Wake Forest University

East Asian Languages and Literatures, Chinese,

Patrick Edwin Moran





Zhu Zi Yu-lei, Juan 1, item 49

Traditional:

五行相為陰陽,又各自為陰陽。

端蒙。

Simplified:

五行相为阴阳,又各自为 阴阳。

端蒙。

big5:

۬ASU۬C

ݻXC

GB:

ΪָΪ

ɡ

Translation:

Each of the Five Components of Activity reciprocally acts as yin or yang to the next, and furthermore each within itself is an yin and yang [cycle].
Duan-meng

Commentary:

Actually, if each of the five "within itself is an yin and yang" cycle, then the rising tail of one cycle will be continued on as the rising head of the next, or, if we look at the diagram as proceeding from right to left, then the falling tail of one cycle will be continued on as the falling head of the next. If we superimpose the graphs of the Five Components of Activity on the graph of the two phases, primal Yang and primal Yin, then cycles one and two of the five will be higher (yang) with respect to cycles four and five (which will be yin relative to them),

but the third of them will be raised in its yang phase and dropped in its yin phase, making it a cycle that will have greater extremes than any of the others. Perhaps that is why the "earth" component is placed in the center of traditional diagrams, and why the "earth" component is viewed as "mixed."

Not having a copy of Mathematica to play with, my diagrams are not precise as to the addition of sine waves, but the picture in the minds of Zhu Xi and his students may well have been even more approximate than my poor diagrams, since they may well have known nothing about the mathematical plotting of such graphs.

-- PEM


Chinese text checked against the Zhu Zi Yu-lei, 7 July 2003