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Concept
Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)
Summary
(), usually translated as Five Phases or Five Agents, is a fivefold conceptual scheme used in many traditional Chinese fields of study to explain a wide array of phenomena, including cosmic cycles, the interactions between internal organs, the succession of political regimes, and the properties of herbal medicines.
The agents are Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth. The wuxing system has been in use since it was formulated in the second or first century BCE during the Han dynasty. It appears in many seemingly disparate fields of early Chinese thought, including music, feng shui, alchemy, astrology, martial arts, military strategy, I Ching divination, and traditional medicine, serving as a metaphysics based on cosmic analogy.
Wuxing originally referred to the five major planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Mars, Venus), which were conceived as creating five forces of earthly life. This is why the word is composed of Chinese characters meaning "five" () and "moving" (). "Moving" is shorthand for "planets", since the word for planets in Chinese literally translates as "moving stars" (). Some of the Mawangdui Silk Texts (before 168 BC) also connect the wuxing to the wude (), the Five Virtues and Five Emotions. Scholars believe that various predecessors to the concept of wuxing were merged into one system with many interpretations during the Han dynasty.
Wuxing was first translated into English as "the Five Elements", drawing delibrate parallels with the Western idea of the four elements. This translation is still in common use among practitioners of Traditional Chinese medicine, such as in the name of Five Element acupuncture. However, this analogy is misleading. The four elements are concerned with form, substance and quantity, whereas wuxing are "primarily concerned with process, change, and quality". For example, the wuxing element "Wood" is more accurately thought of as the "vital essence" of trees rather than the physical substance wood. This led sinologist Nathan Sivin to propose the alternative translation "five phases" in 1987.
Official source
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