Liezi reference - Gu San Fen

[dawei]

Liezi seems to reference this.  There is much more detail here. 

 

古三墳  -  Gu San Fen:

 

清氣未升，濁氣未沉，

Pure/clear Qi did not yet rise; impure/opaque Qi did not yet sink.

 

遊神未靈，五色未分。

The spirits did not yet have their power; The rainbow did not yet separate into its parts

 

中有其物，冥冥而性存，謂之混沌。

Within this is matter; a deep, dark and mysterious nature exists; this is called chaos.

 

混沌為太始。

Chaos serves as the Great Beginning

 

太始者、元胎之萌也，

The Great Beginning is, the first born to sprout

 

太始之數一，一為太極，

The Great Beginning numbers as One; this first object serves as Taiji (Great Utmost)

 

太極者、天地之父母也。

This Taiji is, Heaven and Earth’s parents

 

一極易，天高明而清，地博厚而濁，謂之太易。

This ultimate Change, [as] a clear, high and bright Heaven, [as] a plentiful and rich opaque Earth.  This is called The Great Change.

 

太易者、天地之變也，太易之數二，

This Great Change is Heaven and earth transforming. The Great Change numbers as Two.

 

二為兩儀，兩儀者、陰陽之形也，謂之太初。

This second object serves as two primary forces; These two forces appear as Yin and Yang. This is called the Great Beginning.

 

太初者、天地之交也，太初之數四，

This Great Beginning is the interaction of Heaven and Earth. The Great Beginning numbers as four.

 

四盈易，四象變而成萬物，謂之太素。

Four completes the Changes; Four divisions transform to become all things.  This is called The Great Simplicity.

 

太素者、三才之始也，太素之數三，

This Great Simplicity is the three powers (trigram) of the beginning. The Great Simplicity numbers as three.

 

三盈易，天地孕而生男女，謂之三才。

These Three complete the Changes; Heaven and Earth were ready to give birth to male and female.  This is called The Three Powers (trigram)

 

三才者、天地之備也，遊神動而靈，

The Three Powers are Heaven and Earth equipped, are the spirits come to fruition

 

故飛走潛化，

Thereafter [are things] transformed as to fly, move or veil.

 

動植蟲魚之類必備於天地之間，

This movement results in lower life forms, plants, fish and such things that are an essential activity between Heaven and Earth.

 

謂之太古。

This is called the Great Antiquity.

 

See Liezi Introduction and links:  

https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/50556-liezi-chapter-introduction/

 

 

Edited March 7, 2020 by dawei

[dawei]

I used to think that the work Liezi was an older text and thus the origin for the references of the Four Greats.  In preparing to share the work, I found that the Liezi is not as old as most first attributed (at least before Zhuangzi who references the person Liezi).  Due to Graham's scholarship on the topic, western sinologists would eventually adopt a more recent date but not too far after 300 AD.  

 

What I share next is purely speculative on my part as I have very little background in what follows.  I have read and re-read some of this stuff so many times over the years but mostly because I have little understand for what it all means.  I am only more and more familiar with the words but not sure I understand it. 

 

The passage here in Gu San Fen has always bothered me because it was not in the same order as Liezi and has much more detail.  As well, it talks of a numbering sequence as: 1>2>4>3.    I could not find this anywhere until I took the 3 as a reference to trigrams.  And what I found may be forced as 1,2,4,8 would really be the expected order (so I think) if one was looking at the trigram cycle:

 

 

 

Then there is another later Han work that talks similar to the Gu San Fen but included 5 (Wu Xing- 5 elements/phases) after 3.  I was now stumbling around with a 1>2>4>3>5 sequence in my head.   This lead me to read up on the 5 elements which were assigned numbers of 1-5 based on their cosmogonic order in which they came into being (water, fire, wood, metal, earth).  Then 6-10 were added for direction:  (1-water-6 > 2-fire-7 > 3-wood-8 > 4-metal-9 > 5-earth-10).

 

If one maps the mutual overcoming sequence to the Lou Shu Map, it results in:

 

 

Taking the numbers for the elements result in:  1 > 2 > 4 > 3 > 5.

 

This appears to really make no sense to compare this to the Gu San Fen sequence because the text is really trying to describe [mutual] generation.  It just seems an uncanny coincidence.

[Daeluin]

On 3/7/2020 at 1:20 PM, dawei said:

The passage here in Gu San Fen has always bothered me because it was not in the same order as Liezi and has much more detail.  As well, it talks of a numbering sequence as: 1>2>4>3.    I could not find this anywhere until I took the 3 as a reference to trigrams.  And what I found may be forced as 1,2,4,8 would really be the expected order (so I think) if one was looking at the trigram cycle:

 

There is a chart in the Qingjing jing that resonates with this ordering.

 

The idea there is that Old Yang ⚊ moves and because movement is also yang we have Tai Yang ⚌. Or Old Yang is still and we have Shao Yin ⚍. And Old Yin ⚋ is still and stillness is yin so we have Tai Yin ⚏. Or Old Yin moves and we have Shao Yang ⚎.

 

Four symbols (formless images) but only two changes.

 

They change again and we have three changes, and now our middles are created, and the four forces are contained within them. ☰ ☱ ☲ ☳ ☴ ☵ ☶ ☷

 

So the san cai, the three powers of heaven, earth and humanity, are really more like heaven, earth, and the fruits of the their exchanging. This resonates as a "Great Antiquity" as well. It would not be the first time Confucian influence emphasized the human role in the web of life at the expense of the totality of the web of life, if that is what is going on here.

 

For TaiYi, I think of a process of changes, of which the emergence of duality was the first. Here you have two different Great Beginnings, but there are two different characters, 始 and 初. Once is more of an inception. The other is more of a birth. I've gone with "Great Inception" and "Great Birth".

 

First there is something, ONE, then the clear and turbid separate and we have heaven and earth, representing the first change, TWO.

 

Then this change expands and becomes 4 in the great birth, and changes again.

 

盈 ying represents a fullness and repletion that I can see the "complete" meaning from, but for me it represents not completing, but expanding, filling even more, to create more. So "expanding change", from one change to two changes, from two changes to three changes.

 

This idea of them changing and changing again is also not quite there IMO. The four forces/symbols are there to represent the corners, the extremities. When yang moves, we have the yang of yang, and nothing is more extreme than this, it is simply the maintaining of that original pure yang potency, and vice versa. The third yang that emerges in the middle is not something new, but was always there. What is new is the yang within the yin, and the yin within the yang, so these changes are related to a centrality becoming formed within what was originally the whole. A new whole within the original whole, and thereby becoming its own elemental force, and all of these elemental forces are inherently linked within the changes of the ten thousand things they represent on behalf of the four forces present within them. So this third change is not really linear, just adding on more changes, but more of a coagulation of two of the four forces meeting in the middle to embody a new dynamic that is distinct. There are 8 distinct elemental forces, but they exist within these three capacities.

 

It is confusing because we are counting different things. With conception we have something and call it ONE. With the first change we have duality and call it TWO. With the second change we have 2x2 and call it FOUR, and with the third change we have 8, but we call it in regards to it being the Third change and how this creates the three capacities. But also, after the second change it says we already have the 10,000 things and this is the Third. So it is hard to say 8 when we already have 10,000. But if we think about it in terms of the four directions and the 3 natural divisions between things.

 

It makes sense to me in terms of the numerics of creation (1-5), as separate from the numerics of completion. The creation sets the 10,000 things up and is a part of the pre-eminence of heaven (xiantian), and the completion involves how they work to complete each other after the 10,000 things are created under heaven (houtian). Thus the 3 are part of the creation, and the 8 are part of the completion.

 

Here is my working translation of this section. This year I found that with the Pleco app and Kroll's addon dictionary it is very easy to render my own translations as I already have a sense of the material and it is presented in formulas, albeit grammar is tricky and I'm still working on it. Also it seems to bear mentioning for others that the section right after this continues on to describe the three capacities/powers from the perspective of human relations and ancestry. But it is rather challenging to make sense of.

 

清氣未升，濁氣未沉，遊神未靈，五色未分。

 

Clear Qi not yet rising,
Unclear Qi not yet sinking,
Wandering Shen not yet divine,
The Five Hues not yet divided.

 

中有其物，冥冥而性存，謂之混沌。

 

Inside having these phenomena,
Darkness upon darkness and then one's fundamental nature (Xing) remains,
We name this the identity-less mixing (Hun Dun).

 

混沌為太始。

 

Hun Dun carries out the Great Inception.

 

太始者、元胎之萌也，太始之數一，一為太極，太極者、天地之父母也。

 

As for the Great Inception,
It is due to the sprouts and new beginnings of this preeminent womb,
The Great Inception's numeric is ONE,
ONE carries out the Great Absolute (Tai Ji),
As for Tai ji,
It is due to being the father and mother of Heaven and Earth.

 

一極易，天高明而清，地博厚而濁，謂之太易。

 

ONE is the extremity of Change,
Heaven is raised up and luminous and therefore clear,
Earth is widespread and substantive and therefore unclear,
We call this the Great Change.

 

太易者、天地之變也，太易之數二，二為兩儀，兩儀者、陰陽之形也，謂之太初。

 

As for the Great Change,
It is due to the active permuting of Heaven and Earth,
Great Change's numeric is TWO,
TWO carries out duality,
As for duality,
It is due to the manifested forms of yin and yang,
We call this Great Birth.

 

太初者、天地之交也，太初之數四，四盈易，四象變而成萬物，謂之太素。

 

As for Great Birth,
It is due to the reciprocal intertwining and exchanging of Heaven and Earth,
The Great Birth's numeric is FOUR,
FOUR expands Changing,
The four formless images actively permute and then accomplish the 10,000 things (Wan Wu / Myriad Phenomena),
We call this the Great Simplicity.

 

太素者、三才之始也，太素之數三，三盈易，天地孕而生男女，謂之三才。

 

As for the Great Simplicity,
It is due to the Inception of the Three Capacities,
The Great Simplicity's numeric is THREE,
THREE expands Changing,
Heaven and Earth are pregnant and then create men and women,
We call this the "Three Capacities."

 

三才者、天地之備也，遊神動而靈，故飛走潛化，動植蟲魚之類必備於天地之間，謂之太古。

 

As for the Three Capacities,
It is due to the preparations of Heaven and Earth,
Wandering Shen is set into motion and then is divine,
For this reason sky-high running transforms unnoticed,
Stimulating activity in plants and insects and fish and so on invariably preparing with regard to the space between Heaven and Earth,
We call this the Great Antiquity.

[Daeluin]

And really "Great Ancestry" captures something that feels right to me while "Great Antiquity" seems to disconnect from it. While Ancestry is not quite the right word, it might fit if we think of this Ancestry in terms of the full timeline of the relating of the 10,000 things and thereby calling it "old" or "ancient". But it is just a link in the chain from then to now. And given that the next section revolves around lineage and generational dynamics, that this Antiquity prepared us for, Ancestry seems apt.

 

In a sense are are talking about the ancestry of life. I wonder if this would be considered the "FIVE".

[ChiDragon]

 

2 hours ago, Daeluin said:

And really "Great Ancestry" captures something that feels right to me while "Great Antiquity" seems to disconnect from it. While Ancestry is not quite the right word, it might fit if we think of this Ancestry in terms of the full timeline of the relating of the 10,000 things and thereby calling it "old" or "ancient". But it is just a link in the chain from then to now. And given that the next section revolves around lineage and generational dynamics, that this Antiquity prepared us for, Ancestry seems apt.

 

In a sense are are talking about the ancestry of life. I wonder if this would be considered the "FIVE".

FYI
太古: is a compound character that means from far back at the beginning of time
謂之太古: It was called remote antiquity.

[ChiDragon]

3 hours ago, Daeluin said:

清氣未升，濁氣未沉，遊神未靈，五色未分

清气还没有升起来，浊气还没有沉下去，游走的神灵还没有显灵，五种颜色还没有区别
Clear substance not yet rising
Turbid substance not yet precipitated 
Wandering diety has not yet become appeared.
Five colors not yet distinctive

 

3 hours ago, Daeluin said:

中有其物，冥冥而性存，謂之混沌

中间所有的事物，在冥冥中生存着，叫做混沌。
There is the thing that is within
Already existed before anyone knows
It's called chaos

3 hours ago, Daeluin said:

混沌為太始

混沌就是太始。
The chaos is known as at the very beginning

 

3 hours ago, Daeluin said:

太始者、元胎之萌也，太始之數一，一為太極，太極者、天地之父母也。

太始是元胎的萌芽。太始的数有一个，一就是太极。太极是天地的父母。
At the very beginning, it is the sprout of the original womb.
There was only one number at the very beginning. The number "one" is Taiji. Taiji is the parents of the sky and earth. 

Edited October 13, 2023 by ChiDragon

[ChiDragon]

4 hours ago, Daeluin said:

一極易，天高明而清，地博厚而濁，謂之太易

一非常容易辨别，天在上面又高又明但清楚，地在下面博大厚重但混浊，叫做太易。
One is very easy to distinct, the sky is high above, bright, and clear. The earth is at the bottom wide, thick, and turbid. It is called the great change.

 

4 hours ago, Daeluin said:

太易者、天地之變也，太易之數二，二為兩儀，兩儀者、陰陽之形也，謂之太初

太易是天地变化的结果。太易的数有两个，二就是两仪。两仪是阴阳的形象，叫做太初。
Taiyi is the result of the change in the sky and earth. There are two numbers in Taiyi. The number two is duality. The duality is the images of yin and yang. It is called the very beginning.
 

4 hours ago, Daeluin said:

 

太初者、天地之交也，太初之數四，四盈易，四象變而成萬物，謂之太素

太初是天地之交的结果。太初的数有四个，四再扩大，四的形状变化成万物，叫做太素。
The very beginning is the result of the interaction between the sky and the earth. There are four numbers at the very beginning. The expansion of the four images had changed and formed all things. It was called Taisu.
 

4 hours ago, Daeluin said:

太素者、三才之始也，太素之數三，三盈易，天地孕而生男女，謂之三才。

太素是三才的开始。太素的数有三个，三再扩大，天地孕育就生了男女，叫做三才。
 

4 hours ago, Daeluin said:

三才者、天地之備也，遊神動而靈，故飛走潛化，動植蟲魚之類必備於天地之間，謂之太古。

三才是天地的储备。游荡的神不但走动而且显灵，所以飞的、跑的、潜伏的、变化的、动物、植物、虫子、游鱼之类，一定储备在天地之间，叫做太古。

太古是人类的开始。太古的人都长寿，扩大的开始有三男三女，冬天聚集夏天离散，吃鸟、兽、虫、鱼、草、木的果实，男女构成天地间的精灵，用女性来称呼姓氏。

TBC

Edited October 13, 2023 by ChiDragon