peter
March 4th, 2005, 12:39 PM
Hello all,
For some days I think about #47 "Kun" hexagram and its name. It attracted my attention because this hexagram reflects origin of Chinese elements by He Tu scheme (He Tu cross). Look at trigrams - both outer and inner, in order "1-2-3 - 2-3-4 - 3-4-5 - 4-5-6": Kan-Li-Xun-Dui, Water-Fire-Wood-Metal, it is just 1-2-3-4 in He Tu numbers. And while #47 is balanced (3 yang and 3 yin), we can suppose that this hexagram itself belongs to Earth - while Earth is balanced, yin-yang element. (#6 "Song" has the same order of elements, but it is not balanced, so it is of lesser interest.)
And now I wonder - why Fu Xi named this hexagram "Exhaustion" (or "Adversity", or "Oppression", or "Trapped", as I saw in different translations)?
The character consists of two elements - "fence" with "tree" in it. But "Zhongwen.com" gives its etymology as "Tree growing in ruined enclosure". Probably it shows us a tree that tries to grow in ruins of a house (remember Chinese houses - a yard in the center, and rooms on periphery) - of course, if there are too little land for it in this yard, and out of it there is only clay, then it is hard for this tree to grow soundly.
By association I looked for etymology for "garden" ("yuan"): it also has a "fence" ("enclosure" in "Zhongwen.com" terms), but with "yuan" phonetic in the center, and this phonetic means "long flowing robe", so it has little in common with trees, bushes and all that a garden must have.
So - maybe someone knows history of this character "kun"? Maybe it meant something else in old times? Moreover - the hexagram consists of Lake and Water trigrams, how a tree could appear in the character?
BTW - does anybody knows how this hexagram is named in Mawangdui text? I remember that in that text more than a half of hexagrams are named differently from "classical version".
For some days I think about #47 "Kun" hexagram and its name. It attracted my attention because this hexagram reflects origin of Chinese elements by He Tu scheme (He Tu cross). Look at trigrams - both outer and inner, in order "1-2-3 - 2-3-4 - 3-4-5 - 4-5-6": Kan-Li-Xun-Dui, Water-Fire-Wood-Metal, it is just 1-2-3-4 in He Tu numbers. And while #47 is balanced (3 yang and 3 yin), we can suppose that this hexagram itself belongs to Earth - while Earth is balanced, yin-yang element. (#6 "Song" has the same order of elements, but it is not balanced, so it is of lesser interest.)
And now I wonder - why Fu Xi named this hexagram "Exhaustion" (or "Adversity", or "Oppression", or "Trapped", as I saw in different translations)?
The character consists of two elements - "fence" with "tree" in it. But "Zhongwen.com" gives its etymology as "Tree growing in ruined enclosure". Probably it shows us a tree that tries to grow in ruins of a house (remember Chinese houses - a yard in the center, and rooms on periphery) - of course, if there are too little land for it in this yard, and out of it there is only clay, then it is hard for this tree to grow soundly.
By association I looked for etymology for "garden" ("yuan"): it also has a "fence" ("enclosure" in "Zhongwen.com" terms), but with "yuan" phonetic in the center, and this phonetic means "long flowing robe", so it has little in common with trees, bushes and all that a garden must have.
So - maybe someone knows history of this character "kun"? Maybe it meant something else in old times? Moreover - the hexagram consists of Lake and Water trigrams, how a tree could appear in the character?
BTW - does anybody knows how this hexagram is named in Mawangdui text? I remember that in that text more than a half of hexagrams are named differently from "classical version".