Clarity,
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I think I would suggest looking at Qigong as the great-grandchilld of the Yijing, and the great-great-grandchild of the Zhouyi, with nearer relatives being Yinyang Jia, Han Yiweishu, Daoist Xiangshu, Daojiao (religious Daoism), Neidan (Inner Alchemy), TCM and Taiji.
Being a post-Mao era practice it's a pretty recent descendant. Even when it borrows from Bagua it borrows from much more recent elaborations. One thing to remember about the great-great-grandchild - there is only an average of 1/16 of the great-great-grandparent's DNA remaining. For the most part you will be hard pressed to find any undiluted (or unpolluted) Zhouyi imagery at all.
I think "qigong" practices preceded the Zhouyi. Perhaps the adepts learned to dance the nine numbers of the Turtle before they began to make records of them. Daoist adepts of inner alchemy mastered cosmic number-sound laws. The ability to observe and codify the cycles of nature was nearly universal in early human cultures .
A set of eight turtle shells (resembling the eight outer numbers of the luoshu Turtle diagram) were found placed above the grave of a neolithic man. His skeleton had no head, suggesting a special burial ritual. The shells had written characters on them similar to Shang script, including the numerals 8 and 20, and nearby were small pebbles possibly for counting, as well as bone flutes. They were dated to 8,600
years ago, five thousand years older than the Shang dynasty (1700-1100 bc).
That's really interesting, considering 8.6 changing to 20. Maybe the ritual wasn't to honor but to disgrace?
I wonder why no head. It could have been a heroic death in battle , etc.
Many to most of Chinese words have several equally valid meanings (called polysemy).
Head is only one of Shuo's meanings. Another is leader, another is guiding principles.
Head is a bad translation at 08.6.
A recent work on magic squares (Legacy of the Luo Shu: The Mystical, Mathematical Meaning of the Magic Square of Order Three by Frank J. Swetz) uses only early Cammann, despite being published in 2002.
pantherpanther:
I am familiar with the book and have interviewed Dr. Swetz (another Pennsylvannian). The book is an excellent source to follow the cultural history of the Luo Shu, but does not make any references to the Luo Shu and its association with:
- the Pythagorean Theorem (in fact, Swetz emphatically states Pythagoreans did not use Magic Squares - I disagree)
- the mathematics of the gnomon
- the numbers of the calendar
- higher order magic squares
- a formula to generate higher order magic squares
- the jade bi disc and the TLV Mirror
- the quincunx pattern
- illuminated manuscripts and art from the early Byzantine period
- temple design
It is a good introductory book to the Lou Shu, but one will have to dig much deeper to get the real meaning, which still is not totally understood.
Persian carpets are notorious for having Luo Shu symbolism. The quincunx pattern, the cruciform shape of odd numbers (the Ya cartouche), the carpenter's square, and cycles of seven are ever-present. The symbolism is all around us.....
pantherpanther, your exptertise would be appreciated on another thread:
The Origin of Circular Trigrams, anything to do with: The Luo Shu and the Diagram Preceding and Succeeding Heaven (post #39)?
http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=8562&page=4
Does this posting make any sense?
robertluoshu
reference Legacy of the Luo Shu, Frank Swetz (2002) p. 81
I have applied Schinz's tehnique to the TLV Bronze mirror and the Mayan Calendar.
Semantics, Jesed?
Now.. the Mexica calendar is based only in the Sun. The Mayan has 2 strings: the "Haab" (365 days, based on the Sun) and the "Tzolkin" (260 days, based -aparently- on Venus). The combination of Haab and Tzolkin gives a huge scope of time (just like the combination of solar and lunar calendar in China)But I do believe we are referring to the same thing.
Robert,
Ki Cammann was a friend and colleague. My field was the Middle East and SEAsia. He had considerable knowledge of Islamic art, as Persian carpets (which he related to the symbolism of the Chinese Emperor's robe, which he wrote about.) He had travelled in Inner Mongolia in the 30's and wrote a book on that. During World War II he served in Mongolia for the US, government intelligence.
Catching up here after a few weeks away from the forum.
Well, I'm most happy that someone else is vindicating the work of Cammann. Every time I brought up his work in discussion, I was shut down with dismissing comments like "the opinions of a grave-robber"... IMHO, the man was certainly on the right track in many of his conclusions, given the amount of information that was available to him at the moment. Thanks for that.
Ki published hundreds of papers. You might be interested to know he described himself as " a practising Christian mystic." I don't think he ever suggested that in anything he published.
Has anyone out there studied Qi Gong or Martilal arts as well, having insight into any connections with the imagery in the commentary on the hexagrams and the imagery invoked by the poses or exercises ....?
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).