1.
Tao Te Ching
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The Tao Te Ching, Daodejing, Dao De Jing, or Daode jing, also simply referred to as the Laozi, is a Chinese classic text. The texts true authorship and date of composition or compilation are still debated, many Chinese artists, including poets, painters, calligraphers, and even gardeners, have used the Daodejing as a source of inspiration. Its influence has spread widely outside East Asia, and it is among the most translated works in world literature. The Tao Te Ching has a long and complex textual history, known versions and commentaries date back two millennia, including ancient bamboo, silk, and paper manuscripts discovered in the twentieth century. There are many translations of the books title, Dào/tao literally means way, or one of its synonyms. This term, which was used by other Chinese philosophers, has special meaning within the context of Taoism. Dé/te means virtue, personal character, inner strength, or integrity, jīng/ching as it is used here means canon, great book, or classic. Thus, Tao Te Ching can be translated as The Classic of the Ways Virtues or The Book of the Way of Virtue. The title Daodejing is a given by posterity, other titles include the amalgam Lǎozǐ Dàodéjīng, the honorific Daode Zhen Jing. The received Tao Te Ching is a text of around 5,000 Chinese characters in 81 brief chapters or sections. There is some evidence that the divisions were later additions—for commentary. It has two parts, the Tao Ching and the Te Ching, which may have been edited together into the received text, the written style is laconic, has few grammatical particles, and encourages varied, even contradictory interpretations. The ideas are singular, the style poetic, the rhetorical style combines two major strategies, short, declarative statements and intentional contradictions. The first of these strategies creates memorable phrases, while the second forces us to create our own reconciliations of the supposed contradictions, the Chinese characters in the original versions were probably written in zhuànshū, while later versions were written in lìshū and kǎishū styles. Daoist Chinese Characters contains a summary of these different calligraphies. The Tao Te Ching is ascribed to Lao Tzu, whose existence has been a matter of scholastic debate. His name, which means Old Master, has only fueled controversy on this issue, the first reliable reference to Laozi is his biography in Shiji, by Chinese historian Sima Qian, which combines three stories. First, Lao Tzu was a contemporary of Confucius and his surname was Li, and his personal name was Er or Dan
2.
Daode Tianzun
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Daode Tianzun is the official title for Tàiqīng, the Grand Pure One, which is one of the Three Pure Ones. He is commonly known as Taishang Laojun The Grand Supreme Elderly Lord and his other names include Daode Zhizun 道德至尊 The Universally Honoured Virtuous One, Daojiao Zhizu, the Taoist Ancestor. Laozi is regarded to be a manifestation of Daode Tianzun who authored the classic Tao Te Ching and his manifestation anniversary falls on the 15th day of 2nd month of the Chinese lunar calendar. Tao Yuanshi Tianzun Shàngqīng Three Pure Ones
3.
Zhou Dynasty
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The Zhou dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang dynasty and preceded the Qin dynasty. This period of Chinese history produced what many consider the zenith of Chinese bronze-ware making, the dynasty also spans the period in which the written script evolved into its almost-modern form with the use of an archaic clerical script that emerged during the late Warring States period. He even received sacrifice as a harvest god, the term Hòujì was probably an hereditary title attached to a lineage. Jus son Liu, however, led his people to prosperity by restoring agriculture and settling them at a place called Bin, tai later led the clan from Bin to Zhou, an area in the Wei River valley of modern-day Qishan County. Taibo and Zhongyong had supposedly fled to the Yangtze delta. Jilis son Wen bribed his way out of imprisonment and moved the Zhou capital to Feng, the Zhou enfeoffed a member of the defeated Shang royal family as the Duke of Song, which was held by descendants of the Shang royal family until its end. This practice was referred to as Two Kings, Three Reverences, according to Nicholas Bodman, the Zhou appear to have spoken a language not basically different in vocabulary and syntax from that of the Shang. A recent study by David McCraw, using lexical statistics, reached the same conclusion, the Zhou emulated extensively Shang cultural practices, perhaps to legitimize their own rule, and became the successors to Shang culture. At the same time, the Zhou may also have connected to the Xirong, a broadly defined cultural group to the west of the Shang. According to the historian Li Feng, the term Rong during the Western Zhou period was used to designate political and military adversaries rather than cultural. The proto-Zhou were first located in the Shaanxi-Shanxi highland, where they absorbed elements from the Guangshe culture, King Liu moved his people to the lower Fen Valley and to the western bank of the Yellow River, where they resumed agriculture. His son Qing Jie, led the Zhou to the valley of the Jing River. They stayed there until Dan Fu moved again to the Wei Valley in order to avoid incursion by the Rongdi nomads. During this period, the Zhou mingled with the Qiang people, in all these stages, the advanced Shang bronze culture constantly imparted its influence on the Zhou. The Qi area was the region in all these influences would come to fruition. The contact among the proto-Zhou, the native Shaanxi Longshan, the Qiang, King Wu maintained the old capital for ceremonial purposes but constructed a new one for his palace and administration nearby at Hao. Although Wus early death left a young and inexperienced heir, the Duke of Zhou assisted his nephew King Cheng in consolidating royal power. Wary of the Duke of Zhous increasing power, the Three Guards, Zhou princes stationed on the eastern plain, to maintain Zhou authority over its greatly expanded territory and prevent other revolts, he set up the fengjian system
4.
Ancient philosophy
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This page lists some links to ancient philosophy. Genuinely philosophical thought, depending upon original individual insights, arose in many cultures roughly contemporaneously, karl Jaspers termed the intense period of philosophical development beginning around the 7th century and concluding around the 3rd century BCE an Axial Age in human thought. Chinese philosophy is the dominant philosophical thought in China and other countries within the East Asian cultural sphere share a common language, including Japan, Korea. The Hundred Schools of Thought were philosophers and schools that flourished from the 6th century to 221 BCE, the thoughts and ideas discussed and refined during this period have profoundly influenced lifestyles and social consciousness up to the present day in East Asian countries. The intellectual society of this era was characterized by itinerant scholars, who were employed by various state rulers as advisers on the methods of government, war. This period ended with the rise of the Qin Dynasty and the subsequent purge of dissent, a main idea of Confucianism is the cultivation of virtue and the development of moral perfection. Confucianism holds that one should give up ones life, if necessary, either passively or actively, for the sake of upholding the cardinal moral values of ren, the Legalists exalted the state above all, seeking its prosperity and martial prowess over the welfare of the common people. Harmony with the Universe, or the source thereof, is the result of many Taoist rules and practices. Mohism, which advocated the idea of love, Mozi believed that everyone is equal before heaven. Mozi advocated frugality, condemning the Confucian emphasis on ritual and music, naturalism, the School of Naturalists or the Yin-yang school, which synthesized the concepts of yin-yang and the Five Elements, Zou Yan is considered the founder of this school. Agrarianism, or the School of Agrarianism, which advocated peasant utopian communalism and egalitarianism, the Logicians or the School of Names, which focused on definition and logic. It is said to have parallels with that of the Ancient Greek sophists or dialecticians, the most notable Logician was Gongsun Longzi. Scholars from this school were good orators, debaters and tacticians, the Miscellaneous School, which integrated teachings from different schools, for instance, Lü Buwei found scholars from different schools to write a book called Lüshi Chunqiu cooperatively. This school tried to integrate the merits of various schools and avoid their perceived flaws, the School of Minor-talks, which was not a unique school of thought, but a philosophy constructed of all the thoughts which were discussed by and originated from normal people on the street. Another group is the School of the Military that studied strategy, however, this school was not one of the Ten Schools defined by Hanshu. The founder of the Qin Dynasty, who implemented Legalism as the official philosophy, Legalism remained influential until the emperors of the Han Dynasty adopted Daoism and later Confucianism as official doctrine. These latter two became the forces of Chinese thought until the introduction of Buddhism. In contrast, there was an Old Text school that advocated the use of Confucian works written in ancient language that were so much more reliable
5.
Chinese philosophy
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Early Shang Dynasty thought was based upon cycles. Thus, this notion, which remained relevant throughout Chinese history, in juxtaposition, it also marks a fundamental distinction from western philosophy, in which the dominant view of time is a linear progression. During the Shang, fate could be manipulated by great deities, ancestor worship was present and universally recognized. There was also human and animal sacrifice, when the Shang were overthrown by the Zhou, a new political, religious and philosophical concept was introduced called the Mandate of Heaven. This mandate was said to be taken when rulers became unworthy of their position, Confucianism developed during the Spring and Autumn period from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, who considered himself a retransmitter of Zhou values. His philosophy concerns the fields of ethics and politics, emphasizing personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, traditionalism, Confucianism was and continues to be a major influence in Chinese culture, the state of China and the surrounding areas of Southeast Asia. Before the Han dynasty the largest rivals to Confucianism were Chinese Legalism, Confucianism largely became the dominant philosophical school of China during the early Han Dynasty following the replacement of its contemporary, the more Taoistic Huang-Lao. The Six Dynasties era saw the rise of the Xuanxue philosophical school and the maturation of Chinese Buddhism, by the time of the Tang dynasty five-hundred years after Buddhisms arrival into China, it had transformed into a thoroughly Chinese religious philosophy dominated by the school of Zen Buddhism. Neo-Confucianism became highly popular during the Song dynasty and Ming Dynasty due in part to the eventual combination of Confucian. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Chinese philosophy integrated concepts from Western philosophy, the most notable examples are Sun Yat-Sens Three Principles of the People ideology and Mao Zedongs Maoism, a variant of Marxism–Leninism. In the modern Peoples Republic of China, the ideology is Deng Xiaopings market economy socialism. Although the Peoples Republic of China has been hostile to the philosophy of ancient China. In the post-Chinese economic reform era, modern Chinese philosophy has reappeared in forms such as the New Confucianism, as in Japan, philosophy in China has become a melting pot of ideas. It accepts new concepts, while attempting also to accord old beliefs their due, Chinese philosophy still carries profound influence amongst the people of East Asia, and even Southeast Asia. Around 500 BCE, after the Zhou state weakened and China moved into the Spring and Autumn period and this is known as the Hundred Schools of Thought. This period is considered the age of Chinese philosophy. Of the many schools founded at this time and during the subsequent Warring States period and it is a system of moral, social, political, and religious thought that has had tremendous influence on Chinese history, thought, and culture down to the 20th century. Some Westerners have considered it to have been the religion of imperial China because of its lasting influence on Asian culture
6.
Taoism
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Taoism, also known as Daoism, is a religious or philosophical tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao. The Tao is an idea in most Chinese philosophical schools, in Taoism, however. Taoism differs from Confucianism by not emphasizing rigid rituals and social order, the Tao Te Ching, a compact book containing teachings attributed to Laozi, is widely considered the keystone work of the Taoist tradition, together with the later writings of Zhuangzi. By the Han dynasty, the sources of Taoism had coalesced into a coherent tradition of religious organizations. In earlier ancient China, Taoists were thought of as hermits or recluses who did not participate in political life, Zhuangzi was the best known of these, and it is significant that he lived in the south, where he was part of local Chinese shamanic traditions. Women shamans played an important role in this tradition, which was strong in the southern state of Chu. Early Taoist movements developed their own institution in contrast to shamanism, shamans revealed basic texts of Taoism from early times down to at least the 20th century. Institutional orders of Taoism evolved in various strains that in recent times are conventionally grouped into two main branches, Quanzhen Taoism and Zhengyi Taoism. After Laozi and Zhuangzi, the literature of Taoism grew steadily and was compiled in form of a canon—the Daozang—which was published at the behest of the emperor, throughout Chinese history, Taoism was nominated several times as a state religion. After the 17th century, however, it fell from favor, Chinese alchemy, Chinese astrology, Chan Buddhism, several martial arts, traditional Chinese medicine, feng shui, and many styles of qigong have been intertwined with Taoism throughout history. Beyond China, Taoism also had influence on surrounding societies in Asia, Taoism also has a presence in Hong Kong, Macau, and in Southeast Asia. English speakers continue to debate the preferred romanization of the words Daoism and Taoism, the root Chinese word 道 way, path is romanized tao in the older Wade–Giles system and dào in the modern Pinyin system. In linguistic terminology, English Taoism/Daoism is formed from the Chinese loanword tao/dao 道 way, route, principle and the native suffix -ism. The debate over Taoism vs. Daoism involves sinology, phonemes, loanwords, Daoism is pronounced /ˈdaʊ. ɪzəm/, but English speakers disagree whether Taoism should be /ˈdaʊ. ɪzəm/ or /ˈtaʊ. ɪzəm/. In theory, both Wade–Giles tao and Pinyin dao are articulated identically, as are Taoism and Daoism, an investment book titled The Tao Jones Averages illustrates this /daʊ/ pronunciations widespread familiarity. In speech, Tao and Taoism are often pronounced /ˈtaʊ/ and ˈtaʊ. ɪzəm/, lexicography shows American and British English differences in pronouncing Taoism. Taoist philosophy or Taology, or the mystical aspect — The philosophical doctrines based on the texts of the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching and these texts were linked together as Taoist philosophy during the early Han Dynasty, but notably not before. It is unlikely that Zhuangzi was familiar with the text of the Daodejing, however, the discussed distinction is rejected by the majority of Western and Japanese scholars
7.
Carl Jung
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Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. His work has been not only in psychiatry but also in anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy. As a notable research scientist based at the famous Burghölzli hospital, under Eugen Bleuler, he came to the attention of the Viennese founder of psychoanalysis, the two men conducted a lengthy correspondence and collaborated on an initially joint vision of human psychology. Freud saw in the man the potential heir he had been seeking to carry on his new science of psychoanalysis. Jungs researches and personal vision, however, made it impossible for him to bend to his older colleagues dogma and this break was to have historic as well as painful personal repercussions that have lasted to this day. Jung was also an artist, craftsman and builder as well as a prolific writer, many of his works were not published until after his death and some are still awaiting publication. Among the central concepts of analytical psychology is individuation—the lifelong psychological process of differentiation of the out of each individuals conscious and unconscious elements. Jung considered it to be the task of human development. He created some of the best known psychological concepts, including synchronicity, archetypal phenomena, the unconscious, the psychological complex. Carl Gustav Jung was born in Kesswil, in the Swiss canton of Thurgau, on 26 July 1875 as the second and first surviving son of Paul Achilles Jung and their first child, born in 1873 was a boy named Paul who survived only a few days. Emilie was the youngest child of a distinguished Basel churchman and academic, Samuel Preiswerk, and his second wife. Preiswerk was antistes, the given to the head of the Reformed clergy in the city, as well as a Hebraist, author and editor. When Jung was six months old, his father was appointed to a prosperous parish in Laufen. Emilie Jung was an eccentric and depressed woman, she spent considerable time in her bedroom where she said that spirits visited her at night, although she was normal during the day, Jung recalled that at night his mother became strange and mysterious. He reported that one night he saw a luminous and indefinite figure coming from her room with a head detached from the neck. Jung had a relationship with his father. Jungs mother left Laufen for several months of hospitalization near Basel for a physical ailment. His father took the boy to be cared for by Emilie Jungs unmarried sister in Basel, Emilie Jungs continuing bouts of absence and often depressed mood influenced her sons attitude towards women — one of innate unreliability
8.
Julius Evola
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Baron Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola, better known as Julius Evola, was an Italian philosopher, painter, and esotericist. Historian Aaron Gillette described Evola as one of the most influential fascist racists in Italian history, Evola was admired by the Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. He idolized the Nazi SS and admired the SS head Heinrich Himmler, whom he knew personally, in a trial in 1951, Evola, who denied being a Fascist, referred to himself as a ‘superfascist’. Concerning this statement, historian Elisabetta Cassina Wolff wrote that It is unclear whether this meant that Evola was placing himself above or beyond Fascism, Evola was the chief ideologue of Italys terrorist radical right after World War II. He continues to influence contemporary neofascist movements, as well as leaders of the Alt-right movement. Many of Evolas theories and writings were centered on his idiosyncratic mysticism, occultism, and esoteric religious studies, Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola was born in Rome to a Sicilian family of minor aristocracy. He was occasionally attributed with the title Baron, little is known about his early upbringing except that he considered it irrelevant. Evola studied engineering in Rome and was involved in the Italian social and he did not complete his studies on the grounds that he did not want to be associated in any way with bourgeois academic recognition and titles such as doctor and engineer. He joined the artillery as an officer in the First World War, returning to civilian life, Evola was a painter and poet in the Dada movement. Evolas early philosophical influences included Friedrich Nietzsche, Otto Weininger, Carlo Michelstaedter, a keen mountaineer, Evola described the experience a source of revelatory spiritual experience. After his return from the war, Evola experimented with drugs and magic until, around age 23 and he claimed that he avoided suicide thanks to a revelation he had while reading an early Buddhist text, which dealt with shedding all forms of identity other than absolute transcendence. Evola would later publish the text The Doctrine of Awakening, which he regarded as a repayment of his debt to the doctrine of the Buddha for saving him from suicide. For Evola, this unity with the absolute involved expanded participation in the absolute individual understood as unconstrained liberty. In his 1925 work Essays on Magical Idealism, Evola declared that God does not exist, the Ego must create him by making itself divine. Evola would later write, The truths that allow us to understand the world of Tradition are not those that can be learned or discussed and they either are or are not. Traditional truths have always held to be essentially non-human. He considered spiritual virility to signify orientation towards this postulated transcendent principle, Evola was introduced to esotericism by the early supporter of fascism Arturo Reghini, who sought to promote a cultured magic opposed to Christianity. Reghini introduced Evola to the traditionalist René Guénon, in 1927, Reghini and Evola, along with other Italian esotericists, founded the Gruppo di Ur
9.
Seal script
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Seal script is an ancient style of writing Chinese characters that was common throughout the latter half of the 1st millennium BC. It evolved organically out of the Zhou dynasty script, arising in the Warring State of Qin, there are two uses of the word seal script, the Large or Great Seal script and the lesser or Small Seal Script, the latter is also called simply seal script. The Large Seal script was originally a later, vague Han dynasty reference to writing of the Qin system similar to and it has also been used to refer to Western Zhou forms or even oracle bones as well. There were several different variants of seal script which developed in each kingdom independently during the warring state period and spring, the birds and worms script was used in the Kingdoms of Wu, Chu, and Yue. It was found on several artifacts including the Spear of Fuchai, on one side of the blade of Goujian, eight characters were written in an ancient script. The script was found to be the one called 鳥蟲文 birds and worms characters, initial analysis of the text deciphered six of the characters, 越王 and 自作用劍. As a southern state, Chu was close to the Wu-Yue influences, Chu produced broad bronze swords that were similar to Wuyue swords, but not as intricate. Chu also used the Birds and Worms style, which was borrowed by the Wu, the script of the Qin system had evolved organically from the Zhou script starting in the Spring and Autumn period. Beginning around the Warring States period, it became vertically elongated with a regular appearance and this was the period of maturation of Small Seal script, also called simply seal script. Through Chinese commentaries, it is known that Li Si compiled Cangjiepian and their form is characterized by being less rectangular and more squarish. The first known character dictionary was the 3rd century BC Erya, collated and bibliographed by Liu Xiang and his son Liu Xin, not long after, however, the Shuowen Jiezi, the lifework of Xu Shen, was written. Its 9,353 entries reproduce the standardized small-seal script variant for each entry, entries are categorized under 540 section headers. It has been anticipated that the Small Seal script will some day be encoded in Unicode, codepoints U+34000 to U+368FF have been tentatively allocated. Old Texts Phags-pa Chén Zhāoróng Research on the Qín Lineage of Writing, academia Sinica, Institute of History and Philology Monograph. Qin Yun Song, Big Seal Script Banner Script translation Richard Sears on seal script
10.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
11.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
12.
Hanyu Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
13.
Wu Chinese
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Wu is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese primarily spoken in the whole city of Shanghai, Zhejiang province, southern Jiangsu province and bordering areas. Major Wu varieties include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, Wenzhou/Oujiang, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Wu speakers, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Lu Xun and Cai Yuanpei, occupied positions of great importance in modern Chinese culture and politics. Wu can also be found being used in Shaoxing opera, which is only in national popularity to Peking opera, as well as in the performances of the popular entertainer. Wu is also spoken in a number of diaspora communities, with significant centers of immigration originating from Shanghai, Qingtian. Suzhou has traditionally been the center of Wu and was likely the first place the distinct variety of Sinitic known as Wu developed. Suzhou dialect is considered to be the most linguistically representative of the family. Due to the influence of Shanghainese, Wu as a whole is incorrectly labelled in English as simply, Shanghainese, among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech, Ngu nung nioe ngiu, Wu varieties have the largest vowel quality inventories in the world. The Jinhui dialect spoken in Shanghais Fengxian District has 20 vowel qualities, Wu Chinese, along with Min, is also of great significance to historical linguists due to their retention of many ancient features. These two languages have proven pivotal in determining the history of the Chinese languages. More pressing concerns of the present are those of language preservation, however, many analysts believe that a stable state of diglossia will endure for at least several generations if not indefinitely. Saying one speaks Wu is akin to saying one speaks a Romance language and it is not a particularly defined entity like Standard Mandarin or Hochdeutsch. They do this by affixing 話 Wo to their locations endonym, for example, 溫州話 Wēnzhōuhuà is used for Wenzhounese. Affixing 閒話 xiánhuà is also common and more typical of the Taihu division, Wu, the formal name and standard reference in dialectology literature. Northern Wu, Wu typically spoken in the north of Zhejiang and it by default includes the Xuanzhou division in Anhui as well, however this division is often neglected in Northern Wu discussions. Southern Wu, Wu spoken in southern Zhejiang and periphery, comprising the Oujiang, Wuzhou, Western Wu, A term gaining in usage as a synonym for the Xuanzhou division and modeled after the previous two terms since the Xuanzhou division is less representative of Northern Wu. Shanghainese, is also a common name, used because Shanghai is the most well-known city in the Wu-speaking region. The term Shanghainese is never used by linguists to refer to anything
14.
Cantonese
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Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
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Jyutping
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Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
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Southern Min
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Southern Min, or Minnan, is a branch of Min Chinese spoken in certain parts of China including southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and southern Zhejiang, and in Taiwan. The Min Nan dialects are spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia. In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to Hokkien, including Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien, the Southern Min dialect group also includes Teochew, though Teochew has limited mutual intelligibility with Hokkien. Hainanese is not mutually intellgible with other Southern Min and is considered a separate branch of Min. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with Eastern Min, Pu-Xian Min, any other Min branch, Hakka, Cantonese, Shanghainese or Mandarin. Southern Min dialects are spoken in the part of Fujian. The variant spoken in Leizhou, Guangdong as well as Hainan is Hainanese and is not mutually intelligible with other Southern Min or Teochew, Hainanese is classified in some schemes as part of Southern Min and in other schemes as separate. Puxian Min was originally based on the Quanzhou dialect, but over time became heavily influenced by Eastern Min, eventually losing intellegility with Minnan. A forms of Southern Min spoken in Taiwan, collectively known as Taiwanese, Southern Min is a first language for most of the Hoklo people, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Southern Min while some non-Hoklo speak Southern Min fluently, there are many Southern Min speakers also among Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese immigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present-day Malaysia and Singapore. In general, Southern Min from southern Fujian is known as Hokkien, Hokkienese, many Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese also originated in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong and speak Teochew language, the variant of Southern Min from that region. Southern Min-speakers form the majority of Chinese in Singapore, with the largest group being Hokkien, despite the similarities the two groups are rarely seen as part of the same Minnan Chinese subgroups. The variants of Southern Min spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou, the variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Those Southern Min variants that are known as Hokkien in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants. The variants of Southern Min in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province are known as Teochew or Chaozhou. Teochew is of importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra. The Philippines variant is mostly from the Quanzhou area as most of their forefathers are from the aforementioned area, the Southern Min language variant spoken around Shanwei and Haifeng differs markedly from Teochew and may represent a later migration from Zhangzhou
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Hokkien
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Hokkien /hɒˈkiɛn/ is a group of Southern Min dialects spoken throughout Southeastern China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and by other overseas Chinese. Hokkien originated in southern Fujian, the Min-speaking province and it is closely related to Teochew, though there is limited mutual intelligibility, and is somewhat more distantly related to Hainanese and Leizhou dialect. Besides Hokkien, there are also other Min and Hakka dialects in Fujian province, the term Hokkien is etymologically derived from the Southern Min pronunciation for Fujian, the province from which the language hails. The variety is known by other terms such as the more general Min Nan or Southern Min. Fujianese and Fukienese are also used, although they are somewhat imprecise, the term Hokkien is not usually used in Mainland China or Taiwan. Conversely Hokkien is the name in Southeast Asia in both English, Chinese or other languages. Speakers of Hokkien, particularly those in Southeast Asia, typically refer to Hokkien as a dialect, people in Taiwan most often refer to Hokkien as the Taiwanese language, with Minnan and Holo also being used and 福建話 is not as common. Hokkien originated in the area of Fujian province, an important center for trade and migration. The major pole of Hokkien varieties outside of Fujian is Taiwan, the Taiwanese version mostly have origins with the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou variants, but since then, the Amoy dialect is becoming the modern prestige standard for the language. There are many Hokkien speakers among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia as well as in the United States, many ethnic Han Chinese emigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present day Malaysia and Singapore. Many of the Hokkien dialects of this region are similar to Taiwanese and Amoynese. Hokkien is reportedly the native language of up to 80% of the Chinese people in the Philippines, Hokkien speakers form the largest group of overseas Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines. Southern and part of western Fujian is home to four principal Hokkien dialects, Chinchew, Amoy, Chiangchew and Longyan, originating from the cities of Quanzhou, Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Longyan. As Xiamen is the city of southern Fujian, Amoy is considered the most important, or even the prestige dialect. It is a hybrid of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, same as Amoy dialect, the varieties of Hokkien spoken in Taiwan are hybrids of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, and are collectively known as Taiwanese Hokkien or just Taiwanese. Used by a majority of the population, it bears much importance from a socio-political perspective, the varieties of Hokkien in Southeast Asia originate from these dialects. The Singaporeans, Southern Malaysians and people in Indonesias Riau and surrounding islands variant is from the Quanzhou area and they speak a distinct form of Quanzhou Hokkien called Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien. Among ethnic Chinese inhabitants of Penang, and other states in Northern Malaysia and Medan, with areas in North Sumatra, Indonesia
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Taiwanese Romanization System
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The Taiwanese Romanization System is a transcription system for Taiwanese Hokkien. It is derived from Pe̍h-ōe-jī and since 2006 has been promoted by Taiwans Ministry of Education. It is nearly identical to Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet Romanization for Hakka apart from using ts tsh j instead of c ch j for the fricatives /ts tsʰ dz/, Taiwanese Romanization System uses 16 basic Latin letters,7 digraphs and a trigraph. In addition, it uses 6 diacritics to represent tones, nn is only used after a vowel to express nasalization, so it has no capital letter. Palatalization occurs when J, S, Ts, Tsh followed by i, so Ji, Si, Tsi, of the 10 unused basic Latin letters, R is sometimes used to express dialectal vowels, while the others are only used in loanwords. O pronounced ㄜ in general dialect in Kaohsiung and Tainan, ㄛ in Taipei, -nn forms the nasal vowels There is also syllabic m and ng. ing pronounced, ik pronounced. A hyphen links elements of a compound word, a double hyphen indicates that the following syllable has a neutral tone and therefore that the preceding syllable does not undergo tone sandhi. 臺灣閩南語羅馬拼音及其發音學習網, Taiwanese Romanization System learning site by Ministry of Education, Taiwan
19.
Old Chinese
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Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BC, bronze inscriptions became plentiful during the following Zhou dynasty. The latter part of the Zhou period saw a flowering of literature, including works such as the Analects, the Mencius. These works served as models for Literary Chinese, which remained the standard until the early twentieth century, thus preserving the vocabulary. Old Chinese was written with a form of Chinese characters. Although the script is not alphabetic, most characters were created by adapting a character for a similar-sounding word. Most recent reconstructions also describe Old Chinese as a language without tones, but having consonant clusters at the end of the syllable, most researchers trace the core vocabulary of Old Chinese to Sino-Tibetan, with much early borrowing from neighbouring languages. During the Zhou period, the originally monosyllabic vocabulary was augmented with polysyllabic words formed by compounding, several derivational affixes have also been identified. However the language lacked inflection, and indicated grammatical relationships using word order, the earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at the Yinxu site near modern Anyang identified as the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1250 BC. These are the bones, short inscriptions carved on tortoise plastrons and ox scapulae for divinatory purposes. The language written is undoubtedly an early form of Chinese, but is difficult to due to the limited subject matter. Only half of the 4,000 characters used have been identified with certainty, little is known about the grammar of this language, but it seems much less reliant on grammatical particles than Classical Chinese. From early in the Western Zhou period, around 1000 BC, even longer pre-Classical texts on a wide range of subjects have also been transmitted through the literary tradition. The oldest parts of the Book of Documents, the Classic of Poetry and the I Ching also date from the early Zhou period, a greater proportion of this more varied vocabulary has been identified than for the oracular period. The four centuries preceding the unification of China in 221 BC constitute the Chinese classical period in the strict sense, there are many bronze inscriptions from this period, but they are vastly outweighed by a rich literature written in ink on bamboo and wooden slips and silk. Although these are perishable materials, and many books were destroyed in the burning of books and burying of scholars in the Qin dynasty, other texts have been transmitted as copies. Such works from this period as the Analects, the Classic of Filial Piety, the Mencius, the Classical Chinese of such works formed the basis of Literary Chinese, which remained the written standard until the early twentieth century. Each character of the script represented a single Old Chinese word, most scholars believe that these words were monosyllabic, though some have recently suggested that a minority of them had minor presyllables
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Reconstructions of Old Chinese
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Several authors have produced reconstructions of Old Chinese phonology, beginning with the Swedish sinologist Bernard Karlgren in the 1940s and continuing to the present day. Although the various notations appear to be different, they correspond with each other on most points. By the 1970s, it was agreed that Old Chinese had fewer points of articulation than Middle Chinese, a set of voiceless sonorants. Since the 1990s, most authors have agreed on a six-vowel system, several other kinds of evidence are less comprehensive, but provide valuable clues. These include Min dialects, early Chinese transcriptions of foreign names, Middle Chinese, or more precisely Early Middle Chinese, is the phonological system of the Qieyun, a rhyme dictionary published in 601, with many revisions and expansions over the following centuries. These dictionaries indicated pronunciation by dividing a syllable into an initial consonant, according to its preface, the Qieyun did not reflect a single contemporary dialect, but incorporated distinctions made in different parts of China at the time. The fact that the Qieyun system contains more distinctions than any single form of speech means that it retains additional information about the history of the language. The large number of initials and finals are unevenly distributed, suggesting hypotheses about earlier forms of Chinese, often characters sharing a phonetic element are still pronounced alike, as in the character 中, which was adapted to write the words chōng and zhōng. In other cases the words in a series have very different sounds both in Middle Chinese and in modern varieties. Since the sounds are assumed to have been similar at the time the characters were chosen, the first systematic study of the structure of Chinese characters was Xu Shens Shuowen Jiezi. The Shuowen was mostly based on the seal script standardized in the Qin dynasty. Earlier characters from bones and Zhou bronze inscriptions often reveal relationships that were obscured in later forms. Rhyme has been a consistent feature of Chinese poetry, while much old poetry still rhymes in modern varieties of Chinese, Chinese scholars have long noted exceptions. This was attributed to lax rhyming practice of early poets until the late-Ming dynasty scholar Chen Di argued that a former consistency had been obscured by sound change and this implied that the rhyming practice of ancient poets recorded information about their pronunciation. Scholars have studied various bodies of poetry to identify classes of rhyming words at different periods, the oldest such collection is the Shijing, containing songs ranging from the 10th to 7th centuries BC. The systematic study of Old Chinese rhymes began in the 17th century, gus analysis was refined by Qing dynasty philologists, steadily increasing the number of rhyme groups. A final revision by Wang Li in the 1930s produced the set of 31 rhyme groups. The Min dialects are believed to have split off before the Middle Chinese stage, for example, the following dental initials have been identified in reconstructed proto-Min, Other points of articulation show similar distinctions within stops and nasals
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Tao
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Tao or Dao is a Chinese word signifying way, path, route, key or sometimes more loosely doctrine or principle. The Tao differs from conventional ontology in that it is an active and holistic practice of the order of Nature and its universal awakening. The Tao is eternally nameless” and to be distinguished from the countless named things which are considered to be its manifestations, the Tao lends its name to the religious tradition and philosophical tradition that are both referred to in English with the single term Taoism. The word Tao has a variety of meanings in ancient and modern Chinese language. Aside from its purely prosaic use to mean road, channel, path, principle, or similar, the Tao can be roughly thought of as the flow of the Universe, or as some essence or pattern behind the natural world that keeps the Universe balanced and ordered. It is related to the idea of qi, the energy of action. The Tao is a non-dualistic principle – it is the whole from which all the individual elements of the Universe derive. The Tao is more expressed in the relationship between wu and yinyang, leading to its central principle of wu wei. The Tao is usually described in terms of elements of nature, like water it is undifferentiated, endlessly self-replenishing, soft and quiet but immensely powerful, and impassively generous. Much of Taoist philosophy centers on the continuity of the natural world. In all its uses, the Tao is considered to have qualities that prevent it from being defined or expressed in words. It can, however, be known or experienced, and its principles can be followed or practiced, much of East Asian philosophical writing focuses on the value of adhering to the principles of the Tao and the various consequences of failing to do so. The Tao was shared with Confucianism, Chán and Zen Buddhism and more broadly throughout East Asian philosophy and religion in general. In Taoism, Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism, the object of spiritual practice is to one with the Tao or to harmonise ones will with Nature in order to achieve effortless action. This involves meditative and moral practices, important in this respect is the Taoist concept of De. De is the generally used to refer to proper adherence to the Tao. Particular things that manifest from the Tao have their own nature that they follow, in accordance with the Tao. Historically, the concept of De differed significantly between Taoists and Confucianists and this led to some philosophical and political conflicts between Taoists and Confucianisms
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De (Chinese)
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Chinese de 德 is an ancient and linguistically complex word. The following analyzes it in terms of semantics, graphics, the Hanyu Da Zidian, defines twenty meanings for de 德, translatable as Rise, go up, climb, ascend. Morals, morality, virtue, personal conduct, moral integrity, denoting a wise/enlightened person with moral character. Benevolent rule, good government, good instruction, quality, nature, basic character, characteristics, attribute. For example, Be of one heart and mind, in Five Phases theory, a reference to seasonally productive energy/air. First growth, initial stage, beginning of something, blessings, good fortune, happiness, resulting from benevolent actions. Used for zhí to plant, grow, establish, used for get, obtain, result in. An abbreviation for the Republic of Germany during World War II, another name for the Yellow River. This dictionary provides early usage examples, and all of these de meanings occur in Han or pre-Han Chinese classic texts, translating de into English is problematic and controversial. Arthur Waley believed that de was better translated power than virtue and it is usually translated virtue, and this often seems to work quite well, though where the word occurs in early, pre-moralistic texts such a translation is in reality quite false. But if we study the usage of the word carefully we find that de can be bad as well as good, clearly virtue is not a satisfactory equivalent. Te is anything that happens to one or that one does of a kind indicating that, as a consequence and it means, so to speak, the stock of credit that at any given moment a man has at the bank of fortune. Such a stock is of course built up partly by the carrying out of ritual. Based on the relation between de and zhi to plant, Waley further noted the early Chinese regarded planting seeds as a de, hence it means a latent power. The linguist Peter A. Boodberg investigated the semantics and etymology of de 德 and they find, therefore, no quarrel with rendering tê, almost invariably, as virtue. Philologists are, however, troubled by the absence in the Chinese term of any connotations reminiscent of the Latin etymon vir, such as manliness, other recommended translation, such as energy and essential quality, seem also inadequate from the etymological point of view. Of these, the last is by far the most frequently encountered, unfortunately, it is also probably the least appropriate of all to serve as an accurate translation of te in the Tao Te Ching. De power, virtue is written with the Chinese character 德 in both Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese and this character 德 combines the chi 彳 footstep, go radical with zhi 直 straight, vertical and xin 心 heart, mind
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Taiji (philosophy)
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The term Taiji and its other spelling Tai chi are most commonly used in the West to refer to Taijiquan, an internal martial art, Chinese meditation system and health practice. This article, however, refers only to the use of the term in Chinese philosophy, in analogy with the figurative meanings of English pole, Chinese ji 極 ridgepole can mean geographical pole, direction, magnetic pole, or celestial pole. Combining the two words, 太極 means the source, the beginning of the world, common English translations of the cosmological Taiji are the Supreme Ultimate or Great Ultimate, but other versions are the Supreme Pole, Great Absolute, or Supreme Polarity. Taiji references are found in Chinese classic texts associated with schools of Chinese philosophy. Zhang and Ryden explain the necessity of Taiji. Any philosophy that asserts two elements such as the yin-yang of Chinese philosophy will also look for a term to reconcile the two, to ensure that both belong to the sphere of discourse. The term supreme ultimate performs this role in the philosophy of the Book of Changes, in the Song dynasty it became a metaphysical term on a par with the Way. The Daoist classic Zhuangzi introduced the Taiji concept, one of the Inner Chapters contrasts Taiji 太極 great ultimate and Liuji 六極 six ultimates, six cardinal directions. The Way has attributes and evidence, but it has no action and it may be transmitted but cannot be received. It may be apprehended but cannot be seen, from the root, from the stock, before there was heaven or earth, for all eternity truly has it existed. It inspirits demons and gods, gives birth to heaven and earth and it lies above the zenith but is not high, it lies beneath the nadir but is not deep. It is prior to heaven and earth, but is not ancient, it is senior to high antiquity, the fu-sui 夫煫 gathers fire energy from the sun, the fang-chu 方諸 gathers dew from the moon. What are between Heaven and Earth, even an expert calculator cannot compute their number, thus, though the hand can handle and examine extremely small things, it cannot lay hold of the brightness. Were it within the grasp of ones hand to one category from the Supreme Ultimate above. This is because Yin and Yang share a common chi and move each other, Taiji also appears in the Xìcí 繫辭 Appended Judgments commentary to the I Ching, a late section traditionally attributed to Confucius but more likely dating to about the 3rd century B. C. E. Therefore there is in the Changes the Great Primal Beginning and this generates the two primary forces. The two primary forces generate the four images, the four images generate the eight trigrams. The eight trigrams determine good fortune and misfortune, good fortune and misfortune create the great field of action
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Yin and yang
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Many tangible dualities are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang. Duality is found in many systems, but Yin and Yang are parts of a Oneness that is also equated with the Tao. A term has been coined dualistic-monism or dialectical monism, Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The yin yang shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the element in each section. In Taoist metaphysics, distinctions between good and bad, along with other dichotomous moral judgments, are perceptual, not real, so, the duality of yin and yang is an indivisible whole. In the ethics of Confucianism on the hand, most notably in the philosophy of Dong Zhongshu. The Chinese terms yīn 陰 or 阴 shady side and yáng 陽 or 阳 sunny side are linguistically analyzable in terms of Chinese characters, pronunciations and etymology, meanings, topography, and loanwords. The first phonetic yīn 侌 cloudy ideographically combines jīn 今 now, present and yún 云 cloud, the second phonetic yáng 昜 bright originally pictured 日 the sun with 勿 rays coming down. This phonetic is expanded with the sun radical into yáng 暘 rising sun, the mound, hill radical 阝full forms semantically specify yīn 陰 shady/dark side of a hill and yáng 陽 sunny/light side of a hill. Compare the Classical Chinese names for these two bodies, Tàiyīn 太陰 moon and Tàiyáng 太陽 sun. Reconstructions of Old Chinese have illuminated the etymology of modern Chinese words, Yin and yang are semantically complex words. A reliable Chinese-English dictionary gives the translation equivalents. Many Chinese place names or toponyms contain the word yang sunny side, similarly, yin refers to north side of a hill in Huayin 華陰, which is north of Mount Hua 華山 in Shaanxi province. English yin, yang, and yin-yang are familiar loanwords of Chinese origin, the Oxford English Dictionary defines, yin Also Yin, Yn. a. Also attrib. or as adj. and transf, comb. as yin-yang, the combination or fusion of the two cosmic forces, freq. attrib. Esp. as yin-yang symbol, a divided by an S-shaped line into a dark. Comb. yang-yin = yin-yang s. v. yin b, for the earliest recorded yin and yang usages, the OED cites 1671 for yin and yang,1850 for yin-yang, and 1959 for yang-yin
25.
Xian (Taoism)
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The xian archetype is described by Victor H. Mair. They are immune to heat and cold, untouched by the elements and they dwell apart from the chaotic world of man, subsist on air and dew, are not anxious like ordinary people, and have the smooth skin and innocent faces of children. The transcendents live an existence that is best described as spontaneous. They recall the ancient Indian ascetics and holy men known as ṛṣi who possessed similar traits.1994,376 According to the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, the most famous Chinese compound of xiān is Bāxiān. Other common words include xiānrén, xiānrénzhăng, xiānnǚ, and shénxiān, besides humans, xiān can also refer to supernatural animals. The mythological húlijīng 狐狸精 fox fairy, vixen, witch, enchantress has a name of húxiān 狐仙. The etymology of xiān remains uncertain, the circa 200 CE Shiming, a Chinese dictionary that provided word-pun etymologies, defines xiān as to get old and not die, and explains it as someone who qiān the mountains. Two linguistic hypotheses for the etymology of xian involve the Arabic language, wu and Davis suggested the source was jinn, or jinni genie. The marvelous powers of the Hsien are so like those of the jinni of the Arabian Nights that one wonders whether the Arabic word, jinn, may not be derived from the Chinese Hsien. The word xiān is written with three characters 僊, 仙, or 仚, which combine the logographic radical rén with two phonetic elements, the oldest recorded xiān character 僊 has a xiān phonetic supposedly because immortals could ascend into the heavens. The usual modern xiān character 仙, and its rare variant 仚, have a shān phonetic, for a character analysis, Schipper interprets the human being of the mountain, or alternatively, human mountain. The two explanations are appropriate to these beings, they haunt the mountains, while also embodying nature. The Shijing contains the oldest occurrence of the character 僊, reduplicated as xiānxiān, but when they have drunk too much, Their deportment becomes light and frivolous—They leave their seats, and go elsewhere, They keep dancing and capering. Needham and Wang suggest xian was cognate with wu 巫 shamanic dancing, paper writes, the function of the term xian in a line describing dancing may be to denote the height of the leaps. Since, to live for a time has no etymological relation to xian. The 121 CE Shuowen Jiezi, the first important dictionary of Chinese characters and it defines 僊 as live long and move away and 仚 as appearance of a person on a mountaintop. This section chronologically reviews how Chinese texts describe xian immortals, transcendents, on one the hand, neidan techniques included taixi breath control, meditation, visualization, sexual training, and Tao Yin exercises. On the other hand, waidan techniques for immortality included alchemical recipes, magic plants, rare minerals, herbal medicines, drugs, the earliest representations of Chinese immortals, dating from the Han Dynasty, portray them flying with feathery wings or riding dragons
26.
Wu Xing
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The Five Phases are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. This order of presentation is known as the generation sequence. In the order of mutual overcoming, they are Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, the system of five phases was used for describing interactions and relationships between phenomena. The system is used as a reference in some forms of complementary and alternative medicine. Xing of Wu Xing means moving, a planet is called a star in Chinese. Wu Xing originally refers to the five planets that create five dimensions of earth life. Wu Xing is also translated as Five Elements and this is used extensively by many including practitioners of Five Element acupuncture. This translation arose by analogy with the Western system of the four elements. By the same token, Mù is thought of as Tree rather than Wood, the word element is thus used within the context of Chinese medicine with a different meaning to its usual meaning. It should be recognized that the phase, although commonly preferred, is not perfect. Phase is a translation for the five seasons mentioned below. Manfred Porkert attempts to resolve this by using Evolutive Phase for 五行 Wǔ Xíng and Circuit Phase for 五運 Wǔ Yùn, some of the Mawangdui Silk Texts also present the Wu Xing as five virtues or types of activities. Within Chinese medicine texts the Wu Xing are also referred to as Wu Yun or a combination of the two characters these emphasise the correspondence of five elements to five seasons, another tradition refers to the Wǔ Xíng as Wǔ Dé, the Five Virtues. Wood parts Earth Earth dams Water Water extinguishes Fire Fire melts Metal Metal chops Wood This cycle might also be called controls, according to Wu Xing theory, the structure of the cosmos mirrors the five phases. Each phase has a series of associations with different aspects of nature. In the ancient Chinese form of known as Feng Shui practitioners all based their art. All of these phases are represented within the trigrams, associated with these phases are colors, seasons and shapes, all of which are interacting with each other. Based on a directional energy flow from one phase to the next
27.
Qi
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In traditional Chinese culture, qì or chi is an active principle forming part of any living thing. Qi literally translates as breath, air, or gas, and figuratively as material energy, life force, Qi is the central underlying principle in traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts. Some elements of the concept of qi can be found in the energy when used in the context of various esoteric forms of spirituality. Notions in the West of energeia, élan vital, or vitalism are purported to be similar, despite widespread belief in the reality of qi, it is a non-scientific, unverifiable concept. The logograph 氣 is read with two Chinese pronunciations, the usual qì 氣 air, vital energy and the rare archaic xì 氣 to present food, pronunciations of 氣 in Sino-Xenic borrowings include, Japanese language ki, Korean language gi, and Vietnamese language khi. Reconstructions of the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 氣, standardized to IPA transcription, include, /kʰe̯iH/, /kʰĭəiH/, /kʰiəiH/, /kʰɨjH/, reconstructions of the Old Chinese pronunciation of 氣, standardized to IPA transcription, include, /*kʰɯds/, and /*C. qʰəp-s/. In addition, qì 炁 is an uncommon character especially used in writing Daoist talismans, historically, the word qì was generally written as 气 until the Han dynasty, when it was replaced by the 氣 graph clarified with mǐ 米 rice indicating steam. These oracle, bronze, and seal scripts graphs for qì 气 air, breath, etc. were anciently used as a loan character to write qǐ 乞 plead for, beg, ask. The regular script character qì 氣 is unusual because qì 气 is both the air radical and the phonetic, with mǐ 米 rice semantically indicating steam, vapor. This qì 气 air/gas radical, which was used in a few native Chinese characters like yīnyūn 氤氲 thick mist/smoke, was used to create new scientific characters for gaseous chemical elements. Some examples are based on pronunciations in European languages, fú 氟 fluorine and nǎi 氖 neon, others are based on semantics, qīng 氫 hydrogen and lǜ 氯 chlorine. Qi was an early Chinese loanword in English, romanized as, ki in Church Romanization in the century, chi in Wade–Giles in the mid-19th century. An early form of the idea comes from the writings of the Chinese philosopher Mencius, historically, the Huangdi Neijing/The Yellow Emperors Classic of Medicine is credited with first establishing the pathways through which qi circulates in the human body. The ancient Chinese described it as life force and they believed qi permeated everything and linked their surroundings together. They likened it to the flow of energy around and through the body, forming a cohesive, by understanding its rhythm and flow they believed they could guide exercises and treatments to provide stability and longevity. Although the concept of qi has been important within many Chinese philosophies, until China came into contact with Western scientific and philosophical ideas, they had not categorized all things in terms of matter and energy. Qi and li were fundamental categories similar to matter and energy, yuán qì is a notion of innate or pre-natal qi to distinguish it from acquired qi that a person may develop over the course of their lifetime. The earliest texts that speak of qi give some indications of how the concept developed, the philosopher Mo Di used the word qi to refer to noxious vapors that would in due time arise from a corpse were it not buried at a sufficient depth
28.
Daoist meditation
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Daoist meditation refers to the traditional meditative practices associated with the Chinese philosophy and religion of Daoism, including concentration, mindfulness, contemplation, and visualization. Traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese martial arts have adapted certain Daoist meditative techniques, the Chinese language has several keywords for Daoist meditation practices, some of which are difficult to translate accurately into English. Livia Kohn distinguishes three types of Daoist meditation, concentrative, insight, and visualization. In this sense, Kohn renders ding as intent contemplation or perfect absorption, the Zuowanglun has a section called Taiding 泰定 intense concentration Guan 觀 basically means look at, watch, observe, view, scrutinize. Kohn says the word guan, intimates the role of Taoist sacred sites as places of contact with celestial beings, Guan meditators would seek to merge individual consciousness into emptiness and attain unity with the Dao. For this reason, the word is most commonly rendered to visualize or, as a noun, within the above three types of Daoist meditation, some important practices are, Zuowang 坐忘 sitting forgetting was first recorded in the Zhuangzi. Neiguan 內觀 inner observation, inner vision is visualizing inside ones body and mind, including organs, inner deities, qi movements. Four chapters of the Guanzi have descriptions of practices, Xinshu 心術 Mind techniques, Baixin 白心 Purifying the mind. Modern scholars believe the Neiye text was written in the 4th century BCE, owing to the consensus that proto-Daoist Huang-Lao philosophers at the Jixia Academy in Qi composed the core Guanzi, Neiye meditation techniques are technically Daoistic rather than Daoist. Neiye Verse 8 associates dingxin 定心 stabilizing the mind with acute hearing and clear vision, however, thought, says Roth, is considered an impediment to attaining the well-ordered mind, particularly when it becomes excessive. Verse 18 contains the earliest Chinese reference to practicing breath-control meditation, breathing is said to coil and uncoil or contract and expand, with coiling/contracting referring to exhalation and uncoiling/expanding to inhalation. Several passages in the classic Daodejing are interpreted as referring to meditation, for instance, Attain utmost emptiness, Maintain utter stillness emphasizes xu 虛 empty, void and jing 靜 still, quiet, both of which are central meditative concepts. Verse 10 gives what Roth calls probably the most important evidence for breathing meditation in the Daodejing, Three of these Daodejing phrases resonate with Neiye meditation vocabulary. Baoyi 抱一 embrace unity compares with shouyi 守一 maintain the One, zhuanqi 專氣 focus your vital breath is zhuanqi 摶氣 concentrating your vital breath. Dichu xuanjian 滌除玄覽 cleanse the mirror of mysteries and jingchu qi she 敬除其舍 diligently clean out its lodging place have the same verb chu eliminate, the Daodejing exists in two received versions, named after the commentaries. The Heshang Gong version explains textual references to Daoist meditation, Wang Bi was a scholar of Xuanxue mysterious studies, neo-Daoism, which adapted Confucianism to explain Daoism, and his version eventually became the standard Daodejing interpretation. Richard Wilhelm said Wang Bis commentary changed the Daodejing from a compendiary of magical meditation to a collection of free philosophical aperçus, the Daoist Zhuangzi refers to meditation in more specific terms than the Daodejing. Two well-known examples of disciplines are Confucius and his favorite disciple Yan Hui discussing xinzhai 心齋 heart-mind fasting and zuowang sitting forgetting
29.
Neidan
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It is believed the Xiuzhen Tu is such a cultivation map. In China, it is an important form of practice for most schools of Taoism, the Chinese compound nèidān combines the common word nèi 內 meaning inside, inner, internal with dān 丹 cinnabar, vermillion, elixir, alchemy. The antonym of nèi is wài 外 outside, exterior, external, Chinese alchemical texts and sources ordinarily call neidan the jīndān dào 金丹道 or Way of the Golden Elixir. In Modern Standard Chinese usage, the term nèidān shù 內丹術 refers generally to internal alchemical practices, the date for the earliest use of the term neidan is uncertain. I pray that all the saints and sages will come to my help, so that I may get some good magic mushrooms, in this way I shall be able to practice continually the way of the Sutras and to engage in the several forms of meditations. I shall hope to find a peaceful dwelling in the depths of the mountains, with enough numinous elixirs, thus by the aids of external elixirs I shall be able to cultivate the elixir within. Others believed that neidan first occurred in the biographies of Deng Yuzhi鄧郁之, however, the authenticity of the relevant passages in these pseudo-historical sources is doubtful. Tang texts described internal alchemical practices with the words fúyào 服藥 take drug/medicine and chángshēng 長生 long life, longevity, liu Xiyues 劉希岳988 Taixuan langranzi jindao shi 太玄朗然子進道詩 has the earliest dateable mention of the terms neidan and waidan. The c.1019 Yunji Qiqian Daoist anthology mentions the term neidan, Neidan is part of the Chinese alchemical meditative tradition that is said to have been separated into internal and external at some point during the Tang dynasty. The Cantong qi is the earliest known book on alchemy in China. This text influenced the formation of Neidan, whose earliest existing texts date from the first half of the 8th century, the authors of several Neidan articles refer to their teachings as the Way of the Golden Elixir. The majority of Chinese alchemical sources is found in the Daozang, Neidan shares a significant portion of its notions and methods with classical Chinese medicine, fangshi and with other bodies of practices, such as meditation and the methods for nourishing life. To do so, first keep the body at ease, thereby energy can be made complete. Making ones energy complete, one can nurture the mind, to do so, first keep the mind pure, and make sure there are no thoughts. Thereby spirit can be made complete, making ones spirit complete, one can recover emptiness. To do so, first keep the will sincere, and make sure body, thereby spirit can be returned to emptiness. To attain immortality, there is nothing else but the refinement of these three treasures, essence, energy, spirit. When the three treasures are maintained, along with a balance of yin and yang, it is possible to achieve a healthy body and longevity
30.
I Ching
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The I Ching, or Classic of Changes, is an ancient divination text and the oldest of the Chinese classics. The I Ching uses a type of divination called cleromancy, which produces apparently random numbers. Four numbers,6 to 9, are turned into a hexagram, the hexagrams themselves have often acquired cosmological significance and paralleled with many other traditional names for the processes of change such as yin and yang and Wu Xing. The core of the I Ching is a Western Zhou divination text called the Changes of Zhou, various modern scholars suggest dates ranging between the 10th and 4th centuries BC for the assembly of the text in approximately its current form. It is possible that other systems existed at this time. The name Zhou yi literally means the changes of the Zhou dynasty, the changes involved have been interpreted as the transformations of hexagrams, of their lines, or of the numbers obtained from the divination. Feng Youlan proposed that the word for changes originally meant easy, as in a form of divination easier than the oracle bones, there is also an ancient folk etymology that sees the character for changes as containing the sun and moon, the cycle of the day. Modern Sinologists believe the character to be derived either from an image of the sun emerging from clouds, the Zhou yi was traditionally ascribed to the Zhou cultural heroes King Wen of Zhou and the Duke of Zhou, and was also associated with the legendary world ruler Fu Xi. The Zhou yi itself does not contain this legend and indeed says nothing about its own origins, the Rites of Zhou, however, also claims that the hexagrams of the Zhou yi were derived from an initial set of eight trigrams. During the Han dynasty there were various opinions about the relationship between the trigrams and the hexagrams. The basic unit of the Zhou yi is the hexagram, a composed of six stacked horizontal lines. Each line is broken or unbroken. The received text of the Zhou yi contains all 64 possible hexagrams, along with the name, a short hexagram statement. The book opens with the first hexagram statement, yuán hēng lì zhēn, edward Shaughnessy describes this statement as affirming an initial receipt of an offering, beneficial for further divining. The word zhēn was also used for the divine in the oracle bones of the late Shang dynasty. It also carried meanings of being or making upright or correct, the names of the hexagrams are usually words that appear in their respective line statements, but in five cases an unrelated character of unclear purpose appears. The hexagram names could have been chosen arbitrarily from the line statements, the line statements, which make up most of the book, are exceedingly cryptic. Each line begins with a word indicating the number, base,2,3,4,5, top
31.
Zhuangzi (book)
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The Zhuangzi is an ancient Chinese text from the late Warring States period which contains stories and anecdotes that exemplify the carefree nature of the ideal Daoist sage. The Zhuangzi consists of a collection of anecdotes, allegories, parables, and fables. Its main themes are of spontaneity in action and of freedom from the human world, the fables and anecdotes in the text attempt to illustrate the falseness of human distinctions between good and bad, large and small, life and death, and human and nature. While other ancient Chinese philosophers focused on moral and personal duty, a masterpiece of both philosophical and literary skill, it has significantly influenced writers for more than 2000 years from the Han dynasty to the present. Almost nothing is known of Zhuangzis life. He is thought to have spent time in the state of Chu, as well as in Linzi. The American scholar and Zhuangzi translator Burton Watson has noted, Whoever Zhuang Zhou was, scholars have recognized since at least the Song dynasty that some parts of the book could not have been written by Zhuangzi himself. Since ancient times, however, the first seven chapters—the nèi piān 內篇 inner chapters—have been considered to be the work of Zhuangzi. How many, if any, of the remaining 26 chapters—the wài piān 外篇 outer chapters, all of the 33 surviving chapters are accepted as compositions from the 4th to 2nd centuries BC. Details of the Zhuangzis textual history prior to the Han dynasty are largely unknown, the Records of the Grand Historian refers to a 100, 000-word Zhuangzi work and references several chapters that are still in the text. The Book of Han, finished in AD111, lists a Zhuangzi in 52 chapters, portions of the Zhuangzi have been discovered among bamboo slip texts from Warring States period and Han dynasty tombs, particularly at the Shuanggudui and Zhangjiashan Han bamboo texts sites. One of the slips from the Guodian bamboo texts, which date to around 300 BC and they collectively form about twelve chapters of Guo Xiangs version of the Zhuangzi, and are preserved mostly at the British Library and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Among the Japanese national treasures preserved in the Kōzan-ji temple in Kyoto is a Zhuangzi manuscript from the Muromachi period, almost all of the 33 surviving Zhuangzi chapters contain fables and allegories. Unlike other ancient Chinese works, whose allegories were usually based on legends and proverbs. The most famous of all Zhuangzi stories – Zhuang Zhou Dreams of Being a Butterfly – appears at the end of the second chapter, On the Equality of Things. The well known image of Zhuangzi wondering if he was a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man is so striking that whole dramas have been written on its theme. In it Zhuangzi with the theme of transformation, illustrating that the distinction between waking and dreaming is another false dichotomy, if distinguishes them, how can tell if is now dreaming or awake. Another well known Zhuangzi story—The Death of Wonton—illustrates the dangers Zhuangzi saw in going against the nature of things
32.
Three Pure Ones
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They are regarded as pure manifestation of the Tao and the origin of all sentient beings. From the Taoist classic Tao Te Ching, it was held that The Tao produced One, One produced Two, Two produced Three, Three produced All things and it is generally agreed that, Tao produced One—Wuji produced Taiji, One produced Two—Taiji produced Yin and Yang. However, the subject of how Two produced Three has remained a popular debate among Taoist Scholars, most scholars believe that it refers to the Interaction between Yin and Yang, with the presence of Chi, or life force. In religious Taoism, the theory of how Tao produces One, Two, yuánshǐ Tiānzūn oversees the earliest phase of Creation of the Universe, and is henceforth known as Dàobǎo Treasure of the Tao. Therefore, he is known as Jīngbǎo Treasure of the Law/Scripture. While Jīng in popular understanding means scriptures, in context it also mean passing through. In the final phase of Creation, Daode Tianzun is manifested from Língbăo Tiānzūn to bring civilization, therefore, He is also known as Shībǎo Treasure of the Master. Each of the Three Pure Ones represents both a deity and a heaven, Yuanshi tianzun rules the first heaven, Yu-Qing, which is found in the Jade Mountain. The entrance to heaven is named the Golden Door. He is the source of all truth, as the sun is the source of all light, Lingbao Tianzun rules over the heaven of Shang-Qing. Daode Tianzun rules over the heaven of Tai-Qing, the Three Pure Ones are often depicted as throned elders. Schools of Taoist thought developed around each of these deities, Taoist Alchemy was a large part of these schools, as each of the Three Pure Ones represented one of the three essential fields of the body, jing, qi and shen. The congregation of all three Pure Ones resulted in the return to Tao, the first Pure One is universal or heavenly chi. The second Pure One is human plane chi, and the third Pure One is earth chi, heavenly chi includes the chi or energy of all the planets, stars and constellations as well as the energy of God. Human plane chi is the energy that exists on the surface of our planet and sustains life. As the Three Pure Ones are manifestation of Primordial Celestial Energy, each of them holds onto a divine object associated with their task. Yuánshǐ Tiānzūn is usually depicted holding the Pearl of Creation, signifying his role in creating the Universe from void and chaos. The Ruyi held by Lingbao Tianzun represents authority, the phase of Creation where the Yang was separated from the Yin
33.
Guan Yu
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Guan Yu, courtesy name Yunchang, was a general serving under the warlord Liu Bei in the late Eastern Han dynasty. He played a significant role in the events led to the collapse of the dynasty. After Liu Bei gained control of Yi Province in 214, Guan Yu remained in Jing Province to govern, by the time Guan Yu found out about the loss of Jing Province after his defeat at Fancheng, it was too late. He was subsequently captured in an ambush by Sun Quans forces, Guan Yu is respected as an epitome of loyalty and righteousness. He is portrayed as having a red face, Guan Yu was deified as early as the Sui dynasty and is still worshipped by many Chinese people today in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and among many overseas Chinese communities. In religious devotion he is called the Divus Guan or Lord Guan. He is a deity worshipped in Chinese folk religion, popular Confucianism, Taoism, and Chinese Buddhism and his hometown Yuncheng has also named its airport after him. The authoritative historical source on Guan Yus life is the Records of the Three Kingdoms, during the fifth century, Pei Songzhi annotated the Sanguozhi by incorporating information from other sources to Chen Shous original work and adding his personal commentary. No descriptions of Guan Yus physical appearance exist in historical records, traditionally, he is portrayed as a red-faced warrior with a long lush beard. He had an air and looked quite majestic. Alternatively, the idea of his red face could have borrowed from opera representation. In illustrations of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Guan Yu is traditionally depicted wearing a green robe over his body armour, supposedly, Guan Yus weapon was a guan dao named Green Dragon Crescent Blade, which resembled a glaive and was said to weigh 82 catties. A wooden replica can be today in the Emperor Guan Temple in Xiezhou County. Guan Yu was from Xie County, Hedong Commandery, which is in present-day Yuncheng and his original courtesy name was Changsheng. He was very interested in the Zuo Zhuan and could fluently recite lines from the book and he fled from his hometown after committing a serious crime and arrived in Zhuo Commandery. When the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out in the 180s, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei joined a militia formed by Liu Bei. When Liu Bei was appointed as the Chancellor of Pingyuan State, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were appointed as Majors of Separate Command, the three of them shared a brotherly-like relationship, to the point of sharing the same room. Zhang Fei and Guan Yu also stood guard beside Liu Bei when he sat down at meetings and they followed him on his exploits and protected him from danger
34.
Eight Immortals
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The Eight Immortals are a group of legendary xian in Chinese mythology. Each immortals power can be transferred to a tool that can bestow life or destroy evil. Together, these eight tools are called the Covert Eight Immortals, most of them are said to have been born in the Tang or Song dynasty. They are revered by the Taoists and are also an element in the secular Chinese culture. They are said to live on a group of five islands in the Bohai Sea, the Immortals are, He Xiangu Cao Guojiu Li Tieguai Lan Caihe Lü Dongbin Han Xiangzi Zhang Guolao Zhongli Quan In literature before the 1970s, they were sometimes translated as the Eight Genies. First described in the Yuan Dynasty, they were named after the Eight Immortal Scholars of the Han. While cults dedicated to various Taoist immortals date back to the Han dynasty, the art of the Jin tombs of the 12th and 13th centuries depicts a group of eight Taoist immortals in wall murals and sculptures. They officially became known as the Eight Immortals in the writings, the most famous art depiction of the Eight Immortals from this period is a mural of them in the Eternal Joy Temple at Ruicheng. The 8 Immortals are considered to be signs of prosperity and longevity, so they are popular themes in ancient and they were frequent adornments on celadon vases. They were also common in sculptures owned by the nobility and their most common appearance, however, was in paintings. Many silk paintings, wall murals, and wood block prints remain of the Eight Immortals and they were often depicted either together in one group, or alone to give more homage to that specific immortal. This shows that early on, the Eight Immortals quickly became eminent figures of the Taoist religion and had great importance and we can see this importance is only heightened in the Ming and Qing dynasties. During these dynasties, the Eight Immortals were very frequently associated with other prominent spiritual deities in artwork, there are numerous paintings with them and the Three Stars together. Also, other deities of importance, such as the Queen Mother of the West, are seen in the company of the Eight Immortals. The artwork of the Eight Immortals is not limited to paintings or other visual arts and they are quite prominent in written works too. Authors and playwrights wrote numerous stories and plays on the Eight Immortals, one famous story that has been rewritten many times and turned into several plays is The Yellow-Millet Dream, which is the story of how Lǚ Dòngbīn met Zhongli Quan and began his path to immortality. The Immortals are the subject of artistic creations, such as paintings. There is another work, also made during the Ming, by an anonymous writer and it is about the Immortals on their way to attend the Conference of the Magical Peach when they encounter an ocean
35.
Yellow Emperor
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Huangdis cult became prominent in the late Warring States and early Han period, when he was portrayed as the originator of the centralized state, as a cosmic ruler, and as a patron of esoteric arts. A large number of texts – such as the Huangdi Neijing, a classic, and the Huangdi Sijing. To this day the Yellow Emperor remains a powerful nationalist symbol, in the Warring States period, the term di on its own could also refer to the deities associated with the five sacred mountains and colors. Huangdi, the di, was one of the latter. The correlation of the colors in association with different dynasties was mentioned in the Lüshi Chunqiu, the character huang 黄 was often used in place of the homophonous huang 皇, which means august or radiant, giving Huangdi attributes close to those of Shangdi, the Shang supreme god. The Records of the Grand Historian, compiled by Sima Qian in the first century BCE, gives the Yellow Emperors name as Xuanyuan. Third-century scholar Huangfu Mi, who wrote a work on the sovereigns of antiquity, commented that Xuanyuan was the name of a hill where Huangdi had lived, qing-dynasty scholar Liang Yusheng argued instead that the hill was named after the Yellow Emperor. Xuanyuan is also the name of the star Regulus in Chinese and he is also associated to the broader constellations Leo and Lynx, of which the latter is said to represent the body of the Yellow Dragon, Huangdis animal form. Huangdi was also referred to as Youxiong and this name has been interpreted as either a place name or a clan name. According to British sinologist Herbert Allen Giles, that name was taken from that of hereditary principality. William Nienhauser, a translator of the Records of the Grand Historian, states that Huangdi was originally the head of the Youxiong clan. Rémi Mathieu, a French historian of Chinese myths and religion, translates Youxiong as possessor of bears, ye Shuxian has also associated the Yellow Emperor with bear legends common across northeast Asia people as well as the Dangun legend. In Han-dynasty texts the Yellow Emperor is also called upon as the Yellow God, certain accounts interpret him as the incarnation of the Yellow God of the Northern Dipper, another name of the universal god. According to a definition in apocryphal texts related to the Hétú 河圖, as a cosmological deity, the Yellow Emperor is known as the Great Emperor of the Central Peak, and in the Shizi as the Yellow Emperor with Four Faces. His Records of the Grand Historian begins with the Yellow Emperor, throughout most of Chinese history, the Yellow Emperor and the other ancient sages were considered to be real historical figures. Their historicity started to be questioned in the 1920s by historians like Gu Jiegang, Yang Kuan, a member of the same historiographical current, noted that only in the Warring States period had the Yellow Emperor started to be described as the first ruler of China. Yang thus argued that Huangdi was a transformation of Shangdi. Also in the 1920s, French scholars Henri Maspero and Marcel Granet published critical studies of Chinas accounts of high antiquity, most scholars now agree that the Yellow Emperor originated as a god who was later represented as a historical person
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