Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)

This article is about the traditional Chinese philosophical concept. For modern chemical elements in the Chinese language, see Chemical elements in East Asian languages.

Wuxing (Chinese: 五行; pinyin: wǔxíng),^[a] usually translated as Five Phases or Five Agents,^[2] is a fivefold conceptual scheme used in many traditional Chinese fields of study to explain a wide array of phenomena, including cosmic cycles, the interactions between internal organs, the succession of political regimes, and the properties of herbal medicines.

Diagram of the interactions between the wuxing. The "generative" cycle is illustrated by grey arrows running clockwise on the outside of the circle, while the "destructive" or "conquering" cycle is represented by red arrows inside the circle.

Wuxing
Chinese	五行
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin wǔxíng Bopomofo ㄨˇㄒㄧㄥˊ Wade–Giles wu^3-hsing^2 IPA [ù.ɕǐŋ] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization ngh-hàhng IPA [ŋ.hɐŋ˩] Southern Min Hokkien POJ Ngó͘-hân Ngó͘-hîng Eastern Min Fuzhou BUC Ngū-hèng

Tablet in the Temple of Heaven of Beijing, written in Chinese and Manchu, dedicated to the gods of the Five Movements. The Manchu word usiha, meaning "star", explains that this tablet is dedicated to the five planets: Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus and Mercury and the movements which they govern.

The agents are Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth.^[b] The wuxing system has been in use since it was formulated in the second or first century BCE during the Han dynasty. It appears in many seemingly disparate fields of early Chinese thought, including music, feng shui, alchemy, astrology, martial arts, military strategy, I Ching divination, and traditional medicine, serving as a metaphysics based on cosmic analogy.

Etymology

 

Taijitu diagram featuring the wuxing in the center (from the Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China by Chen Menglei)

Wuxing originally referred to the five major planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Mars, Venus), which were conceived as creating five forces of earthly life. This is why the word is composed of Chinese characters meaning "five" (五; wǔ) and "moving" (行; xíng). "Moving" is shorthand for "planets", since the word for planets in Chinese literally translates as "moving stars" (行星; xíngxīng).^[6] Some of the Mawangdui Silk Texts (before 168 BC) also connect the wuxing to the wude (五德; wǔdé), the Five Virtues and Five Emotions.^[7][8] Scholars believe that various predecessors to the concept of wuxing were merged into one system with many interpretations during the Han dynasty.^[9]

Wuxing was first translated into English as "the Five Elements", drawing deliberate parallels with the Western idea of the four elements.^[10][8] This translation is still in common use among practitioners of Traditional Chinese medicine, such as in the name of Five Element acupuncture.^[11] However, this analogy is misleading. The four elements are concerned with form, substance and quantity, whereas wuxing are "primarily concerned with process, change, and quality".^[12] For example, the wuxing element "Wood" is more accurately thought of as the "vital essence" of trees rather than the physical substance wood.^[13] This led sinologist Nathan Sivin to propose the alternative translation "five phases" in 1987.^[14] But "phase" also fails to capture the full meaning of wuxing. In some contexts, the wuxing are indeed associated with physical substances.^[15] Historian of Chinese medicine Manfred Porkert proposed the (somewhat unwieldy) term "Evolutive Phase".^[15] Perhaps the most widely accepted translation among modern scholars is "the five agents", proposed by Marc Kalinowski.^[16]

Cycles

In traditional doctrine, the five phases are connected in two cycles of interactions: a generating or creation (生 shēng) cycle, also known as "mother-son"; and an overcoming or destructive (克 kè) cycle, also known as "grandfather-grandson" (see diagram). Each of the two cycles can be analyzed going forward or reversed. There is also an "overacting" or excessive version of the destructive cycle.^{[citation needed]}

Inter-promoting

The generating cycle (相生 xiāngshēng) is:

• Wood feeds Fire
• Fire produces Earth (ash, lava)
• Earth bears Metal (geological processes produce minerals)
• Metal collects Water (water vapor condenses on metal, for example)
• Water nourishes Wood (Water flowers, plants and other changes in forest)

Weakening

The reverse generating cycle (相洩/相泄 xiāngxiè) is:

• Wood depletes Water
• Water rusts Metal
• Metal impoverishes Earth (erosion, destructive mining of minerals)
• Earth smothers Fire
• Fire burns Wood (forest fires)

Inter-regulating

The destructive cycle (相克 xiāngkè) is:

• Wood grasps (or stabilizes) Earth (roots of trees can prevent soil erosion)
• Earth contains (or directs) Water (dams or river banks)
• Water dampens (or regulates) Fire
• Fire melts (or refines or shapes) Metal
• Metal chops (or carves) Wood

Overacting

The excessive destructive cycle (相乘 xiāngchéng) is:

• Wood depletes Earth (depletion of nutrients in soil, over-farming, overcultivation)
• Earth obstructs Water (over-damming)
• Water extinguishes Fire
• Fire melts Metal (affecting its integrity)
• Metal makes Wood rigid to easily snap.

Counteracting

A reverse or deficient destructive cycle (相侮 xiāngwǔ or 相耗 xiānghào) is:

• Wood dulls Metal
• Metal de-energizes Fire (conducting heat away)
• Fire evaporates Water
• Water muddies (or destabilizes) Earth
• Earth rots Wood (buried wood rots)

Celestial stem

Main article: Heavenly Stems

Movement	Wood	Fire	Earth	Metal	Water
Heavenly Stems	Jia 甲 Yi 乙	Bing 丙 Ding 丁	Wu 戊 Ji 己	Geng 庚 Xin 辛	Ren 壬 Gui 癸
Year ends with	4, 5	6, 7	8, 9	0, 1	2, 3

Ming neiyin

In Ziwei divination, neiyin (纳音) further classifies the Five Elements into 60 ming (命), or life orders, based on the ganzhi. Similar to the astrology zodiac, the ming is used by fortune-tellers to analyse individual personality and destiny.

Order	Ganzhi	Ming	Order	Ganzhi	Ming	Element
1	Jia Zi 甲子	Sea metal 海中金	31	Jia Wu 甲午	Sand metal 沙中金	Metal
2	Yi Chou 乙丑		32	Yi Wei 乙未
3	Bing Yin 丙寅	Furnace fire 炉中火	33	Bing Shen 丙申	Forest fire 山下火	Fire
4	Ding Mao 丁卯		34	Ding You 丁酉
5	Wu Chen 戊辰	Forest wood 大林木	35	Wu Xu 戊戌	Meadow wood 平地木	Wood
6	Ji Si 己巳		36	Ji Hai 己亥
7	Geng Wu 庚午	Road earth 路旁土	37	Geng Zi 庚子	Adobe earth 壁上土	Earth
8	Xin Wei 辛未		38	Xin Chou 辛丑
9	Ren Shen 壬申	Sword metal 剑锋金	39	Ren Yin 壬寅	Precious metal 金白金	Metal
10	Gui You 癸酉		40	Gui Mao 癸卯
11	Jia Xu 甲戌	Volcanic fire 山头火	41	Jia Chen 甲辰	Lamp fire 佛灯火	Fire
12	Yi Hai 乙亥		42	Yi Si 乙巳
13	Bing Zi 丙子	Cave water 洞下水	43	Bing Wu 丙午	Sky water 天河水	Water
14	Ding Chou 丁丑		44	Ding Wei 丁未
15	Wu Yin 戊寅	Fortress earth 城头土	45	Wu Shen 戊申	Highway earth 大驿土	Earth
16	Ji Mao 己卯		46	Ji You 己酉
17	Geng Chen 庚辰	Wax metal 白腊金	47	Geng Xu 庚戌	Jewellery metal 钗钏金	Metal
18	Xin Si 辛巳		48	Xin Hai 辛亥
19	Ren Wu 壬午	Willow wood 杨柳木	49	Ren Zi 壬子	Mulberry wood 桑柘木	Wood
20	Gui Wei 癸未		50	Gui Chou 癸丑
21	Jia Shen 甲申	Stream water 泉中水	51	Jia Yin 甲寅	Rapids water 大溪水	Water
22	Yi You 乙酉		52	Yi Mao 乙卯
23	Bing Xu 丙戌	Roof tiles earth 屋上土	53	Bing Chen 丙辰	Desert earth 沙中土	Earth
24	Ding Hai 丁亥		54	Ding Si 丁巳
25	Wu Zi 戊子	Lightning fire 霹雳火	55	Wu Wu 戊午	Sun fire 天上火	Fire
26	Ji Chou 己丑		56	Ji Wei 己未
27	Geng Yin 庚寅	Conifer wood 松柏木	57	Geng Shen 庚申	Pomegranate wood 石榴木	Wood
28	Xin Mao 辛卯		58	Xin You 辛酉
29	Ren Chen 壬辰	River water 长流水	59	Ren Xu 壬戌	Ocean water 大海水	Water
30	Gui Si 癸巳		60	Gui Hai 癸亥

Applications

The wuxing schema is applied to explain phenomena in various fields.

Phases of the Year

The five phases are around 73 days each and are usually used to describe the transformations of nature rather than their formative states.

• Wood/Spring: a period of growth, which generates abundant vitality, movement and wind.
• Fire/Summer: a period of swelling, flowering, expanding with heat.
• Earth can be seen as a transitional period between the other phases or seasons or when relating to transformative seasonal periods it can be seen as late Summer. This period is associated with stability, leveling and dampness.
• Metal/Autumn: a period of harvesting, collecting and dryness.
• Water/Winter: a period of retreat, stillness, contracting and coolness.

Cosmology and feng shui

Main article: Feng shui

 

Another illustration of the cycle

The art of feng shui (Chinese geomancy) is based on wuxing, with the structure of the cosmos mirroring the five phases, as well as the eight trigrams. Each phase has a complex network of associations with different aspects of nature (see table): colors, seasons and shapes all interact according to the cycles.^[17]

An interaction or energy flow can be expansive, destructive, or exhaustive, depending on the cycle to which it belongs. By understanding these energy flows, a feng shui practitioner attempts to rearrange energy to benefit the client.

Movement	Metal	Metal	Fire	Wood	Wood	Water	Earth	Earth
Trigram hanzi	乾	兌	離	震	巽	坎	艮	坤
Trigram pinyin	qián	duì	lí	zhèn	xùn	kǎn	gèn	kūn
Trigrams	☰	☱	☲	☳	☴	☵	☶	☷
I Ching	Heaven	Lake	Fire	Thunder	Wind	Water	Mountain	Field
Planet (Celestial Body)	Neptune	Venus	Mars	Jupiter	Pluto	Mercury	Uranus	Saturn
Color	Grey	White	Red	Green	Purple	Black	Blue	Yellow
Day	Friday	Friday	Tuesday	Thursday	Thursday	Wednesday	Saturday	Saturday
Season	Autumn	Autumn	Summer	Spring	Spring	Winter	Intermediate	Intermediate
Cardinal direction	West	West	South	East	East	North	Center	Center

Dynastic transitions

According to the Warring States period political philosopher Zou Yan (c. 305–240 BCE), each of the five elements possesses a personified virtue (德; dé), which indicates the foreordained destiny (運; yùn) of a dynasty; hence the cyclic succession of the elements also indicates dynastic transitions. Zou Yan claims that the Mandate of Heaven sanctions the legitimacy of a dynasty by sending self-manifesting auspicious signs in the ritual color (yellow, blue, white, red, and black) that matches the element of the new dynasty (Earth, Wood, Metal, Fire, and Water). From the Qin dynasty onward, most Chinese dynasties invoked the theory of the Five Elements to legitimize their reign.^[18]

Chinese medicine

Main article: Traditional Chinese medicine

 

Five Elements – diurnal cycle^{[citation needed]}

The interdependence of zangfu networks in the body was said to be a circle of five things, and so mapped by the Chinese doctors onto the five phases.^[19][20]

In order to explain the integrity and complexity of the human body, Chinese medical scientists and physicians use the Five Elements theory to classify the human body's endogenous influences on organs, physiological activities, pathological reactions, and environmental or exogenous influences. This diagnostic capacity is extensively used in traditional five phase acupuncture today, as opposed to the modern eight principles based Traditional Chinese medicine. Furthermore in combination the two systems are the study of postnatal and prenatal influencing on genetics, psychology and sociology.^[21][22]

Movement	Wood	Fire	Earth	Metal	Water
Planet	Jupiter	Mars	Saturn	Venus	Mercury
Mental Quality	idealism, spontaneity, curiosity	passion, intensity	agreeableness, honesty	intuition, rationality, mind	erudition, resourcefulness, wit
Emotion	anger, kindness	hate, resolve	anxiety, joy	grief, bravery	fear, passion
Virtue	Benevolence	Propriety	Fidelity	Righteousness	Wisdom
Zang (yin organs)	liver	heart/pericardium	spleen/pancreas	lung	kidney
Fu (yang organs)	gall bladder	small intestine/San Jiao	stomach	large intestine	urinary bladder
Sensory Organ	eyes	tongue	mouth	nose	ears
Body Part	tendons	pulse	muscles	skin	bones
Body Fluid	tears	sweat	saliva	mucus	urine
Finger	index finger	middle finger	thumb	ring finger	pinky finger
Sense	sight	taste	touch	smell	hearing
Taste^[23]	sour	bitter	sweet	pungent, umami	salty
Smell	rancid	scorched	fragrant	rotten	putrid
Life	early childhood	pre-puberty	adolescence/intermediate	adulthood	old age, conception
Covering	scaly	feathered	naked human	furred	shelled
Hour	3–9	9–15	change	15–21	21–3
Year	Spring Equinox	Summer Solstice	Summer Final	Fall Equinox	Winter Solstice
360°	45–135°	135–225°	Change	225–315°	315–45°

Music

Main articles: Chinese music and Chinese musicology

The Huainanzi and the Yueling chapter (月令; Yuèlìng) of the Book of Rites make the following correlations:

Movement	Wood	Fire	Earth	Metal	Water
Color	Qing (green and blue)	Red	Yellow	White	Black
Arctic Direction	east	south	center	west	north
Basic Pentatonic Scale pitch	角	徵	宮	商	羽
Basic Pentatonic Scale pitch pinyin	jué	zhǐ	gōng	shāng	yǔ
solfege	mi or E	sol or G	do or C	re or D	la or A

• Qing is a Chinese color word used for both green and blue. Modern Mandarin has separate words for each, but like many other languages, older forms of Chinese did not distinguish between green and blue.^[24]
• In most modern music, various five note or seven note scales (e.g., the major scale) are defined by selecting five or seven frequencies from the set of twelve semi-tones in the Equal tempered tuning. The Chinese shi'er lü system of tuning is closest to the ancient Greek tuning of Pythagoras.^[25]

Martial arts

Tai chi uses the five elements to designate different directions, positions or footwork patterns: forward, backward, left, right and centre, or three steps forward (attack) and two steps back (retreat).^[18]

The Five Steps (五步; wǔ bù):

• Jinbu (进步; 進步; jìnbù) – forward step
• Tuibu (退步; tùibù) – backward step
• Zuogu (左顾; 左顧; zǔogù) – left step
• Youpan (右盼; yòupàn) – right step
• Zhongding (中定; zhōngdìng) – central position, balance, equilibrium

The martial art of xingyiquan uses the five elements metaphorically to represent five different states of combat.

Movement	Fist	Chinese	Pinyin	Description
Metal	Splitting	劈	Pī	To split like an axe chopping up and over
Water	Drilling	鑽 / 钻	Zuān	Drilling forward horizontally like a geyser
Wood	Crushing	崩	Bēng	To collapse, as a building collapsing in on itself
Fire	Pounding	炮	Pào	Exploding outward like a cannon while blocking
Earth	Crossing	橫 / 横	Héng	Crossing across the line of attack while turning over

Wuxing heqidao, Gogyo Aikido (五行合气道) is a life art with roots in Confucian, Taoists and Buddhist theory. It centers around applied peace and health studies rather than defence or physical action. It emphasizes the unification of mind, body and environment using the physiological theory of yin, yang and five-element Traditional Chinese medicine. Its movements, exercises, and teachings cultivate, direct, and harmonise the qi.^[18]

Gogyo

The Japanese term is gogyo (Japanese:五行, romanized: gogyō). During the 5th and 6th centuries (Kofun period),^[26] Japan adopted various philosophical disciplines such as Taoism, Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism through monks and physicians from China. In particular, wuxing was adapted into gogyo. These theories have been extensively practiced in Japanese acupuncture and traditional Kampo medicine.^[27][28]

See also

•  China portal
•  Astronomy portal
•  Philosophy portal

• Acupuncture
• Classical element
• Color in Chinese culture
• Flying Star Feng Shui
• Humorism
• Qi
• Wuxing painting
• Zangfu
• Yin and yang

Notes

1. Japanese: gogyō (五行);^[1] Korean: ohaeng (오행); Vietnamese: ngũ hành (五行)
2. This order of presentation is known as the "Days of the Week" sequence. In the order of "mutual generation" (相生; xiāngshēng), they are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. In the order of "mutual overcoming" (相克; xiāngkè), they are Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, and Metal.^[3][4][5]

References

1. Hayashi, Makoto; Hayek, Matthias (2013). "Editors' Introduction: Onmyodo in Japanese History". Japanese Journal of Religious Studies: 3. doi:10.18874/jjrs.40.1.2013.1-18. ISSN 0304-1042.
2. Theobald, Ulrich (2011) "Yin-Yang and Five Agents Theory, Correlative Thinking" in ChinaKnowledge.de - An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History, Literature and Art
3. Deng Yu; Zhu Shuanli; Xu Peng; Deng Hai (2000). "五行阴阳的特征与新英译" [Characteristics and a New English Translation of Wu Xing and Yin-Yang]. Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine. 20 (12): 937. from the original on 2015-07-16.
4. Deng Yu et al; Fresh Translator of Zang Xiang Fractal five System，Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine; 1999
5. Deng Yu et al，TCM Fractal Sets 中医分形集，Journal of Mathematical Medicine ，1999，12（3），264-265
6. Dr Zai, J. Taoism and Science: Cosmology, Evolution, Morality, Health and more. Ultravisum, 2015.
7. Nathan Sivin (1987), Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China, p. 72.
8. Dechar, Lorie (2006). Five Spirits: Alchemical Acupuncture for Psychological and Spiritual Healing. New York: Lantern Books. pp. 20–360. ISBN 1590560922.
9. Littlejohn, Ronnie. "Wuxing (Wu-hsing)". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2023-04-30.
10. Nathan Sivin (1987), Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China, p. 73.
11. Hicks, Angela; Hicks, John; Mole, Peter (2010). Five Element Constitutional Acupuncture (Second ed.). Elsevier Health Sciences. ISBN 978-0-7020-4448-9. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
12. Nathan Sivin (1995), "Science and Medicine in Chinese History", in his Science in Ancient China (Aldershot, England: Variorum), text VI, p. 179.
13. 千古中医之张仲景 [Wood and Metal were often replaced with air]. Lecture Room, CCTV-10.
14. Nathan Sivin (1987), Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan) p. 73.
15. Nappi, Carla (2009). The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and Its Transformations in Early Modern China. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-674-03529-4. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
16. Unschuld, Paul N. (2003). Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen: Nature, Knowledge, and Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-520-23322-5. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
17. Chinese Five Elements Chart 2007-09-28 at the Wayback Machine Information on the Chinese Five Elements from Northern Shaolin Academy in Microsoft Excel 2003 Format
18. Chen, Yuan (2014). "Legitimation Discourse and the Theory of the Five Elements in Imperial China". Journal of Song-Yuan Studies. 44 (1): 325–364. doi:10.1353/sys.2014.0000. S2CID 147099574.
19. "Traditional Chinese Medicine: In Depth". National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. from the original on 4 April 2017. Retrieved 20 March 2017.
20. Hafner, Christopher. "The TCM Organ Systems (Zang Fu)". University of Minnesota. from the original on 6 April 2017. Retrieved 5 April 2017.
21. . Chinese Herbs Info. 2019-10-27. Archived from the original on 2019-12-17. Retrieved 2019-12-17.
22. "five element acupuncture". www.cancer.gov. 2011-02-02. Retrieved 2020-12-27.
23. Eberhard, Wolfram (December 1965). "Chinese Regional Stereotypes". Asian Survey. University of California Press. 5 (12): 596–608. doi:10.2307/2642652. JSTOR 2642652.
24. Mair, Victor (4 October 2019). "Grue and bleen: the blue-green distinction and its implications". Language Log. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
25. Joseph C.Y. Chen (1996). Early Chinese Work in Natural Science: A Re-examination of the Physics of Motion, Acoustics, Astronomy and Scientific Thoughts, pp.96-97. ISBN 962-209-385-X.
26. Watanabe, Kenji; Matsuura, Keiko; Gao, Pengfei; Hottenbacher, Lydia; Tokunaga, Hideaki; Nishimura, Ko; Imazu, Yoshihiro; Reissenweber, Heidrun; Witt, Claudia M. (2011). "Traditional Japanese Kampo Medicine: Clinical Research between Modernity and Traditional Medicine—The State of Research and Methodological Suggestions for the Future". Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 2011: 513842. doi:10.1093/ecam/neq067. ISSN 1741-427X. PMC 3114407. PMID 21687585.
27. Baracco, Luciano (2011-01-01). National Integration and Contested Autonomy: The Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. Algora Publishing. ISBN 978-0-87586-823-3.
28. "《赵城金藏》研究" (in Chinese).^{[permanent dead link]}

Further reading

• Feng Youlan (Yu-lan Fung), A History of Chinese Philosophy, volume 2, p. 13
• Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, volume 2, pp. 262–23.
• Maciocia, G. (2005). The Foundations of Chinese Medicine (2nd ed.). London: Elsevier Ltd.
• Chen, Yuan (2014). "Legitimation Discourse and the Theory of the Five Elements in Imperial China". Journal of Song-Yuan Studies. 44: 325–364. doi:10.1353/sys.2014.0000. S2CID 147099574.

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wu Xing.

• Wuxing (Wu-hsing). The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002.