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Etymology of #47 - "Kun" character?

peter

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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".
 

bradford_h

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Hi Peter-
It's Kun in the Mawangdui text as well.
Karlgren goes wth the standard etymology (railed in tree)
It's missing in Wilder's "Analysis."
Will leave the rest for LiSe.
 

lightofdarkness

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From a universal perspective 47 covers intensity in expression (expansive bonding) in a context of containment (contractive bounding). Thus, any LOCAL meanings that cover these generic qualities will 'fit' 47.

To bond means to share space with another/others. To bound means a parts distinctions, 'us' from 'them', some form of boundary at work.

From a universal perspective, 47 has its skeletal form described by analogy to 10. As the skeleton fills-in so out pops the full expression we label as 47.

All of this leads into the seeding of FEELINGS from unconscious processes operating as universals - our consciousness then ties the universal to the local but in doing so will bias that tie - and so a label of the negative of 47 from a perspective of change - the enclosure 'blocks' change; appears to prohibit 'freedom'. It is like 12 where the focus is on neutralising others to maintain one's faith - but that is a negative act in the context of change and so 'standstill', 'stagnation' etc are the preferred terms!

The LOCAL entymology is seeded by a universal, the FEELINGS of bonding and bounding etc.

Note that 47 and 06 stem from the same source - 47 is unconditional in focus, 06 is conditional.

Chris.
 

yly2pg1

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The history of the character "kun", i am so sure.

But i have something to add to the etymology of "fence" in 47 and yuan2.
The fence is indeed a kind of boundary.
The chinese coins the boundary as ge2 ju2.
Quite align with the concept contractive bounding in IDM, i guess.

In our daily life, we can find the concept of fence in many instances:
the lines surround the soccer field; our habits which dictates our behaviours;
different paper size with A4 ~ A0 etc. etc.

Some even point out that Yi is a book for 47!
 

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