Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)

• 1. Introduction

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  Wuxing has been given at least seven English names: Five Moving Ones, Five Circulations, Five Types of Energy, Five Elements, Five Transformations, Five Phases and Five Agents. No single word has ever held it. The scheme sorts the world into five parts and then tracks how those parts act on one another. It has been in use since the second or first century BCE, during the Han dynasty. Over time it reached into music, feng shui, alchemy, astrology, martial arts, military strategy, I Ching divination, religion and traditional medicine. Scholars describe it as a metaphysics built on cosmic analogy. How did one fivefold pattern come to explain the sky, the body, the seasons and the fate of rulers? And why do translators still argue over what to call it?

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• 2. Names and Meanings

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  The characters in the word wuxing mean "five" and "moving". The second half is shorthand for planets, because the Chinese word for planets is translated as "moving stars". The original five were the classical planets. Ordered from brightest to dimmest, they are Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn. Together with the Sun and the Moon, they were imagined as producing the five forces of earthly life, yin and yang among them.

  Some of the Mawangdui Silk Texts, dated to before 168 BCE, tie the wuxing to the wude, the Five Virtues, and to the Five Emotions. Scholars believe several earlier ideas were gathered into one system during the Han dynasty, and that system supported many different readings.

  The first English translators chose "the Five Elements". They were echoing the four elements of Greek thought and the Vedic tradition of India. That name survives among practitioners of Traditional Chinese medicine, including in Five Element acupuncture and Japanese meridian therapy.

  The comparison can mislead. The four elements concern form, substance and quantity. The wuxing, in the post-heaven arrangement, is described as primarily concerned with process, change and quality. Wood, for instance, is better understood as the vital essence and growth of trees than as the material of a plank.

  In 1987 the sinologist Nathan Sivin proposed "five phases" instead. Yet that word falls short too, since in some settings the wuxing really are tied to physical substances. The historian of Chinese medicine Manfred Porkert offered the admittedly clumsy "Evolutive Phase". Many modern scholars settle on "five agents" or "five transformations".

  Whatever the label, the five parts do not sit still. They push and restrain one another in two named cycles.

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• 3. Cycles of Giving and Taking

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  Each cycle has a Chinese name. The promoting cycle is called shēng and is also known as "mother-son". The destructive cycle is called kè and is also known as "grandfather-grandson". Either one can be read forward or in reverse.

  In the generative sequence, Wood feeds Fire as fuel. Fire produces Earth, in the form of ash and lava. Earth bears Metal, since geological processes yield minerals. Metal collects, filters and purifies Water, as when vapor condenses on a metal surface. Water nourishes Wood, and so plants and flowers grow.

  The destructive sequence is also called regulating, because it keeps each phase in check. Wood grasps Earth, and tree roots can hold soil against erosion. Earth contains Water, as dams and river banks do. Water dampens Fire. Fire melts, refines or shapes Metal. Metal chops or carves Wood.

  Push any step too far and it changes character. In the overacting version, Wood depletes Earth, which echoes over-farming that strips nutrients from soil. Earth obstructs Water, as in over-damming. Water extinguishes Fire. Fire melts Metal until its integrity suffers. Metal makes Wood rigid enough to snap.

  The reverse of the generative cycle is called weakening. Water rusts Metal. Metal impoverishes Earth, and the source points to destructive mining. Fire burns Wood, which brings to mind forest fires. A fifth pattern, counteracting, runs the destructive cycle backward. Earth rots Wood, for example, because buried timber decays.

  The doctrine holds that when destruction overreaches, natural disasters, calamities and illness follow. The same logic was then carried onto the calendar, the compass and the body.

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• 4. Calendar and Compass

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  Each of the five phases takes up around 73 days of the year. They are used chiefly to describe how nature changes, rather than what it is made of.

  Wood matches spring, a time of growth and movement, linked with wind. Fire matches summer, a time of ripening and flowering, linked with heat. Earth is a pause of stability and stillness between the others, and it can also be read as late summer, linked with dampness. Metal matches autumn, a time of gathering, harvesting and contracting, linked with dryness. Water matches winter, a time of stillness and consolidation, linked with cold.

  Feng shui, the Chinese art of geomancy, is built on wuxing. The structure of the cosmos is thought to mirror the five phases, along with the bagua, the eight trigrams. Each phase carries a network of associations. Metal is white and faces west. Wood is blue-green and faces east. Water is black and faces north. Fire is red and faces south. Earth is yellow and sits at the center. The days of the week line up as well, with Friday for Metal and Saturday for Earth.

  The cycles decide whether a flow of energy is expansive, destructive or exhausting. A feng shui practitioner studies those flows and tries to rearrange energy for the benefit of the client.

  The scheme also reaches into the calendar of years. The final digit of a year points to a phase: years ending in 4 and 5 belong to Wood, 6 and 7 to Fire, 8 and 9 to Earth, 0 and 1 to Metal, and 2 and 3 to Water. In Ziwei divination, a system called nayin sorts the Five Elements further into 30 ming, or life orders. Fortune-tellers use these, much as a zodiac is used, to read personality and destiny. The first order, Wood Rat, is named Sea metal. The sixtieth, Water Pig, is named Ocean water.

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• 5. The Body in Five Parts

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  Ancient Chinese doctors saw the zangfu networks of the body as interdependent, a circle of five things. They mapped that circle onto groups of syndromes and patterns, and those groups became the five phases of medicine.

  Practitioners of Traditional Chinese medicine use the theory to sort the influences that act on the body from within, along with organs, physiological activities and pathological reactions. They also sort outside environmental influences. This diagnostic habit remains in wide use in traditional five-phase acupuncture. It is set against the Confucian-styled eight principles approach to Traditional Chinese medicine.

  The tables give each phase a full set of correspondences. Wood holds the liver and gall bladder, the eyes, the tendons and tears, with anger as its emotion and benevolence as its virtue. Fire holds the heart, the tongue and sweat, with joy as its emotion and propriety as its virtue.

  Earth holds the spleen and pancreas, the mouth, the muscles and saliva, with anxiety as its emotion. Metal holds the lung and large intestine, the nose, the skin and mucus, with grief and righteousness. Water holds the kidney and urinary bladder, the ears, the bones and urine, with fear and wisdom.

  Even the fingers are assigned. The ring finger belongs to Wood, the middle finger to Fire and the thumb to Earth. The index finger belongs to Metal and the pinky to Water.

  These same five-part patterns were also used outside the clinic, in the question of who had the right to rule.

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• 6. The Mandate of Heaven

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  Zou Yan, a political philosopher of the Warring States period, lived between about 305 and 240 BCE. He argued that each of the five elements carries a personified virtue. That virtue shows the destiny set in advance for a dynasty, so the cyclic succession of elements also marks the handover from one dynasty to the next.

  In his account, the Mandate of Heaven confirms a dynasty's legitimacy by sending auspicious signs that appear on their own. These signs come in ritual colors, and the colors match the element of the new ruling house. White belongs to Metal, green to Wood, black to Water, red to Fire and yellow to Earth.

  The idea outlasted its author. From the Qin dynasty onward, most Chinese dynasties appealed to the theory of the Five Elements to justify their reign.

  The five-part habit of mind also shaped sound and movement. The next chapter turns to a scale of five notes and the fists of a fighting art.

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• 7. Music and Martial Arts

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  The Huainanzi and the Yueling chapter of the Book of Rites assign a note of the pentatonic scale to each phase. Wood takes jué, close to mi or E. Fire takes zhǐ, close to sol or G. Earth takes gōng, close to do or C. Metal takes shāng, close to re or D. Water takes yǔ, close to la or A.

  The color list in those texts uses the word qing, which stands for both green and blue. Older forms of Chinese, like many other languages, did not separate the two. The Chinese shi'er lü system of tuning is closest to the ancient Greek tuning of Pythagoras.

  Several Chinese martial arts, and a few other East Asian styles, build five-phase ideas into their systems. Tai chi trains five basic qualities. Its Five Steps include always stepping forward, never stepping backward, watching right, beware of the left, and holding a centered pivot. The source says these five are not changeable states.

  Xingyi Quan treats the elements as five distinct energies. A student begins with five basic techniques and matching footwork. Metal is splitting, Water is drilling, Wood is crushing, Fire is pounding and Earth is crossing. Mastery passes through three levels: obvious power, subtle power and mysterious power.

  Shaolin martial arts has Five Animals, which express the qualities of the phases. The tiger is Fire, fierce and powerful. The monkey is Metal, hunched over. The snake is Water, flexible. The crane is paired with wind, evasive. The mantis is Earth, steady and rooted.

  One more art, Wuxing Heqidao, is aimed at peace and health rather than defense. It draws on Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist theory, and it aims to harmonise the qi.

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• 8. Across the Sea

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  In Japan the word is gogyo. The 5th and 6th centuries, the Kofun period, were a time when monks and physicians from China brought in Taoism, Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism. These disciplines helped the Onmyōdō system take shape.

  A second set of ideas arrived by a different road. Godai, a form-based philosophy, came from India and Tibetan Buddhism. It sits closer to the Greek and Vedic four elements than to the process-minded wuxing.

  Both lines of thought have been widely practiced in Japanese acupuncture and in traditional Kampo medicine, where a scheme of change and a scheme of form can sit in the same clinic.

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