five Emperors in the four suburbs and the
centre i. e., they are assistant deities of the Five Points. That they were,
moreover, regarded as genii of the seasons appears from their names, for
Kou Mang "Curling fronds and spikelets" evidently points to spring, and
Ju Shou "Sprouts gathered" designates autumn. Chu Yung referring to
heat may well denote summer, and Hsüan Ming "Dark and obscure," winter.
Thus we have the Five Elements and their deities connected with the Five
Points and the Five Seasons. See also Vol. I, p. 518 and 576. The Five
Sacrifices of Wang Ch`ung Vol. I, p. 517 are others than those of the Chou-li,
here referred to.
But the most important testimony of the Tso-chuan is to be found
in the following passage, Duke Chao 25th year:
"Chien Tse said, `I venture to ask what is meant by propriety?'—
Tse T`ai Shu replied, "I heard the former great officer Tse Ch`an say:
Propriety is the principle of Heaven, the rule of Earth, and the basis of
human conduct. This principle of Heaven and Earth is imitated by the
people conforming to the luminaries of Heaven and agreeing with the nature
of Earth. The Six Fluids are produced and the Five Elements made use
of. The fluids become the Five Tastes, manifest themselves as the Five
Colours, and appear as the Five Sounds."[1917]
And farther on we read: "People feel love and hatred, pleasure
and anger, sorrow and joy, which feelings are produced from the Six
Fluids. Therefore one carefully imitates relations and analogies, in order
to regulate these Six Impulses."[1918]
By the Six Fluids or atmospherical influences are understood [OMITTED]
[OMITTED] the Yin principle, the Yang principle, wind, rain, darkness,
and light, a classification somewhat different from that of the Five Fluids
of the Shuking.
In the above quoted passage the Five Elements are combined with
the Five Tastes, the Five Colours, and the Five Sounds on the one side,
and with the Six Fluids and the Six Impulses on the other. After all,
there are but five entities which appear to us under different forms, either
as substances or as atmospherical fluids, or as tastes, colours or sounds.
And even human feelings are nothing else but manifestations of these fluids.
Elsewhere the Tso-chuan informs us that "the former kings constituted
the five tastes and harmonized the five sounds. It is by these that they made
their minds equable and regulated their administration. Sounds are nearly
related to tastes."[1919]
(Tso-chuan, Duke Chao 20th year.)
That the antagonism of the elements was well known at the time
of the Tso-chuan we infer from the following passages: "Water overcomes
fire"[1920]
(Duke Ai, 9th year), and "Fire overcomes metal"[1921]
(Duke Chao, 31st
year). The meeting of two opposed elements is compared to a marriage,
and the stronger element subduing the weaker, called the husband, the
weaker being looked upon as the wife. "Water is the husband of fire"[1922]
(Duke Chao, 17th year), and "fire is the wife of water"[1923]
(Duke Chao,
9th year).
Finally the Five Elements are connected with the cyclical signs of
the Ten Stems and the Twelve Branches. A disaster is predicted on a Ping-tse
or a Jên-wu day, because on these there is a meeting of water and fire,[1924]
ping corresponding to fire, and tse to water, jên to water, and wu to fire.
Five Elements must be referred to them also. So we read that "tse is
the position of water"[1925] (Duke Ai, 9th year) i. e., that water is placed in
the North.
The Tso-chuan states that the Five Elements manifest themselves as
the Five Colours, but does not assign the different colours to the various
elements. This is done in the Chi-chung chou-shu [OMITTED], a collection
of ancient texts excluded by Confucius from the Shuking, and consequently
prior in time to the 6th century B.C. (Cf. Chavannes, Mem. Hist.
Vol. V, p. 457). There we read: "Among the Five Elements the first,
the black one, is water; the second, the red one, is fire; the third, the
green one, is wood; the fourth, the white one, is metal; and the fifth, the
yellow one, is earth."[1926]
Resuming the adduced old testimonies, we may assert that, at the
time of Confucius and before, the theory of the Five Elements was known
and developed in all its chief features. The elements are roughly described
and conceived as partly physical, partly metaphysical entities. They
vanquish one another in a certain order already given in the Shuking.
The weaker element in such a contest is termed the wife, the stronger,
the husband. The atmospherical fluids, closely connected with the elements,
affect mankind, in so far as they are believed to produce impulses and
sensations, and, conversely, human actions may influence these fluids. The
sovereign especially regulates the elements by the virtue displayed in his
administration. There are five officers or deities presiding over the elements
and, at the same time, venerated as genii of the seasons, in the five directions,
together with the Five Emperors, ruling over the five points of the
compass. Thus we have a link between the elements, the seasons, and
the five directions. Moreover, the fluids and the elements manifest themselves
under the form of the five tastes, the five colours, and the five sounds.
Tastes and colours are enumerated and assigned to the respective elements,
and we may assume that the same was done with the five sounds, although
we have no literary evidence to prove it. By their combination with the
signs of the denary and duodenary cycles, the five elements were again
located in those points of the compass to which these signs correspond.
In the Appendix to Couvreur's Dietionary there is a table of the Five
Elements and their corresponding categories, altogether 12 columns. Of
these we have so far traced nine, only the five heavenly Emperors, the
five planets, and the five viscera have not yet been mentioned. But these
also were referred to the elements in the Chou dynasty, as we shall see
from the Liki and other works.
A short sketch of a natural philosophy is given in the chapter Li-yün
of the Liki (Legge, Sacred Books Vol. XXVII p. 380 seq.), in which
the Five Elements play a part. Man is said to be the product of the
forces of Heaven and Earth, by the interaction of the Yin and the Yang,
the union of the animal and intelligent spirits, and the finest matter of the
Five Elements.[1927]
This, of course, would account for the many relations
existing between the elements and the human body as well as human actions.
Moreover, the Five Elements are distributed over the Four Seasons.[1928]
They
are in constant movement and alternately exhaust one another. Each of
them becomes in its turn the fundamental one just like the Four Seasons
and the Twelve Months.[1929]
It is not expressly stated that the five sounds,
the five tastes, and the five colours are identical with the five elements,
but they are mentioned in close connexion with the elements and declared
to undergo similar regular revolutions by which each sound, taste, and
colour for a certain time becomes the principal one. Throughout the whole
treatise we notice the intimate relation of human life to all the forces of
nature, the elements included.
The chapter Li-yün [OMITTED] is by some attributed to Tse Yu, a
disciple of Confucius or to his disciples and regarded as one of the most
valuable parts of the Liki. I do not share Legge's view that the ideas
about elements, numbers, colours, &c. are Taoistic admixtures to the commonsense
of Confucianism, for we have met them all in the Confucian Classics.
(Cf. Legge's Liki, Introduction p. 24.)
How the elements and their correlates were distributed over the
twelve months we learn from another book of the Liki, the Yüeh-ling
[OMITTED] (Legge, eod. p. 249 seq.) embodying the fullest scheme of this theory
in classical literature. It is a sort of a calendar clearly showing us how
much the doctrine of the five elements was interwoven with the life of
the ancient Chinese. For each of the four seasons it is stated that the
Grand Annalist informed the Son of Heaven of the day on which the
season began and of the element ruling over the three months composing
the season. The element earth alone had no proper season.
About the first month of spring we learn that its days are chia and
yi,[1930]
its divine ruler is T`ai Hao, and the attending spirit Kou Mang. Its
creatures are the scaly, its musical note is chio, its number 8,[1931]
its taste is sour,
spleen of the victim is essential. The east winds resolve the cold. The
Son of Heaven occupies the apartment on the left of the Ch`ing-yang Fane,[1933]
and rides in a carriage drawn by green dragon horses, carrying a green
flag and wearing green robes and pieces of green jade. His food consists
in wheat and mutton. At the head of his ministers and the feudal princes,
the emperor meets the spring in the eastern suburb. The inspectors of
the fields are ordered to reside in the lands having an eastward exposure.
They instruct the people, and see that all the necessary measures for
cultivating the fields be taken. Prohibitions are issued against cutting down
trees and the killing of young animals, birds, or insects. No fortifications
are to be erected, no warlike operations to be undertaken, for they would
be sure to be followed by the calamities from Heaven. I refrain from
quoting all the other prescriptions and defences and would only draw
attention to the characteristical last paragraph of this section which has
its counterpart in all the other months:
"If in the first month of spring the governmental proceedings proper
to summer were carried out, the rain would fall unseasonably, plants and
trees would decay prematurely, and the states would be kept in continual
fear. If the proceedings proper to autumn were carried out, there would
be great pestilence among the people; boisterous winds would work their
violence; rain would descend in torrents; orach, fescue, darnel, and southern-wood
would grow up together. If the proceedings proper to winter were
carried out, pools of water would produce their destructive effects, snow
and frost would prove very injurious, and the first sown seeds would not
enter the ground."
In a similar way the other months are described. We abstract therefrom
the following Table (pp. 440 and 441).
The Yüeh-ling is now universally ascribed to Lü Pu Wei of the 3rd
century B.C. (Legge, Liki, Indroduction p. 20), but there is no reason to
suppose that it was invented by him and that it is not a calendar of the
Chou period, for its contents accords very well with other sources and
was, at all events, regarded as a genuine record of old customs by the
compilers of the Liki.
| Five Elements [OMITTED] |
Four Seasons [OMITTED] |
Five Emperors [OMITTED] |
Five Spirits [OMITTED] |
Five Sacrifices [OMITTED] |
Five Animals [OMITTED] |
Five[1934]
Grains [OMITTED] |
Five Intestines [OMITTED] |
Five Numbers ([OMITTED]) |
Ten Stems [OMITTED] |
Five Colours [OMITTED] |
Five Sounds [OMITTED] |
Five Tastes [OMITTED] |
Five Smells [OMITTED] |
Five Points [OMITTED] |
Five Creatures [OMITTED] |
| wood | spring | T`ai Hao | Kou Mang | inner door | sheep | wheat | spleen | 8 | chia yi | green | chio | sour | goatish | east | scaly |
| fire | summer | Yen Ti | Chu Yung | hearth | fowl | beans | lungs | 7 | ping ting | red | chih | bitter | burning | south | feathered |
| earth | Huang Ti | Hou Tu | inner court | ox | panicled millet |
heart | 5 | wu chi | yellow | kung | sweet | fragrant | centre | naked | |
| metal | autumn | Shao Hao | Ju Shou | outer door | dog | hemp | liver | 9 | kêng hsin | white | shang | acrid | rank | west | hairy |
| water | winter | Chuan Hsü | Hsüan Ming | well | pig | millet | kidneys | 6 | jên kuei | black | yü | salt | rotten | north | shell-covered |
The literary evidence of ancient texts collected above is more than
sufficient, I trust, to establish the fact that the theory of the Five Elements
is of Chinese origin. This has been contested by no less an authority
than Ed. Chavannes, who is of opinion that the Chinese have borrowed it
from the Turks (cf. Ed. Chavannes, "Le cycle turc des douze animaux,"
T`oung-pao, Série II Vol. VII No. 1 p. 96-98). His view can hardly be
upheld against the old texts. L. de Saussure ("Les origines de l'astronomie
chinoise," T`oung-pao 1910, Vol. XI p. 265-288) has already disposed of
it. To his counter-arguments, with which I concur in general, some more
may be added. It is rather surprising that of all the Chinese authors who
have written on the five elements almost nobody refers to Tsou Yen whom
Chavannes believes to have been the first exponent of the Turkish theory
in China. They all go back to the old Chinese sources quoted above. In
the fourth or the fifth centuries B.C. when the Turkish theory must have
found its way into China, the Turkish tribes, Hsiung-nu or Scythians bordering
on the Chinese empire were practically barbarians from whom the Chinese
could not learn much. In the Shi-chi chap. 110 they are described as
nomads without cities who could not write and did not care for the moral
laws. The accounts found in Herodotus Book IV seem to confirm that, at
that early age, the Turkish tribes lived in a very primitive state of culture,
and it is highly improbable that the theory of the interaction of the elements,
supposing a mystical sympathy of all the forces of nature, an attempt at
like the early Turks. To the Chinese mind such sorts of speculations
have been familiar from time immemorial. In ancient times the Turks
most likely received the little culture they had from their neighbours, the
Chinese, and when, subsequently, the Çakas made their incursions into
Bactria and India, from the Greeks and Indians. When, many centuries
later, they went over from Buddhism to the Islam, their language as well
as their civilisation fell under the influence of the Arabs and Persians. They
possessed very little originality, wherefore the invention of the theory of
the five elements cannot well be set down to their credit.
I strongly doubt that at the time of Tsou Yen the Hsiung-nu already
possessed any notion of the elements, which require a more advanced state
of civilisation than theirs was. Their descendants, the Uigurs, know 4
elements, but which? Fire, wind, water, and earth (Kudatku Bilik by H. Vámbéry
p. 75 and 78). They are the same as those of the Greeks and Indians,
and they evidently learned them from these directly or through the Arabs,
as they must have borrowed the seven planets and the twelve signs of the
zodiac from the same source. After deducting these foreign loans, there
remains nothing originally Turkish.
Even if the 4 elements: fire, wind, water, and earth were of Turkish
invention, it would not help us much, for the 4 elements of the soi-disant
semi-Turkish Ch`in dynasty, according to Chavannes, must have been: fire,
well, they embrace two characteristically Chinese elements: wood and metal
unknown in Europe and India.
I should say that the principal passage on which Chavannes bases
his belief in the Turkish origin of the theory of the five elements, admits
of a totally different interpretation than that of the eminent sinologist. The
Emperor Han Kao Tsu expressed his astonishment that in Ch`in only four
heavenly emperors were sacrificed to, since he had heard that there were
five in heaven. (Mém. Hist. Vol. III, p. 449.) In my opinion this means
to say that the emperor knew that before the Ch`in epoch there were five
emperors worshipped under the Chou, and that he simply reverted to the
old custom, changed by the Ch`in, by instituting a sacrifice to the black
emperor, the representative of water.
At first sight the theory of the Five Elements and the classifications
ingrafted thereon may seem strange to us, and one of the many Chinese
peculiarities, but sociology teaches us that similar classifications, though
based on other principles of division, are common all over the world and
among people not connected with one another. Such classifications must,
therefore, be a product of human nature which is more or less the same
everywhere. Consequently, we need not look for a foreign origin of the
Chinese theory.
Most Australian natives divide up the things of the world conformably
to their clans and fraternities, which, each of them, have their special totems.
All things belonging to the same group are allied and, so to say, the same
reality under different forms. Animals of the same class must not be
eaten by their kindred. (E. Durkheim and M. Mauss, De quelques formes
primitives de classifications, in L'Année Sociologique, Paris 1901-02, Vol. 6
p. 17.) The totems are not only animals but also plants, fruits and other
objects. They may be natural phenomena as well, such as wind, water, the
sun, clouds amongst the Aruntas (p. 28 Note 2). With the totem fire are
connected the branches of eucalyptus, the red leaves of the érémophile,
the sounds of trumpets, warmth, love (p. 31).
A tribe of the Sioux in North America has grouped all objects
according to the position occupied by their clans in their camp viz. right,
left, in the front, and in the rear (p. 47).
Another tribe of the North American Indians, the Zuǹis, have taken
the seven directions: north, south, west, east, the zenith, the nadir, and the
centre as the basis for their classifications, and filled them up with all the
things in which they are specially interested. Thus they have the following
equations:
North: wind, winter, the pelican, the crane, the green oak, strength,
destruction, yellow
West: water, spring, moist wind, the bear, the wild dog, vernal
herbs, peace, hunting, blue
South: fire, summer, agriculture, medicine, red
East: earth, seeds, frost, the buck, the antilope, the turkey, magic,
religion, white, &c. (p. 35 seq.).
The Dacotahs have a similar division, but they have lost their clans.
The Australian Wotjoballuk have distributed their clans and their correlates
over thirteen points of the compass (p. 51).
The classifications according to clans and totems appear to be the
more primitive; and those starting from the points of the compass are
probably derived from the grouping of the clans in the camp.
It is owing to the preponderance of astrology amongst the Chaldeans
that with them and their successors, Greeks and Romans, the planets have
become the corner stones of very similar classifications. The Chaldeans
have attributed the following colours to the planets:
Saturn = black, Jupiter = light red, Mars = purple, the Sun = golden,
Venus = white, and Mercury = blue.
Ptolemy gives them somewhat different colours: Saturn = a livid grey,
Jupiter = white, Mars = red, the Sun = golden, Venus = yellow, and Mercury
= changing colours. The scholiasts also differ and only agree in the
colours of Mars (red) and the Sun (golden) (A. Bouché Leclercq, L'Astrologie
Grecque, Paris 1899 p. 313, 314).
In addition to colours, metals, plants, and animals are also classified
under these planets. Thus mercury is the metal of the homonymous planet;
dragons, snakes, foxes, cats, night birds, donkeys, and hares resort from
Saturn; wild beasts, monkeys, pigs, from Mars (p. 317, 318). Moreover
Ptolemy has distributed the parts of the body and the senses among the seven
planets according to the following scheme:
Saturn: the right ear, the bladder, the spleen, the phlegm, the
bones.
Jupiter: the sense of touch, the lungs, the arteries, the semen.
Mars: the left ear, the kidneys, the veins, the testicles.
Sun: the eyes, the brain, the heart, the nerves—all the chief organs.
Venus: the smells exciting love, the liver, the seat of prophecy,
the flesh.
Mercury: the tongue, the gall.
Moon: the taste, the stomach, the womb (p. 321).
This system has undergone a great many modifications at the hands
of later authors, for instance Demophilus and Hermippus.
Proclus teaches that the different spheres of the human spirit correspond
to the spheres of the stars: Fixed stars = intellectual life, Saturn = contemplation,
Jupiter = political and social instincts, Mars = passionateness,
Sun = perceptive faculties, Venus = desires, Mercury = faculty of speech,
Moon = vegetative life (p. 325).
In the middle-ages the Kabbala sets forth various systems of classification
simultaneously. According to the Sepher Iezirah (9th-10th cent. A.D.)
fire is the substance of heaven, water that from which the earth was produced,
and both antagonistic elements are separated by the third element, air.
These Three Elements govern the Three Seasons:—summer, the rainy season,
and the cool season and the Three Parts of the Body:—the head, the breast,
and the belly. This gives the following table:
| 3 Elements | 3 Seasons | 3 Parts of the World |
3 Parts of the Body |
| fire | summer | heaven | head |
| water | rainy season | earth | breast |
| air | cool season | void | belly |
Besides there are the "Seven Double Ones" being partly good and
partly wicked. These are the Seven Planets and corresponding to them the
Seven Days and the Seven Nights of a week, and the Seven Orifices of the Head.
The "Twelve Single Ones" are the Twelve Months combined with the
Twelve Signs of the Zodiac and the Twelve Human Activities: sight, hearing,
smell, touch, speech, nutrition, generation, motion, anger, laughing, thought,
and sleep. (A. Lehmann, Aberglauben und Zauberei, 2nd ed., translated by
Petersen, Stuttgart 1908 p. 145 seq.)
At the end of the middle-ages, these classifications received their
highest development in Europe by the mystic Agrippa von Nettesheim (14561535
A.D.) who in his great work "De occulta philosophia" combined
the Physics of Aristotle, the astronomy of Ptolemy, the New Platonism, and
the Kabbala with his own observations and fanciful ideas. His works and
those of his contemporaries show us that in the beginning of the 16th
century people in Europe were not a whit farther advanced in natural
science than the Chinese philosophers of the Sung epoch or those of today.
Many of the arguments of Agrippa remind us of similar ones of the
Chinese theorists of the Five Elements.
Agrippa maintains that everything is subject to a planet or a constellation.
Thus fire and blood are solar, and the same is said of gold,
and of the precious stones:—pyrope, heliotrope, jasper, emerald, ruby, the
sun-flower, the lotus flower, and the big and audacious animals:—the lion,
the crocodile, the ram, the bull, the phœnix, the eagle, the cock, the raven.
Similar lists are given for all the planets.
Everything on earth is classified according to fixed numbers. Agrippa
has established groups and classes of 1-12 links each, and combined them
to systems, following perhaps the precedent of the Kabbala. As a specimen
I give his table of the Seven Planets:
| In the world of archetypes |
A Sh R A H I H = Asher Eheie | God's name in 7 letters |
||||||
| In the world of ideas |
Zaphkiel | Zadkiel | Chamael | Raphael | Haniel | Michael | Gabriel | 7 angels before God's face |
| In the heavenly world |
Saturn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun | Venus | Mercury | Moon | 7 planets |
| In the elementary world |
whoop | eagle | vulture | swan | pigeon | stork | night-owl | 7 planetary birds |
| cuttle-fish | dolphin | pike | seal | shad-fish | blenny | sea-cat | 7 planetary fish | |
| mole | stag | wolf | lion | ram | monkey | cat | 7 planetary animals | |
| lead | tin | iron | gold | copper | mercury | silver | 7 planetary metals | |
| onyx | sapphire | diamond | pyrope | emerald | agate | crystal | 7 planetary stones | |
| In the world of men |
right foot | head | right hand | heart | pudenda | left hand | left foot | 7 members |
| right ear | left ear | right nostril | right eye | left nostril | mouth | left eye | 7 orifices of the head | |
| In the infernal world |
Gehenna | gate of death |
shadow of death |
well of death |
slough | perdition | abyss | 7 dwellings of the damned |
After this historical and sociological excursion we return to the Chou
period where we left the subject. We possess still more sources dating
from that time, though not classical ones, proving that already then the
table derived from the Liki was still further developed:
The Taoist writer Ho Kuan Tse [OMITTED] (4th cent. B.C.) arranges
the Five Elements according to the position taken by soldiers in a camp,
referring them to the human body, and not to the four quarters. "In
choosing a position, he says, one must take advantage of the ground and
select it according to the Five Elements. Wood is on the left side, metal
on the right, fire in front, water in the rear, and earth in the centre. In
army camps, and in marshalling troops this order must be observed. These
five divisions being well defined, everything may be undertaken with safety."[1935]
This arrangement of the elements agrees with their positions in the four
quarters, if the observer turns his face to the chief quarter, which for the
Chinese is the south. Then fire is in the front or in the south, water in
the rear or in the north, wood on the left side or in the east, metal on
the right side or in the west, and earth, in both cases, remains in the centre.
The Huang Ti su-wên [OMITTED], the oldest work on Chinese medicine
—which Wylie places several centuries before Christ, so that it would be a
relic of the Chou time—devotes several chapters to the theory of the Five
Elements. This theory has remained the basis of all Chinese medicine up
to the present day. As appears from the title of the work, it consists of
questions addressed by Huang Ti to his assistant Ch`i Po [OMITTED]. This, of
course, is fiction.
"Huang Ti asked in what manner cold and heat, dryness and moisture,
wind and fire operated on man, and how they produced the transformations
of all things."[1936]
Ch`i Po replied about the operation of these six atmospherical
influences in the five quarters. For our purpose it suffices to
consider what he says about heat and cold, and their derivates. A strict
parallelism goes through all his deductions:—"The south produces heat,
heat produces fire, fire produces bitterness, bitterness the heart, the heart
blood, and blood the spleen. In heaven it is heat, on earth it is fire, and
in the body, the veins. As a breath it respires, and among the viscera,
it is the heart. Its nature is hot, its quality effulgence, its manifestation
drying up. Its colour is red, its transformation luxuriance, its creatures
the feathered ones, its government enlightenment, its weather sultry, its
sudden change burning, its calamity a conflagration. Its taste is bitter, its
sentiment joy. Joy injures the heart, but fear overcomes joy. Heat injures
but salt overcomes bitterness."[1937]
"The north produces cold, cold produces water, water produces
salt, salt the kidneys, the kidneys produce bones and marrow, the marrow
produces the liver. In heaven it is cold, on earth it is water, and in the
body, the bones. As a breath it is hard, and among the viscera it is the
kidneys. Its nature is glacial, its quality cold, and its manifestation . . . . . . . .[1938]
Its colour is black, its transformation frost, its creatures are the shell-covered,
its government is quiet, its weather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , its sudden change
is freezing, its calamity ice and hailstones. Its taste is salt, its sentiment
fear. Fear injures the kidneys, but desire overcomes fear. Cold injures
the blood, but dryness overcomes cold. Salt injures the blood, but sweetness
overcomes salt."[1939]
Ch`i Po winds up by saying, "The Five Fluids come forward in turn,
and each of them takes precedence once. When they do not keep in
their proper spheres, there is disaster; when they do, everything is well
ordered."[1940]
The Huang Ti su-wên adds some more categories to those given by
the Liki: the 5 styles of government [OMITTED]:—Relaxation, enlightenment,
carefulness, energy, and quietude,[1941]
the 5 impulses [OMITTED]:—anger, joy, desire,
sorrow, and fear,[1942]
and the 5 constituent parts of the body [OMITTED]:—muscles,
same as those of the Liki, but their sequence is different, and in each class,
in addition to the principal intestine, a secondary one is introduced, viz.
every secondary one is the principal intestine of the next class.
As to the theory of the Five Elements, the medical work agrees with
the Shuking and the Tso-chuan whose general hints it specifies. It distinguishes
three spheres of the elements, which in each of them appear
in different forms, the spheres of heaven, of earth, and of man, just as
Agrippa has seven spheres. The original form of the elements is that of the
Six Fluids or atmospheric influences:—cold and heat, dryness and moisture,
wind and fire.[1944]
They produce the five elements on earth, but in combining
each element with a fluid the author drops fire. All the other diverse
forms of the elements are the result of constant transformations, which to
us appear very strange. How can fire produce bitterness, bitterness the heart,
the heart blood, and blood the spleen? The qualities and manifestations
of the elements described in the work are more in accordance with nature.
But what does it mean that "fear injures the kidneys, but desire
overcomes fear. Cold injures the blood, but dryness overcomes cold. Salt
injures the blood, but sweetness overcomes salt," and the like passages
under the other heads? These are merely equations deducted from the
theory of the antagonism of the elements, and seem to be the basis for
the medical treatment of the parts of the body. We know that fear may
affect the kidneys, and that a strong desire may vanquish fear. The last
conclusion, however, the Chinese theorist probably did not draw from
practice, but from the premisses that desire corresponds to earth, and fear
to water. Consequently, earth overcoming water, desire must vanquish fear
likewise. In the same manner cold (water) injures the blood (fire), and
dryness (metal) again overcomes cold (water), not directly, it is true, but
indirectly, for metal overcomes wood, wood earth, and earth water. Moreover
salt (water) injures the blood (fire), but sweetness (earth) vanquishes salt (water).
The new classes of the Huang Ti su-wên are thus grouped:
| 5 Fluids [OMITTED] |
5 Elements [OMITTED] |
5 Parts of Body [OMITTED] |
5 Intestines [OMITTED] |
5 Impulses [OMITTED] |
5 Styles of Government [OMITTED] |
| wind | wood | muscles | liver (heart) | anger | relaxation |
| heat | fire | veins (blood) | heart (spleen) | joy | enlightenment |
| moisture | earth | flesh | spleen (lungs) | desire | carefulness |
| dryness | metal | skin and hair | lungs (kidneys) | sorrow | energy |
| cold | water | bones (marrow) | kidneys (liver) | fear | quietude |
Each element preponderates during one season, and, while so doing,
it may be well balanced and have its proper quantity, it may be excessive
or deficient. Excess and deficiency both entail calamities affecting the
vegetation and human body. In the latter case we have all kinds of
diseases and maladies. All these states are minutely described, and still
more categories added. Each element in its proper state of equilibrium
is said to be governed by a part of the body different from those already
mentioned: the eye, the tongue, the mouth, &c. Moreover it is connected
with two sorts of fruit, a fleshy and a not fleshy—wood for instance with
a plum and a nut—and with a domestic animal like the dog, the horse, &c.
Even in its felicitous state each element has a special sickness assigned to
it:—palpitations and convulsions belong to fire, coughing to metal, constipation
to earth. The classes of the Liki are again ascribed to the elements well
balanced, but not in the proper order. Thus e. g. wood is combined with
hemp, the hairy creatures, and the liver; fire has as correlates:—wheat,
feathered creatures, and the heart.
In case a ruling element be excessive or insufficient, two or more
things of the same sort are made to correspond to it, whereas as a rule
there is only one. There may be two fruits, two animals, two colours,
two tastes corresponding to one element; even three are combined, probably
to show the irregularity of the ruling element. At the same time the Five
Planets are introduced as correlates of the elements, mostly two or three
connected with one element. Thus we find Jupiter and Venus in connection
with excessive wood, Mars and Mercury combined with excessive fire,
Venus and Mars together with insufficient wood, and Mars, Mercury, and
Saturn together with insufficient fire.
All irregularities of the elements entail a great variety of diseases.
Whenever wood is superabundant, earth and the spleen have to suffer.
This leads to pains in the limbs, flatulency, diarhœa, and vomiting. A
scarcity of wood is accompanied by pains of the ribs and the stomach,
by coughs and catarrhs, eruptions, scarlatina, sores and ulcers. A scarcity
of fire causes pains in the breast, the back, the shoulders, the arms, the
heart, rhumatism, cramps, paralysis of the legs, dumbness, swooning, &c.
Whereas the Huang Ti su-wên insists upon the effects of the irregularities
of the elements upon man, the philosopher Kuan Tse [OMITTED] of
the 5th century B.C. attempts to show how natural events, connected with
the elements, are influenced by the government of the emperor. We must
bear in mind that the work passing under Kuan Tse's name and forming
part of the collection of the Ten Philosophers [OMITTED], contains many later
additions and is only partly genuine. But the style of the chapters on
the Four Seasons [OMITTED] and the Five Elements [OMITTED] which interest
us most, is rather archaic, and they may well be old.
"Yin and Yang," says Kuan Tse, "are the great principles of heaven
and earth, and the Four Seasons are the warp in the web of Yin and
Their conformity to the seasons brings about happiness, their discrepancy
leads to misfortune."[1946] (Kuan Tse XIV, 7 r.) Then Kuan Tse proceeds to
describe the seasons in a similar way as the Liki does, but, whereas the
Liki distinguishes but Four Seasons, earth having no special one and belonging
to all, Kuan Tse gives Five Seasons,[1947] each lasting 72 days. Besides he
joins a special heavenly body to every quarter:—the centre corresponds to
the earth, the south to the sun, the north to the moon, the east to the stars,
and the west to the zodiacal signs.[1948] For each of the Four Seasons five
administrative measures [OMITTED] are prescribed, the carrying out of which
ensures felicity, whereas their omission or change is fraught with disaster.
In the opinion of one commentator each season would have counted 90
days, and to each of the five administrative measures 18 days would have
been allotted. Thus our author says in regard to winter:
"In the three winter months, on the jên-kuei[1949]
days five administrative
measures are carried out. The first is providing for orphans and destitute
persons and succouring the old and the aged; the second is conforming
to the Yin, preparing the sacrifices for the spirits, bestowing titles and
emoluments, and conferring ranks; the third is verifying accounts, and not
to exploit the treasures of mountains and rivers; the fourth is rewarding
those who seize runaway criminals and arrest robbers and thieves; the
fifth is prohibiting the moving about of the people, stopping their wanderings,
and preventing their settling in other parts of the empire.[1950]
If these five
measures are taken at the proper time, so that the affairs of winter are
not take place."[1951]
Kuan Tse then proceeds to show how an emperor should act conformably
to the Four Seasons:
"If plants wither in spring and blossom in autumn, if it thunders
in winter, and there is frost and snow in summer, all this is harm caused
by the fluids. If regarding rewards and punishments the periods are
changed, and the natural order is confounded, then injurious fluids quickly
arrive, and, upon their arrival, the State is visited with many disasters.
Therefore a wise emperor observes the seasons and accordingly regulates
his administration. He provides education and makes his warlike preparations,
offers sacrifices and thereby establishes virtue. It is by these three
things that a wise emperor puts himself into harmony with the movement
of heaven and earth."[1952]
"The sun governs the Yang, the moon the Yin, the stars govern
harmony. Yang produces rewards, Yin punishments,[1953]
and harmony makes
business possible. Consequently when there is an eclipse of the sun,[1954]
a
State that has failed in its rewards is to be blamed for it. When there
is an eclipse of the moon,[1955]
a State that has failed in its punishments is
responsible. When a comet puts in an appearance, a State that has lost
harmony is guilty, and when wind fights with the sun for brightness, a
State that has failed in productiveness is answerable.[1956]
Wherefore, at an
moon, he improves punishments; when a comet becomes visible, he improves
harmony, and when wind and sun fight together, he improves production.
By these four measures the wise emperor avoids the punishments of heaven
and earth."[1957]
The disasters which may befall a sovereign not conforming to the
seasons in his administration are thus described:
"When we see the cyclical sign chia-tse[1958]
arrive, the element wood
begins its reign. If the son of heaven does not bestow favours or grant
rewards and, contrariwise, extensively allows cutting, destroying, and
wounding,[1959]
then the sovereign is in danger, and should he not be killed,
then the heir-apparent would be in danger, and some one of his family
or his consort would die, or else his eldest son would lose his life. After
72 days this period is over. When we see the cyclical sign ping-tse arrive,
the element fire begins its reign. In case the son of heaven be anxious
to take hurried and hasty measures,[1960]
an epidemic would be caused by a
drought,[1961]
plants would die, and the people perish by it. After 72 days
this period is over. When we see the sign wu-tse arrive, the element earth
begins its reign. If the son of heaven builds palaces or constructs kiosques,
the sovereign is in danger, and if without city walls are built,[1962]
his ministers
die. After 72 days this period is over. When we see the sign kêng-tse
arrive, the element metal begins its reign. Should the son of heaven attack
and his soldiers die, and he would lose his sway. After 72 days this
period is over. When we see the sign jên-tse arrive, the element water
begins its reign. If the son of heaven cuts the dykes and sets the great
floods in motion, his empress or his consort die, or else the eggs of birds
become addled, the hairy young are miscarried, and pregnant women have
an abortion. Plants and trees are spoiled in the roots. After 72 days
this period is over."[1964]
Among the authors of the Han time Huai Nan Tse and Tung Chung
Shu, both of the 2nd century B.C., have written more or less systematically
on the theory of the Five Elements, to which several chapters of their
chief works are devoted. Liu Hsiang in the 1st century B.C. emposed the
Wu-hsing-chih [OMITTED], a treatise on the Five Elements which has not
come down to us. Pan Ku of the 1st century A.D. discourses at some length
on the subject in his Po-hu-t`ung. Afterwards it was taken up by a
great many writers and forms an important part of the disquisitions of
the philosophers of the Sung dynasty.
We are now going to consider the results at which these writers
and their predecessors have arrived.
I. Various terms for the Elements:
The modern work Chang-huang t`u-shu pien[1965]
states that in the Yiking
the Five Elements are named [OMITTED] Wu-wei, Five Positions,[1966]
in historical
works [OMITTED] Wu-tsai, Five Materials, in chronicles or essays [OMITTED] Wu-wu,
Five Things, and in medical works [OMITTED] Wu-yün, Five Revolutions.
Mayers (Manual p. 313) gives some more terms: [OMITTED] Wu-chieh, Five
Fluids. They are descriptive of the elements under various aspects, as
substances formed of matter, as fluids or vapours, as moving and revolving,
or as keeping certain positions. But by far the commonest expression is
[OMITTED] Wu-hsing, on the meaning of which the Chinese and foreign authorities
are agreed. [OMITTED] hsing is "to act" and "to move," the Wu-hsing
are, therefore, the five essences which are always active and in motion.
Mayers (loc. cit.) calls them the primordial essences or perpetually active
principles of nature. The term is all but equivalent to [OMITTED] Wu-yün,
the Five Revolutions.
The utterances of the Yiking are very obscure and I doubt whether they
really refer to the elements.
II. What are the Five Elements?
The designation Wu-hsing goes back to the Shuking and implies that
at these remote times the elements were conceived already as ever active
essences, which again supposes the existence of some sort of a theory
devised to explain the phenomena of nature. In the most ancient description
of the elements contained in the Shuking (cf. above p. 433) they are considered
from the physical point of view as natural substances:—water has
the tendency of descending and soaking other stuffs, fire that of rising and
blazing; wood is characterised as crooked and straight, which seems to
refer to the appearance of the branches of trees; metal is said to be yielding
and changing, which is only true of metal in a liquid state; earth is not
described any further, and its nature found in its generative and productive
power. At all events, the authors of the Classic had not some metaphysical
entities in view, but the substances usually understood by the names:—
water, fire, wood, metal, and earth.
As to the impressions produced by these elements upon our senses
and resulting in the categories of colours, sounds, tastes, and smells, the
Shuking concerns itself with tastes only:—Water becomes salt, fire bitter,
wood sour, metal acrid, and cereals, the produce of earth, sweet. Of
course pure water is not salt, but tasteless, yet, as the commentators remark,
it becomes salt in the ocean, a wrong notion. Fire we would rather
describe as burning than bitter, and wood as bitter instead of sour. The
acrid taste of metals and the sweet one of cereals, such as rice and millet,
may pass. It is difficult now to say which considerations led the ancient
Chinese to attribute just these tastes to the five elements. Since the five
tastes are always given in the series:—salt, bitter, sour, acrid, sweet, it is
not impossible that the ancients merely coupled them with the five elements
of the Shuking in the same order, without any regard to their natural
relations.
In the same superficial manner the five colours:—black, red, green, white,
and yellow may have been connected with the five elements, although the
correspondencies have been explained:—Fire may well be described as red,
though yellow would seem more appropriate. Wood appears green at
least outwardly in plants and trees, whereas inwardly it is mostly white
be said to be white. Earth is not yellow in most countries, but it was
so in the loess regions in Honan and Shansi where the Chinese were first
settled. How can water be called black, however, a colour it almost never
shows? It seems to refer to the Yin fluid preponderating in winter, the
time of the element water. Yang is light and sunshine, Yin darkness, Yang,
day-time, and Yin, night. These correspondencies are universally accepted,
but I met with one exception in the `Family Sayings of Confucius' [OMITTED]
[OMITTED][1967] chap. VI p. 1, from which we learn that the Hsia dynasty
reigned by the virtue of metal and of the colours most appreciated black,
the Yin dynasty reigned by water and appreciated white, the Chou by wood
with the red colour. Yao's element was fire, and his colour yellow, Shun's
element earth, and his colour green. These different combinations of elements
and colours show the arbitrariness of the whole scheme. It is impossible
to find one colour for each element, because each embraces many species
with different colours:—Water may appear pellucid, white, green, blue, red,
yellow, grey, black; earth may be black, brown, yellow, red, blue, white,
&c.;[1968] and so different substances burn with different lights. Therefore to
ascribe one colour to each element cannot but be arbitrary.
The Zuñis of North America have no elements,[1969]
but they have attributed
certain colours to their seven points of the compass. Their reasons for
doing so are not very convincing either:—The North is yellow, because at
sunrise and sunset the sunlight appears yellow. The West is blue, the
colour of the evening light. The East is white, the colour of day, the
South red, because it is the seat of summer and of the red fire. The
Zenith is multicoloured like the clouds, the Nadir black, and the Centre
has all colours. (Année Sociologique Vol. VI, p. 35 seq.)
Of the Five Smells only burning and fragrant seem to refer to the
corresponding elements fire and earth (cereals). Goatish, rank, and rotten
have nothing to do with wood, metal, and water. They probably apply
to the Five Animals joined to these elements:—the sheep (goat) dog, and pig.
On the principle by which the Five Sounds have been combined with
the elements I am unable to express any opinion.
Kuan Yin Tse[1970]
has amplified the statement of the Shuking about the
rising and descending of fire and water:—"That which rises, he says, is
cannot, is wood; and that which would like to descend, but cannot, is
metal."[1971] This depicts fairly well the tendency of plants of growing up
and that of metals of sinking down. These tendencies, however, are
restricted and less free than those of fire and water which, endowed with
a greater agility as air and fluid, can follow their propensities and rise
and fall.
The Chang huang t`u-shu pien makes an attempt to distinguish between
the different forms of the elements:—water is level, fire is pointed, earth
round, wood crooked and straight, and metal square.[1972]
These are indead the
forms under which these substances often appear to us. Whereas water
shows a level surface, a flame rises and seems pointed. Clods of earth
are more or less round, and ore has often angular and square shapes.
The description of wood as crooked and straight is taken from the Shuking.
It is but natural that the Chinese should have connected their Five
Elements with the two principles of nature established by their old philosophers,
the Yin and Yang, and derived them therefrom. Tung Shung
Shu says in his Ch`un-ch`iu fan-lu XIII, 5 v. that the fluid of Heaven and
Earth united is one. But it splits into Yin and Yang, becomes divided into
the Four Seasons, and separated into the Five Elements.[1973]
Yin and Yang,
which we may here translate by cold and heat, are the primogenial essences
from which the Five Elements are produced in the following way:—Water
has its seat in the north which is governed by the Yin fluid. Wood is
placed in the east which is likewise under the sway of the Yin, but the
Yang begins to move already. Fire occupies the south where the Yang
reaches its climax. Metal rests in the west, and is governed by the Yang,
but the Yin begins to stir. Consequently "Fire is Yang, it is noble and
therefore rises; water is Yin, it is mean and therefore goes down; wood
is a scanty Yang, and metal a scanty Yin."[1974]
(Pan Ku`s Po-hu-t`ung II, 1.)
The idea is quite clear, if we take into consideration the Four Seasons
with which the elements are combined. In summer ruled by fire, Yang =
when wood and metal are paramount, Yin and Yang, heat and cold fight
together, so that one may speak of a scanty Yang or an incomplete Yin.
The element earth which does not well agree with the Four Seasons is
left out by Pan Ku.
Later authors have gone more into details. Tse Hua Tse (Sung dynasty)
characterises fire as an abundant Yang [OMITTED], and water as an abundant
Yin [OMITTED], wood as a scanty Yang [OMITTED], metal as a scanty Yin [OMITTED],
and earth as sometimes Yin and sometimes Yang.
"The Yang in the Yang is fire, he says, the Yin in the Yin is water,
the Yin in the Yang is wood, the Yang in the Yin is metal. Earth keeps
in the middle between the two essences and thus governs the four quarters:—
in the Yin it is Yin, and in the Yang it is Yang."[1975]
(Tse Hua Tse II, 11 v.)
"In the north the extreme Yin resides. It produces cold, and cold
engenders water. In the south the extreme Yang resides, which produces
heat, and heat produces fire. In the east the Yang is set in motion. It
disperses and calls forth wind, which again produces wood. In the west
the Yin stops and gathers. It thus causes dryness, which produces metal.
In the centre the Yin and the Yang mix and produce moisture which
engenders earth."[1976]
In other words fire is considered to be Yang throughout, Yang in
Yang, i. e., an unalloyed Yang; water, a pure and genuine Yin. Wood
is also Yang, but with an admixture of Yin; metal is Yin, but with an
alloy of Yang. Earth may be both.
Chu Hsi and his school take a somewhat different view. They look
upon the Five Elements as created by Heaven and Earth alternately, Heaven
and Earth thus taking the place of the Yin and the Yang. "Heaven first
creates water, Earth secondly creates fire, Heaven thirdly creates wood,
Earth fourthly creates metal."[1977]
This idea seems to have originated from
an obscure passage of the Yiking believed to refer to the Five Elements.[1978]
who says that water is the extreme Yin, but it requires Heaven to co-operate
before it can be produced. Yin alone without Yang cannot produce it.
Fire is the extreme Yang, but it likewise requires the co-operation of Earth
to come into existence. And so it is with all the Five Elements, they all
cannot be created, unless the Yin and the Yang are both at work. When
the Yang is added to the Yin, water, wood, and earth come forth, and
when the Yin is added to the Yang, fire and metal are produced.[1979]
About the creation of the elements and their nature Chu Hsi further
asserts that by the joint action of Yin and Yang water and fire are first
produced. Both are fluids flowing, moving, flashing, and burning. Their
bodies are still vague and empty, and they have no fixed shape. Wood
and metal come afterwards. They have a solid body. Water and fire are
produced independently, wood and metal need earth as a substratum from
which they issue.[1980]
Heaven and Earth first generate the light and pure
essences, water and fire, afterwards the heavy and turbid ones, wood,
metal and earth. The last is the heaviest of all. As to their density,
water and fire are shapeless and unsubstantial fluids, fire, hot air in the
atmosphere, wood is a soft substance, metal a hard one.
Chou Tse, a predecessor of Chu Hsi, gives still another formula for
the elements:—water is the moist fluid in the Yang, fire, the dry fluid in
the Yin, wood, the moist fluid in the Yang, but expanded, metal, the dry
fluid in the Yin contracted, earth the Yin and the Yang blended and condensed,
so as to become a substance. Yang and Yin, heat and cold are allotted to
the Five Elements in the same manner as by Chu Hsi, but as a secondary
constituent we have moisture and dryness. These are the same principles
from which Aristotle has evolved his Four Elements:—earth, water, fire,
and air. The Chinese have become acquainted with his theory by the
geographical work K`un-yü t`u-shuo [OMITTED] written by the Jesuit
father Verbiest about the end of the 17th century and cited by the
T`u-shu chi-ch`êng. According to the Aristotelian theory dryness and cold
produce earth, moisture and cold produce water, moisture and heat
give air, and dryness and heat give fire.[1981]
The result arrived at by
cold (Yin and Yang). His water consists of moisture and heat (Yang) instead
of cold, and his fire, of dryness and cold (Yin) instead of heat. The
Aristotelian view appears more natural than that of Chou Tse who is under
the spell of the Yiking. Perhaps Tse Hua Tse agrees with the Greek philosopher,
for his above mentioned dictum that fire is the Yang in the Yang,
and water the Yin in the Yin may be understood to mean that fire is dryness
in heat, and water, moisture in the cold, Yang denoting heat as well as
dryness and Yin cold and moisture.
A work dating from the 3rd cent. A.D. I doubt whether this chapter [OMITTED]
treating of the Five Elements really goes back to Confucius, since he is made to
say that he was informed about the elements by Lao Tse.
That is to say, they have not conceived the idea of the elements, but
ascribe the single ones to the four quarters like the Chinese:—Wind belongs to the
North, water to the West, fire to the South, and earth to the East.
[OMITTED], a Taoist author, but the work bearing his name, is believed
to be a production of the T`ang or the following minor dynasties, 618-960 A.D.
[OMITTED]
[OMITTED] In another chapter the same author gives
[OMITTED] as the shapes of the elements. [OMITTED] "straight" seems to
stand for "level," and [OMITTED] "crooked" alone for "straight and crooked," the shape
of wood.
III. Fluids, Substances, and Seasons.
Originally the elements were not combined with the Seasons. The
fact that there always have been Five Elements, but Four Seasons, and
that our oldest sources do not allude to such a connexion, tells against it.
On the other side, the term "Wu-hsing" makes it plain that the Five
Elements were conceived already in times immemorial as something more
than simple substances. From the passage of the Tso-chuan where the
elements are mentioned together with the heavenly fluids, which become
the Five Tastes, the Five Colours and the Five Sounds, and even manifest
themselves in human affections (cf. p. 436) we may gather that, at a very
early date, the elements were identified with the heavenly fluids or atmospherical
influences. These are in the Shuking:—rain, sunshine, heat, cold,
and wind. They again, I presume, formed the link with the Four Seasons,
which in the opinion of the Chinese, who did not know the real cause
of the seasons, are the result of the regular changes of the heavenly fluids.
In the Liki elements and seasons are linked together already. Kuan Tse,
XIV, 7 seq. asserts that wind produces wood, the Yang fluid fire, the Yin
fluid metal, and cold, water. Earth has no special fluid.
The Sung philosophers were the first clearly to point out the difference
of substances [OMITTED] and fluids [OMITTED]. Substances are produced, says Chou Tse,
by the interaction and coagulation of the Yin and the Yang, whereas the
Fluids are the regular revolutions of these two primary essences.[1982]
T`sai
Ch`ên [OMITTED], a disciple of Chu Hsi, holds that in heaven the Five Elements
are the Five Fluids:—rain, sunshine, heat, cold, and wind, and on earth
the Five Substances:—water, wood, fire, metal, earth. Of the Five Heavenly
Fluids rain and sunshine are the substances, which seems to imply that
they are more substantial than heat, cold, and wind—and of the Five Substances
of Earth water and fire are the fluids—possessing more the nature of
fluids than of substances, a view held by Chu Hsi also, as we have seen above.[1983]
roots in the earth, and that the fluids revolve in heaven. The latter
generate, the former complete all organisms,[1984] i. e., the fluids give the first
impulse to every new creation and the substances complete it. It may
not be out of place to point out that the afore-mentioned Agrippa puts
forward quite similar ideas. The elements in the lower worlds he declares
to be coarser and more material, whereas in the higher spheres they
appear only as forces or qualities. (Lehmann, Aberglaube p. 198.)
This view has again been modified, all elements being held to be
compounded of substance and fluid. There is a difference between the
various elements insomuch as they are more substantial or more etherial.
"Fire and water have much fluid and little substance, wherefore they
were produced first. Metal and wood have much substance and little fluid,
and for this reason were created later. In earth substance and fluid are
equally balanced, consequently it came after water and fire, but preceded
metal and wood."[1985]
"The fluid of water is Yang, its substance Yin. The nature of Yin
is procreative, therefore water produces wood. The fluid of fire is Yin,
its substance Yang. Since the nature of Yang is burning and destructive,
fire cannot produce metal. As regards earth, its fluid is Yang and its
substance Yin. Consequently it makes use of the Yang of fire to produce
the Yin of metal."[1986]
Here we have again the mysticism of the Yiking.
Fire and earth together produce metal, and water and earth combined
produce wood. In both cases earth is indispensable. When wood produces
fire, and metal, water, earth is not required.
Regarded as the ultimate causes of the seasons the elements were
also invested with the qualities which, properly speaking, belong to the
seasons alone. These characteristic features of the seasons are, according
to Pan Ku's Po-hu-t`ung:—generating, growing, reaping, and hiding.[1987]
Tung Chung
Shu already gave similar attributes to the elements. Wood, said he, is
the generative nature of spring and the basis of agriculture. Fire is the
the deadly breath of autumn, and water the hiding in winter and the
extreme Yin.[1988]
IV. Transformations of the Elements.
a) In Heaven:—the Celestial Bodies and the Five Planets.
The whole universe, the material as well as the intellectual world
are nothing else than transformations of the Five Elements. The world
has been evolved from the primary essences the Yin and the Yang, of which
the elements are derivates or compounds.
We have seen that Kuan Tse (p. 450) joined the heavenly bodies to
the different quarters:—the earth to the centre, the sun to the south, the
moon to the north, the stars to the east, and the zodiacal signs to the
west. It is natural that the earth should be regarded as the centre of the
universe and the sun be connected with the south, the seat of heat and
light. The moon then had to go to the opposite direction, the north,
where cold and darkness reign. Then the stars had to take the two
remaining quarters, the east and west. We learn from Wang Ch`ung that
in his time not only the sun was regarded as fire, but that the moon also
was believed to consist of water (cf. I, p. 268 and 357). Fire being the
element of the south and water that of the north, the celestial bodies were
believed to be formed of the element belonging to their quarter. The Earth
consists of earth, the element of the centre. Then the stars must be of
wood and the zodiacal constellations, of metal.
But the combination of the Five Planets with the Five Quarters or
the Five Elements is much more common than that of the celestial bodies
in general. Huai Nan Tse III, 3 r. seq. declares the Five Planets:—Jupiter,
Mars, Saturn, Venus, and Mercury[1989]
to be the spirits [OMITTED] of the Five Quarters.
The Shi-chi chap. 27 says that the Five Planets are the elements of the
Five Quarters ruling over the Seasons, e. g., "Mars is said to be the fire
of the south and governs summer"[1990]
(eod. p. 18v.). Of course one may
translate that Mars corresponds to the fire, but the literal translation seems
to me preferable and more in accordance with the materialistic views of
the Chinese to whom Mars, the Fire Star [OMITTED], is made of fire, and
Jupiter, the Wood Star [OMITTED], is made of wood. These characteristic
terms of the Planets are frequently used in the Shi-chi. The Chin-shih
(14th cent. A.D.) distinctly states that in heaven the fluid of the essence
and in man the Five Virtues and the Five Business.[1991] From
another modern treatise we learn that looking up to the Five Planets at
dusk we see their five colours quite clearly, without the least confusion,
because they are the essences of the Five Elements.[1992] Here again we notice
quite analogous conceptions in Agrippa (loc. cit. p. 198), who likewise takes
the planets for products of the elements. Mars and the Sun he pronounces
to be fiery, Jupiter and Venus to be airy, Saturn and Mercury to be watery,
and the Moon to be earthy.
We do not know which consideration led to the connexion of each
element with each planet. Probably it was in the different colours of the
planets that the Chinese imagined they recognised the five colours:—green,
red, yellow, white, and black of the elements. That at dusk we see the
five colours quite distinctly, without the least confusion, as the above quoted
Chinese author would have us believe, is out of the question. The ancients
as well as the moderns are at variance in regard to the colours of the
planets (see above p. 443). There only seems to be some unanimity about
the red colour of Mars and the white one of Venus.
Valens goes so far as to give the reasons why the planets logically
must have the colours which he assigns to them:—Saturn, he says, is
black, because it is Time or Kronos which obscures everything. Jupiter
is radiant, because he cares for glory and honour. Venus shows various
colours owing to the various passions which she excites, and Mercury is
yellow, for he governs the gall which is yellow.[1993]
These arguments are
very queer, but quite in the Chinese way of reasoning, and it would not
be surprising to find them slightly modified, in an ancient Chinese writer.
As we have learned from Huai Nan Tse in the Chou epoch already
the Five Planets were regarded as the spirits of the Five Quarters. As
such they were venerated and named the "Five Emperors." They were
distinguished by their colours as the Green Emperor = Jupiter, the Red
Emperor = Mars, the Yellow Emperor = Saturn, the White Emperor =
Venus, and the Black Emperor = Mercury. (Cf. Shi-chi chap. XXVIII,
Chavannes, Mém. Hist. Vol. III, p. 449).
b) On Earth:—the Inorganic and the Organic Kingdom; Man.
The element earth embraces all kinds of earth and stones; metal,
the various metals; so the entire inorganic kingdom is the outcome of
these two elements. Of water different kinds are distinguished according
the sea, &c. Fire may take its origin from wood, from oil, from stones
or other substances, from lightning, or it may be the glowing of insects,
or a will-o'-the-wisp. The whole flora belongs to the element wood which
includes trees, plants, and flowers. But here we meet with a difficulty.
If all plants are produced by the element wood, how is it that in the
Liki the five kinds of grain:—wheat, beans, millet, &c. are connected with
the Five Elements, and not with wood alone, so that beans correspond
to fire, and millet to water? A Chinese philosopher would probably reply
that all these cereals issue from the element wood, but have an admixture
of one of the other elements. So wheat would be wood in wood, beans
fire in wood, and millet water in wood.
It would be logical, if the whole animal kingdom were classed under
one chief element also, but they are distributed among the Five Elements,
and it is difficult to understand the plan of this division:—The scaly
creatures, fishes, and reptiles e. g., snakes and dragons belong to the element
wood, the shell-covered or crustaceous animals:—turtles, crabs, oysters, &c.
to the element water. The element earth embraces all naked creatures,
among which are found toads, earthworms, silkworms, spiders, eels, and
man. Fire is the element of all feathered animals or birds, and metal,
that of all hairy ones or beasts.[1994]
Consequently the Five Sacrificial Animals:
—sheep, cock, ox, dog, and pig should be looked upon as transformations
of the element metal save the cock corresponding to fire, but the Liki
makes them correspond to all the Five Elements, and we would again have
combinations of two elements:—metal and wood = sheep, metal and
earth = ox, &c.
Here the views of Agrippa von Nettesheim (loc. cit. p. 198) are very
instructive. He teaches us that from the Four Elements of Aristotle issue
the four principal divisions of nature:—stones, metals, plants, and animals.
Each of these groups consists of all the elements combined, but one predominates.
Stones are earthy, metals watery, because they can be liquified
and by the Alchimists are declared to be the products of living metallic
water (mercury), plants depend upon air, and animals upon fire, their
vital force.
Among stones which as such are earthy, the opaque ones are earthy,
the pellucid ones and crystal which have been secreted from water, are
watery, those swimming on water like sponges are airy, and those produced
by fire like flints and asbestus are fiery. Lead and silver are earthy,
mercury is watery, copper and tin are airy, and iron and gold are fiery.
As regards animals, vermin and reptiles belong to earth, fish to
water, and birds to the air. All animals with great warmth or with a
fiery colour such as pigeons, ostriches, lions and those breathing fire, belong
to this element. But in each animal the different parts of its body belong
breath to fire, and the humours to earth.
Man is treated in the same manner by the Chinese. As the foremost
among the three hundred and sixty naked creatures (cf. Vol. I, p. 528,
Note 2) he belongs to the element earth, but the parts of his body and
his moral qualities are connected with the different elements and produced
by them. From the Liki and the Huang Ti su-wên (p. 448) we have learned
the correspondencies of the Five Constituent Parts of the body:—muscles,
veins, flesh, skin and hair, and bones, and of the Five Intestines with the
elements. An inner reason for this classification is difficult to discover,
but there has certainly been one, although it may not tally with our ideas
of a scientific classification.
The transition of the Five Elements from the material into the spiritual
world is by some writers believed to be a direct one, whereas others see
in the parts of the human body the connecting links. Chu Yung of the
Sung period informs us that the Five Elements are the Five Organs of
the human body, and that the fluids correspond to the Five Intestines.[1995]
The Five Organs are the ear, the eye, the nose, the mouth, and the body
serving to produce the five sensations. Wang Ch`ung (Vol. I, p. 194 and 381)
is of opinion that the Five Virtues are closely connected with the Five
Intestines which are their necessary substrata. By a destruction of these
inner parts of the body the moral qualities of man are destroyed as well.
According to this view the elements appear as moral qualities only after
having been transmuted into parts of the human body. Other writers
assume a direct process of transformation. We have seen the Chin-shih
maintaining that in heaven the fluid of the Five Elements becomes the
Five Planets, on earth the Five Substances, and in man the Five Virtues
and the Five Businesses (above p. 462). The Taoist T`an Ch`iao (10th cent.)
also merely states that the Five Virtues are the Five Elements, setting
forth the following classification:—"Benevolence is equivalent to fostering
and growing, therefore it rules through wood. Justice means assistance
of those in need, therefore it rules through metal. Propriety is enlightenment,
whence it rules through fire. Wisdom denotes pliability, whence is rules
through water, and faith is the same as uprightness, wherefore it rules
through earth."[1996]
The reasoning is rather weak, but we find the same
distribution of the Five Virtues in the following list of the Sung school of
and the Huang Ti su-wên given above is not to be wondered at, since in
reality the elements have nothing to do with moral qualities, and the
supposed relations are pure imagination:
| 5 Elements | 5 Parts of Body |
5 Intestines | 5 Souls[1998] | 5 Senses[1999] | 5 Impulses | 5 Virtues |
| wood | muscles | liver | mind | smell | joy | benevolence |
| fire | hair | heart | spirit | vision | gaity | propriety |
| earth | flesh | spleen | reason | touch | desire | faith |
| metal | bones | lungs | animal soul | taste | anger | justice |
| water | skin | kidneys | vitality | hearing | sorrow | wisdom |
We have seen above (p. 443) how Ptolemy joined the parts of the
body and the senses to the seven planets, and how Proclus made the different
spheres of the human mind correspond to the spheres of the stars. In
this respect they were only the successors of the Chaldeans and Egyptians,
who first connected the parts of the human body with the twelve signs
of the zodiac. A human body was thought extended over the vault of
heaven, its head resting on Aries. Then its neck lay on Taurus, its
shoulders and arms on Gemini, the breast on Cancer, the flanks on Leo,
the stomach and the bladder on Virgo, the buttocks on Libra, the genitals
on Scorpio, the thighs on Sagittarius, the knees on Capricorn, the legs
on Aquarius, and the feet on Pisces. In the Kabbala the three elements,
fire, water, and air were combined with the three parts of the body:—the
head, the breast, and the belly. The Seven Planets correspond to the
Seven Orifices of the Head, and the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac to the
Twelve Human Activities (p. 444). These ideas were taken up by Agrippa
as appears from his table (p. 445). A similar scheme was in vogue among
the Central American Mayas. (Cf. P. Carus, Chinese Thought, 1907, p. 87.)
The Chinese do not lay much stress upon the relation between the parts
of the human body and the planets, but it exists, since the planets are
nothing else than manifestations of the Five Elements in the celestial sphere,
the parts of the body, its sensations, feelings, and moral qualities being
manifestations of the same elements in the human sphere.
V. Local and Numerical Relations of the Elements.
It has been shown that at a very early date the Five Elements were
referred to the Four Seasons, a fact evidenced by the Tso-chuan and the
Liki. It is not difficult to guess—strict proofs we have not—how the elements
were assigned to the seasons. Fire could only be joined to the
water, considered as the extreme Yin and the product of cold,
had to be combined with the coldest and darkest season, winter. Wood
could serve to symbolise the new growing of the vegetation in spring,
and metal the cutting of the cereals and other plants, used by man, in
autumn. For earth there was no special season first.
The obvious analogy between the Four Seasons and the Four Quarters
then led to the connexion of the elements with the Four Points of the
Compass. Within the space of a Year the four seasons: spring, summer,
autumn, and winter follow one another, and during one day the sun
successively passes from the east through the south and the west to the
north, to begin the same course on the following morning. What more
natural than the equation:
| wood, | fire, | metal, | water | = | east, | south, | west, | north. |
| spring | summer | autumn | winter |
in summer, and in the south the sun is hottest, summer being the season,
and the south the region of the greatest heat; in autumn, and when the
sun is in the west its heat decreases; in winter, and in the north the heat
is gone, and we then arrive at the cold season and the region of cold.
Here we have a seat for earth also viz. the centre, so that the Five Elements
correspond to the Five Points. Our point of observation is the centre,
and we have earth under our feet. The south is filled with the element
fire, the north with water, whereas wood permeates the east, and metal
the west. Facing the south, the chief direction according to the Chinese
view, we have fire in the front and water in the rear, wood on our left,
metal on our right side, and earth in the centre where we stand. These
positions, first assigned, to the elements by Ho Kuan Tse (p. 446) are merely
derived from their combinations with the Five Points.
The Four Quarters or, more correctly speaking, the Four Quadrants
of Heaven, [OMITTED] Sse-kung, have been symbolised by four fancy animals:—
the Green Dragon in the east, the Scarlet Bird in the south, the White
Tiger in the west, and the Black Warrior or the Black Tortoise in the north,
to which Huai Nan Tse still adds the Yellow Dragon corresponding to the
centre.[2000]
Each of these four animals embraces seven of the twenty-eight
Constellations or Solar Mansions. We find the same names in the Shi-chi
chap. 27 (Chavannes, Mém. Hist. Vol. III, p. 343 seq.) and in the Lun-hêng
Vol. I, p. 106 and 534.[2001]
Wang Ch`ung seems to regard them as heavenly
spirits formed of the fluids of the Five Elements and as constellations at
the same time. Pan Ku likewise speaks of the essence of these animals,
but instead of the Scarlet Bird he gives the Yellow Thrush and the Phœnix.[2002]
in these constellations and took them for celestial animals imbued
with the fluids of the four elements:—wood, fire, metal, and water, for the
Yellow Dragon of Huai Nan Tse belongs to the earth and is no constellation.
The classes as well as the colours of these four animals harmonise
with those of the Liki. The dragon is a scaly animal, the scarlet bird
feathered, the tiger hairy, and the tortoise shell-covered, and their colours
are green, red, white, and black like wood, fire, metal, and water. The
yellow colour of the thrush and that of the phœnix or argus pheasant
though not red, would still accord more or less with the colour of fire.
From the Tso-chuan and the Liki onward the Ten Stems or cyclical signs
of the cycle of ten have been combined with the elements. The principle
has been explained above (p. 452, note 2). To distinguish each of the
Five Seasons of 72 days governed by one element, a couple of these signs,
as they follow one another in the regular series, are used. The days are
numbered by means of the sexagenary cycle, and each Season or element
is designated by the two Stems beginning the compound number of the
first and second day of the season. The two first days of spring are
chia-tse and yi-ch`ou,[2003]
therefore the whole season and its element wood
have the cyclical signs chia and yi. The first and the second days of
summer are after the sexagenary cycle a ping-tse and a ting-ch`ou[2004]
day,
therefore the whole season of summer and its element fire are connected
with the Stems ping and ting. The second characters of the component
numbers belonging to the Twelve Branches, tse and ch`ou, are left out of
account. So the Ten Stems:—chia yi (wood-spring), ping ting (fire-summer),
wu chi (earth- latter part of summer), kêng hsin (metal-autumn),
jên kuei (water-winter) serve to denote the commencements of the seasons
or the periods when each element begins its reign; they are time marks
so to say.
In the Liki only the Ten Stems are thus used, Huai Nan Tse, moreover,
conformably to the method alluded to in the Tso-chuan, joins a couple
of the Twelve Branches to the Five Elements. Their meaning is quite
different, they are local marks showing the point of the compass where
the respective element is located, for the Chinese denote the Four Quarters
and their subdivisions by means of these Branches. According to the position
of the elements, the Branches designating the east, south, west, and
north points and the intermediary points nearest to these, are added to
them. So we have: wood = yin mao, E.N.E and East;
fire = sse wu, S.S.E and South;
metal = shên yu, W.S.W and West;
water = hai tse, N.N.W and North.
With good reason Huai Nan Tse III, 17 v. leaves out earth, on the
ground that it belongs to all the four seasons. Earth being in the centre
cannot well be combined with a sign connoting a point of the compass
on the periphery. Later authors have done it all the same. Tai T`ing Huai[2005]
attributes to earth the four remaining cyclical signs:—shên, hsü, ch`ou, and
wei[2006]
viz. E.S.E, W.N.W, N.N.E, S.S.W. If this has any sense at all, it can
only mean that earth is to be found in every direction, approximately denoted
by the four characters. In Couvreur's Table only the signs ch`ou
and wei are assigned to earth.
It is well known that the Twelve Branches also serve to mark the
twelve double-hours of the day, but I doubt whether all sinologists are
aware of the reason of this peculiar use. Even when denoting the hours
of day and night, the Branches have no temporal, but only a local value,
marking the direction where the sun stands during a certain hour. In
spring and autumn, when day and night are nearly of equal length, between
5—7 a. m. the sun stands in, or passes through mao [OMITTED] = East, whence
the hour from 5—7 a. m. is called the mao hour [OMITTED]. At noon,
11—1 p. m. it passes through wu [OMITTED] = South, between 5—7 p. m. through
yu [OMITTED] = West, and at midnight from 11—1 a. m. the sun, though not
seen by us, traverses tse [OMITTED] = North. Originally the Twelve Branches
merely mark the points of the compass, their designation of the twelve hours
is only a secondary use based on the course of the sun through these points.
The ordinary numerals attached to the elements in the Liki: earth = 5,
water = 6, fire = 7, wood = 8, and metal = 9 are said to refer to the
10 stages or turns in which originally the Five Elements were evolved
from Yin and Yang, or Heaven and Earth. This is again in accordance with
the above mentioned obscure passage of the Yiking. Tai T`ing Huai[2007]
states that
| 1st | Heaven engendered water, |
| 2ndly | Earth engendered fire, |
| 3rdly | Heaven engendered wood, |
| 4thly | Earth engendered metal, |
| 5thly | Heaven engendered earth, |
| 6thly | Earth completed water, |
| 7thly | Heaven completed fire, |
| 8thly | Earth completed wood, |
| 9thly | Heaven completed metal, |
| 10thly | Earth completed earth. |
Now all elements are given the number of their completion: water = 6,
fire = 7, wood = 8, metal = 9 except earth which bears the number of
its generation, because, says a commentator, generation is the principal
thing for earth.[2008]
This reason is as singular as the whole theory of this
creation in ten stages.
VI. The Different Modes of Enumerating the Five Elements.
There are at least four different ways of enumerating the elements,
each series having its special meaning:
a) The order in which the elements are believed to have originally
been created: Water, fire, wood, metal, earth.
We found this series in the Shuking p. 433 and the Chi-chung
chcu-shu p. 437. Whether it really has the meaning disclosed by the
Sung philosophers, is open to doubt. According to the T`ai-chi-t`u this
series refers to the substances, showing the order in which they were
produced, in contradistinction to the fluids whose successive revolutions
are expressed by series b):—wood, fire, earth, metal, water.[2009]
Chu Hsi speaks
of the order in which the Five Elements were first created by Heaven and
Earth.[2010]
He holds that the vague and shapeless elements water and fire
came first and were followed by the solid substances wood and metal
which required earth as a substratum from which they issued. But in
this case earth ought to take the third place in the series and not the last.
b) The order in which the elements or their fluids follow and produce
each other in the course of the seasons:—Wood, fire, earth, metal, water.
This is the order of the Liki. During each season one element predominates.
The others are not completely destroyed, but they have dwindled
away and have no power until their turn comes, when they are resuscitated
and become preponderant. The elements thus succeeding each other are
said to produce one another. Both Huai Nan Tse III, 17 v. and Tung Chung
Shu XI, 2 v. expressly state that wood produces fire, fire produces earth,
earth produces metal, metal water, and water wood. The former regards
each element producing another as its mother, the latter as is father, and
the element thus generated as the son or child. According to this terminology
wood for example would be the mother or the father of fire, and
metal the son of earth. This analogy has induced both authors to judge
the relations of the elements by the moral and the family laws, which
leads to strange consequences. As men under given circumstances act in
a certain way, the elements are believed to affect each other in a similar
some instances given ad c).
The theory that the Five Elements produce each other in the order
of this series is to a certain extent based on natural laws. One may say
that wood produces fire, and fire leaves ashes or earth. In the interior
of the earth metal grows, but how can metal produce water? Here is a
hitch. The Chinese try to avoid it by asserting that metal may become
liquefied or watery, and in this respect they are at one with Agrippa who
likewise, as we saw, looks upon all metals as watery. But liquid metal
is not real water, and it can never be transformed into water in the same
way as wood becomes ashes or earth metal. Moreover, water alone cannot
become wood, there must be earth besides—not to speak of the necessity
of a germ—and to produce metal, earth and fire must co-operate. This
has been pointed out in the Hsing-li h`ui-t`ung stating that, for the production
of metal, fire and earth, and for that of wood, water and earth are wanted,
so that in both cases earth cannot be dispensed with.
c) The order in which the elements subdue or overcome each
other:—Water, fire, metal, wood, earth.
This series occurs in the Shuking and the Tso-chuan (p. 432), and the
author of the latter work knows its principle, for he informs us that water
overcomes fire and fire, metal, and calls the stronger element the husband,
the weaker the wife. The full list of the antagonistic elements is given
by Huai Nan Tse IV, 8 v.[2011]
Tung Chung Shu XIII, 5 v. remarks that of the
elements in series b) those placed together produce one another, whereas
those separated by one place vanquish each other.[2012]
If we take the
series:—wood, fire, earth, metal, water, then wood subdues earth and earth,
water; fire subdues metal, and metal wood, &c. The series must be regarded
as an infinite ring; from the last link one returns to the first.
How this mutual antagonism of the elements is to be understood
we best learn from the Huang Ti su-wên:—"Wood brought together with
metal is felled; fire brought together with water is extinguished; earth
meeting with wood is pierced; metal meeting with fire is dissolved; and
water meeting with earth is stopped."[2013]
In other words:—water extinguishes fire, fire melts metal, metal cuts
wood. That growing wood perforates the surrounding soil, and that earth
stops the course of water, when there is an inundation for example, seems
a little far-fetched, but we must bear in mind that the Chinese reasoning
is not always as strict and logical as we would like to have it. The
explanation given in the Huang Ti su-wên most likely completely satisfies
1909, p. 259 that earth vanquishes water by absorbing it; and the same
thing may be said of the relation of wood and earth, in so far as growing
plants draw from the soil all the substances necessary for their development.
This may be looked upon as a destruction of earth by wood.
In connexion with this theory some writers make interesting observations
on the way in which the elements affect each other. Wood, says Kuan
Yin Tse, when bored, gives fire, when pressed, gives water. Metal is such
a substance that, when struck, it produces fire, and when melted it becomes
water.[2014]
The Chang-huang t`u-shu pien points out the following changes
undergone by the elements, when operated upon by one another:—Earth
becomes softened by water and hardened by fire. Metal becomes liquid
by fire and continues unchanged by water. Wood grows by water and
is consumed by fire. Fire grows by wood and dies by water. Water is
cooled by metal and warmed by fire.[2015]
In Ch`u Yung's Ch`ü-yi shuo the
action of some elements is spoken of in a way, that a tacit reproof may
be read between the lines:—Fire is produced by wood, but it consumes
it; metal grows in earth, but it hoes it i. e., both elements show a very
unfilial behaviour towards their parents. Wood subdues earth, but earth
nourishes wood; earth subdues water, but water irrigates earth[2016]
i. e., earth
and water requite the maltreatment by their inimical elements with kindness.
Tai T`ing Huai is quite outspoken on this subject and sets forth the curious
law that, when an element is vanquished by another, its son always will
revenge the wrong inflicted upon its mother element upon the aggressor
and subdue him in his turn.[2017]
E. g., when water overcomes fire, earth, the
son of fire, will subdue water, and when fire overcomes metal, water, the
son of metal, will subdue fire. There really is such a relation between
the various elements according to the Chinese theory of their mutual production
and destruction. This destruction is considered a natural rebuff,
after an element has been produced and exceeded a certain limit, or it
may have been brought about by men on purpose, in order to shape or
transform certain substances, or avert calamities. Thus fire is employed
and embankments to check inundations.
In the occult arts of the middle ages the sympathies and antipathies
of the elements play an important part. Agrippa (loc. cit. p. 229) contends
that fire is hostile to water, and air to earth. A sympathetic action is
exercised by a magnet attracting iron, an emerald procuring riches and
health, a jasper influencing birth, and an agate furthering eloquence. Contrariwise,
a sapphire is believed to repel plague ulcers, fever, and eye
diseases, amethyst acts against drunkenness, jasper against evil spirits,
emerald against wantonness, agate against poison. The panther dreads the
hyena so much, that, if the skin of a panther be suspended opposite to
the skin of a hyena, its hair fall out. In accordance with this doctrine of
Agrippa the famous physician Theophrastus Bombastus Paracelsus, 1493-1541
A.D., based his cures on the sympathetic action of the elements. Since
every part of the body pertained to a planet, all the substances belonging
to the same star were considered to be efficacious antidotes against all
ailments of the part in question. Gold e. g., passed for a specific against
heart diseases, because gold and the heart both pertain to the sun (eod.
p. 232). Even animals have recourse to this sort of cures. Agrippa relates
that a lion suffering from fever cures itself by eating the flesh of a monkey,
and that stags, when hit by an arrow, eat white dittany (Eschenwurz) which
extracts the arrow.
d) The order in which the elements are usually enumerated at
present:—Metal, wood, water, fire, earth. This series seems to be used for
the first time by Pan Ku in his Po-hu-t`ung II, 1 r. I found only one attempt
at explaining this order by Chu Hsi, which is very unsatisfactory. Metal,
he says, is the mother of all fluids, and the body of Heaven is dry metal.[2018]
Because all things begin to grow after they have received the fluid, therefore
wood follows metal, &c.
Perhaps the principle underlying this series may be that first the
two substantial elements are given, secondly their two transformations, and
thirdly one second transformation. Metal and wood are transmuted into
water and fire, and fire again is changed into earth (embers).
Accordingly the above four orders of the elements may briefly be
thus characterised:
a) series of the creation of the elements
b) series of their mutual production
c) series of their mutual destruction
d) series of their transformation.
VII. The Regular Changes of the Elements during the Seasons.
Apart from the transformations which the elements undergo when
meating, they are subject to regular modifications during the seasons, which
repeat themselves every year. In the course of a year, they grow, reach
has fallen off, and a third is still growing. The times are usually denoted
by the Twelve Branches, which, as a rule, are merely local marks. Here
they are almost equivalent to the twelve months, for the sun stays about
a month in each of the twelve constellations or branches which, therefore,
serve to designate the months.
Huai Nan Tse III, 16 r. gives us the following comparative table:[2019]
Wood is born in hai (N.N.W.—10th moon)
Wood is full-grown in mao (E.—2nd moon)
Wood dies in wei (S.S.W.—6th moon)
Fire is born in yin (E.N.E.—1st moon)
Fire is full-grown in wu (S.—5th moon)
Fire dies in hsü (W.N.W.—9th moon)
Earth is born in wu (S.—5th moon)
Earth is full-grown in hsü (W.N.W.—9th moon)
Earth dies in yin (E.N.E.—1st moon)
Metal is born in see (S.S.E.—4th moon)
Metal is full-grown in yu (W.—8th moon)
Metal dies in ch`ọu (N.N.E.—12th moon)
Water is born in shên (W.S.W.—7th moon)
Water is full-grown in tse (N.—11th moon)
Water dies in ch`ên (E.S.E.—3rd moon).
After this scheme each element is alive nine months, and dead three
months. Its body then still exists, but it is lifeless i. e., inactive. In the
next year it is revived again, and the same process, its growing and decaying
begins afresh. Each element is full-grown and shows its greatest development
in the second or the middle month of the season over which it rules,
wood in the second month of spring, and fire in the second month of
summer, or the fifth month. The position assigned to earth is peculiar. It
is just one month behind metal, consequently earth would govern a season
almost falling together with autumn, but a little later.
Elsewhere Huai Nan Tse makes the elements pass through five different
stages, adding to those given above "old age" and "imprisonment." Thus
we have the following comparative list:[2020]
| strong | old | born | imprisoned | dead | |
| Spring | wood | water | fire | metal | earth |
| Summer | fire | wood | earth | water | metal |
| earth | fire | metal | wood | water | |
| Autumn | metal | earth | water | fire | wood |
| Winter | water | metal | wood | earth | fire |
Later authors go still more into details. Sun Chao of the Ming dynasty
informs us that the "Classic of Huang Ti"[2021]
distinguishes twelve changes
undergone by each element during a year. He treats the elements like
human beings and therefore takes the names of these changes from human
life. They are:—birth, bathing, being an official, a minister, a sovereign,
decline, sickness, death, burial, cessation, stirring up, and growing as an
embryo.[2022]
Sun Chao characterises the twelve stages which follow the Twelve
Branches a little differently:—1) Water exists as a sperm in sse, 2) in an
embryonic state in wu, 3) develops in wei, 4) is born in shên, 5) is washed
and bathed in yu, 6) receives the cap and the girdle in hsü, 7) begins its
official career in hai, 8) obtains imperial glory in tse, 9) becomes old and
decrepid in ch`ou, 10) sick in yin, 11) dies in mao, 12) and is buried in
ch`ên.[2023]
The life of each element, its development, its acme, and its decline,
in all their phases are compared to the life of man. It is washed like a
baby, capped like a youth, must become an official—the ambition of every
Chinaman—becomes even an emperor, and then gradually declines. The
same list holds good for the other elements likewise, but the cyclical signs
indicating the months change. Thus fire exists in a spermatic state in
hai, wood in shên, and metal in yin.
VIII. The Element Earth and its Season.
When the Five Elements were joined to the Four Seasons, there
was one element too much which could not be combined with a season.
This element was earth. Why was just this one left out? Perhaps simply
because in the two oldest series a) and c) of the Shuking earth came last.
The Chinese give other reasons. Both Tung Chung Shu X, 10 r. and Pan Ku
II, 1 r. urge that earth is the noblest of the elements. Earth (the element)
[OMITTED], says the latter, is but another name of the Earth [OMITTED]. As such it
governs the other elements and cannot be classed with them. This is true
in so far as Heaven and Earth are held to have produced the elements.
Besides we saw that wood and metal are believed to be products of earth,
so that this element must be ranked as a sort of primary element. Though
it did not produce water and fire, it supports them as it does wood
and metal.
But although there was no season left for earth, the Chinese did
not like to drop this element altogether in their calendars. Since locally
it was placed in the centre, they also inserted it into the middle of the
Four Seasons, between summer and autumn, without attributing a special
season to it. This was done in the Liki.[2024]
Subsequently earth was conceived
as the element of "late summer" [OMITTED]. The next step was to
make Five Seasons instead of Four, each of 72 days, and to assign the
third, "late summer," to earth. This step was taken by Kuan Tse (see
above p. 450) by Huai Nan Tse III, 9 v. and by Tung Chung Shu, Ch`un-ch`iu
fan-lu, XIII, 9 v.
IX. The Five Elements under their Religious and Metaphysical Aspect.
The veneration of the Five Elements or properly speaking of the
deities presiding over the elements reaches back to the commencement of
the Chou dynasty. In the Chou-li we met with the Five Sacrifices offered
to the Five Heavenly Emperors, the deities of the five directions whose
altars were erected in the four suburbs and the centre. They were old
legendary rulers deified as the spirits of the Five Points and the Five
Elements. Subsequently, they received five assistant spirits, also sons of
old emperors, credited with the power of mastering the elements, and
therefore revered as the spirits of the Five Elements and the Four Seasons.
The spirit of Earth alone had no special season. They partook of the
sacrifices made to the Five Emperors (p. 434). In the Liki each season
has a couple of these deities, a Heavenly Emperor or divine ruler and his
attendant spirit.
The Five Sacrifices to these deities of the elements were performed
by the emperor and the princes in the proper season. The Five Sacrifices
of the house viz. the outer and the inner door, the hearth, the inner court,
and the well were likewise referred to the five elements (cf. p. 439, Note 1).
They were offered by the great officers, scholars and common people performing
only one or two of them.[2025]
At the sacrifice the part of the victim
which is supposed to correspond to the respective element was essential.
Besides, the entire ceremonial to be observed by the emperor at these
religious functions was more or less connected with the theory of the
Five Elements. The hall occupied by the emperor was situated so as to
be turned towards the quarter ruled by the predominating element. The
colour of his horses, his flag, his robes, and his jade ornaments had to
correspond to the colour of the worshipped element. His food, meat as
well as vegetables, was similarly determined.
But not the religious life of the ancient Chinese alone, their political
life is also overshadowed by the elements. In the Shuking already we found
the statement that the good qualities of the sovereign:—self possession,
atmospheric influences i. e., to the fluids of the elements proper to
the season, whereas their vices:—excitement, confusion, fickleness, impetuosity,
and dullness are the correlates of such fluids as are out of
season. Seasonable fluids produce rich harvests, call forth a good government,
and make people happy; unseasonable ones have the opposite result
(p. 434).
On the other hand, the actions of the sovereign and his administration
have an influence upon the seasons and the weather, and thereby may
bring down calamities upon his subjects. The Liki enumerates all proceedings
which may be done during each season and which may not. The latter
are not wicked in themselves, but they do not harmonise with the imaginary
nature of the ruling element. In spring everything favourable to the
cultivation of the fields must be done, and all destructive measures are
forbidden. Trees must not be cut, young animals, birds, or insects not be
killed. No warlike operations aiming at the destruction of human life are
to be undertaken. The Liki points out all the natural calamities:—heavy
rainfalls, storms, pestilence, &c. caused by unseasonable administrative
acts (p. 439).
Kuan Tse prescribes five administrative measures for each season,
the observation of which secures happiness and the accomplishment of
one's desires, whereas its disregard entails misfortune. Even an eclipse
of the sun and the moon and the appearance of a comet are the upshot
of unseasonable government. Since malpractices in the rewarding of
meritorious actions are the cause of an eclipse of the sun, and since unjust
punishments and a want of harmony have brought about the eclipse of
the moon and the appearance of the comet, by removing these causes the
effects are removed also (p. 451).
According to the Huang Ti su-wên there is felicity only in the case
that the element governing a season has its proper quantity, being neither
excessive nor defective. That means to say that in summer, for instance,
it must not be too hot, but not too cool either, and that in winter it must
not be too cold, but, on the other side, not too warm. A cool summer
and a warm winter are fraught with all kinds of evils. The vegetation
suffers, and especially man is attacked by diseases (p. 449).
Tung Chung Shu, who more than others looks upon the elements as
moral entities, puts forward a great variety of cases, in which the principal
element of a season comes into collision with the other elements. The
terminology sounds very abstract and profound, but the meaning is very
simple. Tung Chung Shu wants to show the effect of extraordinary changes
of the character of the seasons, one season assuming that of another and
losing its own nature:
"When (in autumn) metal meets with water, fish become torpid; when
it meets with wood, plants and trees sprout again; when it meets with
fire, plants and trees blossom in autumn; and when it meets with earth
the hibernating insects do not hide; when it meets with earth, the insects
that ought to become torpid come out in winter; when it meets with
fire, a star falls down; and when metal meets with water, winter becomes
very cold."[2027]
Like Kuan Tse Tung Chung Shu maintains that natural calamities, the
result of irregularities of the elements and the seasons, must be laid to
the charge of the sovereign and his administration, and that they will cease,
as soon as the latter are reformed. Thus he says of spring and summer:
—"When wood undergoes an extraordinary change, spring withers, and
autumn blossoms; there are great floods in autumn, and there is too much
rain in spring. This has its cause in excessive personal services. Taxes
and imposts are too heavy; the people become impoverished, revolt, and
leave the path of virtue, and many starve. This may be remedied by a
decrease of the services and a reduction of imposts and taxes, by taking
the grain from the granaries and distributing it among the distressed."
"When fire undergoes an extraordinary change, winter becomes
warm, and summer cool. This is because the ruler is not enlightened:—
Excellent men are not rewarded, bad characters not removed; unworthy
persons occupy the places of honour, and worthies live in obscurity. Therefore
heat and cold are out of order, and the people visited with diseases
and epidemies. This state of affairs may be helped by raising good and
wise men, rewarding merit and appointing the virtuous."[2028]
These ideas may seem odd, but they are not illogical. If the virtues
of the ruler are manifestations of the Five Elements, an axiom laid down
by the old Classics and contested by nobody, then there must be fixed
relations between the two, and a change on one side affect the other.
in the conduct of the sovereign and his government, and any deviations
of the latter, have an influence on the seasons and the weather,
with which the happiness of the people living on agriculture was closely
connected.
Metal is supposed to meet with the other four elements or to collide with
them, as the text says. That merely signifies that, in consequence of the preponderance
of these unseasonable elements, autumn changes its character and, in its temperature,
resembles spring, summer, or winter. In the next clause winter is supposed to
undergo similar changes. The consequences of these irregularities of the seasons
are, most of them, taken from experience and not contradicted by facts.
Loc. cit. [OMITTED]
[OMITTED]
[OMITTED]
[OMITTED]
[OMITTED]
[OMITTED] Tung Chung Shu XIV, 1 v.
X. Wrong Analogies.
The theory of the Five Elements is to a great extent built up on
wrong analogies, but few Chinese scholars seem to have become aware of
the impossible consequences to which they were led by it. Wang Ch`ung
does not reject the theory altogether, but very often points out the wrong
analogies, e. g., in the chapter on the Nature of Things Vol. I, p. 105 seq.,
where he says that there ought to be an internicine strife between the inner
organs of man just as there is between the elements, and that the Twelve
Animals corresponding to the twelve points of the compass ought to behave
quite differently from the way how they do, if they were at all influenced
by the elements, and in Vol. II, p. 416 seq.
In addition to this theory of the Five Elements the Chinese possess
still another somewhat similar, derived from the Yiking and based on the
Eight Diagrams. It is much less known and less developed than that of
the Five Elements, and the correspondences are quite different. The principal
ones are enumerated by De Groot, Relig. System Vol. III, p. 964.
This number is said to refer to the vernal element wood. The Five Elements
are counted in the sequence of their creation (see above p. 433):—water, fire,
wood, metal, earth. Now the last only is given its natural number 5. All the other
elements have their number in the series plus 5.
One of the five sacrifices of the house. Cf. Vol. I, p. 510. The correspondence
of these offerings with the seasons and elements is obvious. The door symbolises
the opening of the year and the display of the energies of nature. The
outer door, or the gate, is the counterpart of the inner door and therefore connected
with the autumn sacrifice. The sacrifice to the hearth goes well with fire, that to
the inner court with earth or the centre, and that of the well with water. Our
text of the Liki reads "path" [OMITTED] for [OMITTED] "well." (Cf. Legge, loc. cit. p. 297,
Note 1.) I follow Wang Ch`ung I, p. 510.
The eastern part of the Hall of Distinction, where the emperor went on
the first day of the month. Ch`ing-yang [OMITTED] means "green and bright."
The correspondencies of the Five Grains do not quite agree with those given in Mayers' Manual p. 316 inasfar as he combines beans with water, and millet with
fire. His translation of [OMITTED] by rice instead of "panicled millet," which I have followed in Vol. I, p. 381, is not quite correct. It is also better to render [OMITTED] by "spleen,"
for which in Vol. I, p. 105 I have written "stomach" as Mayers does.
[OMITTED]. The 5 impulses partly correspond to the 6 impulses
of the Tso-chuan. See above p. 436.
The Six Fluids of the Tso-chuan, not expressly mentioned, would be
different, if the commentators are right. Cf. p. 436. But they practically agree with
the Five Fluids of the Shuking:—rain, sunshine, heat, cold, and wind (see above
p. 433), leaving aside fire.
As will be seen in the following, rewards are in accordance with spring
and summer, punishments with autumn and winter. From time immemorial capital
punishment in China has been meted out in autumn and winter, so that the Chinese
have come to consider this the natural course of nature.
In the chapter on the Five Elements, XIV, 16v. seq. In the preceding one
on the Four Seasons, XIV, p. 8v. he still adheres to the theory of the Four Seasons,
stating that earth, the element of the centre, helps the Four Seasons [OMITTED].
The Chinese probably discovered some analogies between these measures
and winter, and for that reason prescribed them:—There is some similarity between
the desolateness of winter and destitute persons. Winter, being the end of the
year, may be compared with old and aged persons. We ourselves personify it by
an old man, and spring by a young boy. In winter the Yin principle is at its
height, and incorporeal spirits belong to it. Accounts use to be settled at the end
of the year. The hidden treasures of mountains and rivers [OMITTED] must not be
moved, because hiding and torpidity is the nature of winter. The forces of nature
do not move, hence the moving about of the people is prohibited. Criminals, as
we have seen, are called to account in autumn and winter.
The Yang is warm and thus may be symbolised by warmth of heart,
benevolence and rewards. Yin is cold and has an analogy in cold-hearted severity
and punishments.
An eclipse of the sun, the chief representative of the Yang, means that
rewards have been incomplete.
The moon again represents the Yin fluid and punishments. Its partly
annihilation shows that punishments have been insufficient.
Wind is the fluid of spring, the characteristic feature of which is productiveness.
Fighting for brightness must signify that wind chasing the clouds attempts
to obscure the brightness of the sun, which now and then breaks through the clouds.
This is the cyclical sign of the day beginning the period of 72 days
assigned to the element wood. Here we have a key to the understanding of the
pairs of cyclical signs joined to each element in the Liki, the meaning of which
was not clear to Legge. The days of spring are chia and yi (cf. p. 438) means
nothing else than that the first and the second days of this season bear these signs,
being in the sexagenary cycle chia-tse and yi-chou. Summer begins when we arrive
at the sign ping-tse, after having passed through the entire cycle of 60, adding 12,
i. e., after 72 days. The second day of summer or of the element fire is a ting-chou
day, so that the Liki may say that the days of summer are ping and ting, &c.
Of course, the assigning of three full months to each season by the Liki is not in
keeping with these cyclical signs, which can only be applied to seasons of 72 days.
| Lunheng | |