Wuxing (Chinese: 五行; pinyin: wǔxíng; Jyutping: Ng5 Hang4), translated as Five Moving Ones, Five Circulations, Five Types of Energy, Five Elements, Five Transformations, Five Phases or Five Agents, is a fivefold conceptual scheme used in many traditional Chinese fields of study to explain a wide array of phenomena, including terrestrial and celestial relationships, influences, and cycles, that characterise the interactions and relationships within science, medicine, politics, religion and social relationships and education within Chinese culture. The Five Moving Ones are traditionally associated with the classical planets: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn as depicted in the etymological section below. In ancient Chinese astronomy and astrology, which spread throughout East Asia, there was a reflection of the seven-day planetary order of Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth. When in their "heavenly stems" generative cycle as represented in the below cycles section and depicted in the diagram above, they run consecutively clockwise (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water). When in their overacting destructive arrangement of Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, Metal, natural disasters, calamities, illnesses and disease will ensue. The wuxing system has been in use since 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, religion and traditional medicine, serving as a metaphysics based on cosmic analogy.
Etymology
Wuxing originally referred to the five classical planets (from brightest to dimmest: Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Saturn), which together with the Sun and the Moon, were conceived as creating the five forces of earthly life (including yang and yin). 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 Chinese word for planets is translated as "moving stars" (行星; xíngxīng). Some of the Mawangdui Silk Texts (before 168 BCE) also connect the wuxing to the wude (五德; wǔdé), the Five Virtues and Five Emotions. Scholars believe that various predecessors of the concept of wuxing were merged into a single system of many interpretations during the Han dynasty. Wuxing was first translated into English as "the Five Elements", drawing parallels with the Greek and Indian Vedic static, solid or formative arrangement of the four elements. This translation is still in common use among practitioners of Traditional Chinese medicine, such as in the name of Five Element acupuncture, Five Element Qigong and Japanese meridian therapy. However, this analogy could be misleading as the four elements are concerned with form, substance and quantity. In contrast, the post-heaven arrangement of the wuxing is "primarily concerned with process, change, and quality". For example, the wuxing element "Wood" is more accurately thought of as the "vital essence" and growth of trees rather than the physical innate substance wood. This led sinologist Nathan Sivin to propose the alternative translation "five phases" in 1987. But "phase" also fails to capture the full meaning of wuxing. In some contexts, the wuxing are indeed associated with physical substances. Historian of Chinese medicine Manfred Porkert proposed the (somewhat unwieldy) term "Evolutive Phase". Perhaps the most widely accepted translation among modern scholars is the "five agents" or "five transformations".
Cycles In traditional doctrine, the five phases are connected in two cycles of interactions: a promoting or generative (生 shēng) cycle, also known as "mother-son"; and an overacting or destructive (克 kè) cycle, also known as "grandfather-grandson" (see diagram). Each of these cycles can be interpreted and analyzed in either a forward or a reverse direction. In addition to the aforementioned cycles there is also what is considered an "overacting" or excessively generating version of the destructive cycle.
Inter-promoting The generative cycle (相生 xiāngshēng) is:
Wood feeds Fire as fuel Fire produces Earth (ash, lava) Earth bears Metal (geological processes produce minerals) Metal collects, filters and purifies Water (water vapor condenses on metal, for example) Water nourishes Wood (water leads to growth of flowers, plants and other changes in nature)
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.
Weakening The reverse generative 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)
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
Ming nayin In Ziwei divination, nayin (納音) further classifies the Five Elements into 30 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.
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.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
