, usually translated**** as**** Five**** Phases**** or**** Five**** Agents****,**** is**** a fivefold**** conceptual**** scheme**** used**** in**** many**** traditional Chinese fields**** of**** study to**** explain a wide**** array of**** phenomena,**** including cosmic**** cycles****,**** the interactions**** between internal**** organs****,**** the succession**** of**** political regimes,**** and the properties**** of**** herbal**** medicines.**** The agents are Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth. The wuxing system has been in use since it was formulated in the second or first century BCE during the Han dynasty. It appears in many seemingly disparate fields of early Chinese thought, including music, feng shui, alchemy, astrology, martial arts, military strategy, I Ching divination, and traditional medicine, serving as a metaphysics based on cosmic analogy.

Etymology

Wuxing originally referred to the five major planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Mars, Venus), which were with the combination of the Sun and the Moon, conceived as creating five forces of earthly life. This is why the word is composed of Chinese characters meaning "five" and "moving". "Moving" is shorthand for "planets", since the word for planets in Chinese literally translates as "moving stars". Some of the Mawangdui Silk Texts (before 168 BC) also connect the wuxing to the wude, the Five Virtues and Five Emotions. Scholars believe that various predecessors to the concept of wuxing were merged into one system with many interpretations during the Han dynasty. Wuxing was first translated into English as "the Five Elements", drawing deliberate parallels with the Greek arrangement of the four elements. This translation is still in common use among practitioners of Traditional Chinese medicine, such as in the name of Five Element acupuncture. However, this analogy is misleading. The four elements are concerned with form, substance and quantity, whereas wuxing are "primarily concerned with process, change, and quality". For example, the wuxing element "Wood" is more accurately thought of as the "vital essence" of trees rather than the physical substance wood. This led sinologist Nathan Sivin to propose the alternative translation "five phases" in 1987. But "phase" also fails to capture the full meaning of wuxing. In some contexts, the wuxing are indeed associated with physical substances. Historian of Chinese medicine Manfred Porkert proposed the (somewhat unwieldy) term "Evolutive Phase". Perhaps the most widely accepted translation among modern scholars is "the five agents", proposed by Marc Kalinowski.

Cycles

In traditional doctrine, the five phases are connected in two cycles of interactions: a generating or creation ( shēng) cycle, also known as "mother-son"; and an overcoming or destructive ( kè) cycle, also known as "grandfather-grandson" (see diagram). Each of the two cycles can be analyzed going forward or reversed. There is also an "overacting" or excessive version of the destructive cycle.

Inter-promoting

The generating cycle ( xiāngshēng) is:

Weakening

The reverse generating cycle (/ xiāngxiè) is:

Inter-regulating

The destructive cycle ( xiāngkè) is:

Overacting

The excessive destructive cycle ( xiāngchéng) is:

Counteracting

A reverse or deficient destructive cycle ( xiāngwǔ or xiānghào) is:

Celestial stem

Ming neiyin

In Ziwei divination, neiyin (納音) further classifies the Five Elements into 60 ming (命), or life orders, based on the ganzhi. Similar to the astrology zodiac, the ming is used by fortune-tellers to analyse individual personality and destiny.

Applications

The wuxing schema is applied to explain phenomena in various fields.

Phases of the Year

The five phases are around 73 days each and are usually used to describe the transformations of nature rather than their formative states.

Cosmology and feng shui

The art of feng shui (Chinese geomancy) is based on wuxing, with the structure of the cosmos mirroring the five phases, as well as the eight trigrams. Each phase has a complex network of associations with different aspects of nature (see table): colors, seasons and shapes all interact according to the cycles. An interaction or energy flow can be expansive, destructive, or exhaustive, depending on the cycle to which it belongs. By understanding these energy flows, a feng shui practitioner attempts to rearrange energy to benefit the client.

Dynastic transitions

According to the Warring States period political philosopher Zou Yan (c. 305–240 BCE), each of the five elements possesses a personified virtue, which indicates the foreordained destiny of a dynasty; hence the cyclic succession of the elements also indicates dynastic transitions. Zou Yan claims that the Mandate of Heaven sanctions the legitimacy of a dynasty by sending self-manifesting auspicious signs in the ritual color (yellow, blue, white, red, and black) that matches the element of the new dynasty (Earth, Wood, Metal, Fire, and Water). From the Qin dynasty onward, most Chinese dynasties invoked the theory of the Five Elements to legitimize their reign.

Chinese medicine

The interdependence of zangfu networks in the body was said to be a circle of five things, and so mapped by the Chinese doctors onto the five phases. In order to explain the integrity and complexity of the human body, Chinese medical scientists and physicians use the Five Elements theory to classify the human body's endogenous influences on organs, physiological activities, pathological reactions, and environmental or exogenous (external, environmental) influences. This diagnostic capacity is extensively used in traditional five phase acupuncture today, as opposed to the modern Confucian styled eight principles based Traditional Chinese medicine. Furthermore, in combination the two systems are a formative and functional study of postnatal and prenatal influencing on genetics, psychology, sociology and ecology.

Music

The Huainanzi and the Yueling chapter of the Book of Rites make the following correlations:

Martial arts

Tai chi uses the five elements to designate different directions, positions or footwork patterns: forward, backward, left, right and centre, or three steps forward (attack) and two steps back (retreat). The Five Steps : The martial art of xingyiquan uses the five elements metaphorically to represent five different states of combat. Wuxing heqidao, Gogyo Aikido (五行合气道) is a life art with roots in Confucian, Taoists and Buddhist theory. It centers around applied peace and health studies rather than defence or physical action. It emphasizes the unification of mind, body and environment using the physiological theory of yin, yang and five-element Traditional Chinese medicine. Its movements, exercises, and teachings cultivate, direct, and harmonise the qi.

Gogyo

The Japanese term is gogyo (Japanese:五行, romanized: gogyō). During the 5th and 6th centuries (Kofun period), Japan adopted various philosophical disciplines such as Taoism, Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism through monks and physicians from China. As opposed to theory of Godai that is form based and was introduced to Japan through India and Tibetan Buddhism evolving the Onmyōdō system. In particular, wuxing was adapted into gogyo. These theories have been extensively practiced in Japanese acupuncture and traditional Kampo medicine.