Le joyau des sept étoiles (French Edition)
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Highest Scripture of the Grotto Chamber, DZ is also presented as a better collection of the methods of the five and twenty-four spirits, of the five planets, and of the techniques for returning to the origin.
This introduces the notion of metamorphosis which plays an important role in Shangqing texts. As the cicada leaves its chrysalis or the snake changes its skin, the adept at given moment frees himself from his bodily envelope. The deliverance may take one of several forms of post-mortem transformation, some of which are classified into superior or inferior. This involves forging a divine sword according to precise ritual rules which are similar to those used in the preparation of an alchemical elixir.
By contrast, the deliverance by staff or by sandals is evaluated as being slightly inferior. Other kinds of deliverance are those by fire or water which probably recall the powers of the immortals who "enter into water without being drowned, and into fire without being burned. By purifying his whole body during his life, the adept becomes luminous like the stars and "ascends to heaven in broad daylight" without leaving any visible traces on earth.
In Michel Strickmann, ed. Institut belge des Hautes Etudes chinoises. The text exists in several versions of varying titles such as Wench ang dadong xianjing, DZ 5; Dadong zhenjing, DZ 6 with different commentary; Dadong y uj ing, DZ 7; etc. The nucleus is composed of 39 stanzas devoted to celestial kings who are connected with visualization of certain body divinities. It forms the core of a group of practices among which the method of the "whirlwind" huifeng MS stands out.
This important study is divided into three parts dealing with: It is divided into two volumes. A The first volume features three parts: B The second volume is a catalogue of Shangqing original works containing an analysis of about texts in the Taoist Canon. After a brief description of the figure of the Immortal in Zhuangzi, Baopuzi, Shangqing revealed texts, and popular hagiography, this article focuses on two main features which, according to Robinet, qualify the image of the Immortal as it is described by the above sources.
This first feature is connected to the immortals' becoming visible and invisible. The second aspect deals with their ability to ascend to heaven, which distinguishes them from ordinary magicians.
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The ascension to heaven is related to a reverse movement of descent to earth, while the first aspect of the light is intimately linked to the shadow and vice-versa. The light-shadow dialectic of revelation and concealment which concerns the horizontal movements of expansion and contraction, entry and exit, is parallel to the Heaven-Earth dialectic which refers to the vertical movements of ascending and descending.
These cosmic movements are integrated in the Immortal whose body is the perfect reflection of the macrocosm: This article may be regarded as a synthesis of the characteristic features of Shangqing practices: The key concept is xiang — the images — which create a representation of the universe, of the body, of the self as a coherent unity in which one is the mirror of the others. This is what she defines as "playful universe" full of chants, dances, and metamorphoses "where the spirit is embodied and the body is spiritualized. This is a remarkable synthesis of all of Robinet's studies on the Shangqing school, providing an overall view of its history, texts, worldview, and practices.
The term Shangqing Highest Purity refers both to a collection of revealed or "apocryphal" i. Shangqing Taoism draws its origins from a series of revelations to Yang Xi at the end of the 4th century. It represents a synthesis between the religion of the Celestial Masters and the ancient traditions of the fangshi whose "cosmological speculations" merged with the ecstatic tradition of south China and with some physiological practices such as the visions of spirits and of colored pneumas, absorption of astral florescence.
Through interiorizing religious practices, Shangqing formed a link in the chain of evolution from operative alchemy to interior alchemy. After a short presentation of its history through the line of its patriarchs until the 45th, Liu Dabin fl. The section on worldview highlights the Shangqing fundamental conceptions of "revealed scripture" jing , i. This fundamental essay ends with a section devoted to practices such as the visualization and the unification of the gods, "guarding the one" shouyi , the untying of the embryonic knots, absorption of cosmic efflorescences, deliverance from the corpse, metamorphoses, ecstatic wanderings to the stars, use of drugs, and ritual rules.
Jing, qi and shen are terms difficult to translate in Western languages in the same way as it would be arduous to give an exhaustive explanation of concepts like body, soul, or mind. After the discussion of different meanings of these three terms in various Chinese sources, this article focuses on their specific meaning in interior alchemy texts.
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Here, this triad has to be distinguished from one that belongs to xiantian before Heaven or noumenal world and the other that belongs to houtian after Heaven or phenomenal word. Furthermore, these three terms are related to three stages that are generally distinguished as proceeding from the coarsest to the most subtle and placed in relation with the three cinnabar fields.
According to the three stages, jing, qi and shen have different connotations since they represent the "ingredients" with which the alchemist works, materials that must be refined and consequently transformed. The terms and their meaning change in accordance with the process that is referred to. The aim of this article is to clarify their different and variable meaning by presenting the use of the term xing and its synonyms and correlates in Confucianism and its classics.
It also provides specific Taoist interpretations. It represents the transcended duality well illustrated by an anecdote attributed to the great alchemist Zhang Boduan. As an adept of the art of the simultaneous cultivation of xing and ming i. The Chan master could only contemplate the flower, but when he had come back from his ecstatic journey, he had no flower in his hands. Thanks to Robinet's characteristic concern to understand the inner logic of alchemical texts and their content, and thanks to her effort to identify under the apparent incoherence a basic philosophical or theoretical criterion, the reader obtains a general view of what interior alchemy really means.
Interior alchemy plays an important role in Taoism since it represents almost the only mystical Taoist path from the Song dynasty onward. It is the direct heir of ancient Taoism, of its specific methods of visualization, breathing-practices, gymnastics, etc. As the book by Baldrian-Hussein had opened the road to a more systematic study of the history and development of interior alchemical schools and its texts, the present book-review by Robinet marks the beginning of a new appreciation of the complex phenomenon called "interior alchemy" as the reflection of a Song reelaboration of the Chinese worldview.
Robinet chose three examples to describe the diversity of attitudes which Taoism has adopted toward sexuality in different epochs and in different currents. The earliest current, known under the name of fangzhong shu, is based on sources that are difficult to date. Furthermore, the majority of such sources has been lost and there remain only fragments in Japanese medical collections or in other compendia. Its sexual practices were included in the ancient arsenal of Taoist techniques for attaining longevity.
They consisted in not ejaculating during coitus in such a way as to preserve spermatic essence and to make it circulate to "replenish the brain" bunao. The spermatic essence was in fact regarded as the source of vital force. As Maspero, the pioneer in this field, has remarked, these practices were secret and even criticized at least from the Six Dynasties 4th CE onward because of Buddhist attacks against them. In fact the second current, that of Shangqing which was born in this period, promoted total chastity. As the heir of ancient shamanism, it sung of the joys of mystical marriage with a female divinity in a way similar to the poems of Chuci.
The third current, that of interior alchemy which began around the ninth or tenth century, represented a kind of synthesis of the two previous opposed trends physical and purely mystical ones. Thanks to a vocabulary rich in sexual symbols, the adepts of interior alchemy claimed to provoke within. She singled out here for the first time in a schematic mode the basic characteristics that make it possible to classify a text as belonging to the interior alchemical tradition: This study is indispensable for anyone who wishes to understand the complex logic inherent in the theory and practices of interior alchemy.
Although the history of this school remains obscure, its tradition draws from Ge Hong and from operative alchemy and features numerous borrowings from Shangqing literature among them the term zhenyuan itself. For a detailed synthesis of its content see the well-written English summary which precedes the article. The term neidan is used by Chinese bibliographers and modern historians to designate interior alchemy in contrast with waidan or operative alchemy. However, this study is exclusively devoted to an analysis of the. The article is divided into three parts.
The first part concerns the semantic content of neidan and ivaidan according to different documents which show the diversity of meaning and sometimes even the contradictory nature that these two terms have. The second part presents how authors such as Shangyang zi fl. The third part concludes with the development that some of these authors offer on the interrelation and interaction of the meanings of net or interior and wai or exterior.
Revue de VHistoire des Religions The process of inversion diandao MM is one of the fundamental principles of interior alchemy. This is illustrated by the Wuzhenpian in the following sentences: One who can reverse the mechanism of life and death will turn calamity to fortune in a trice. In the same way, what is normally regarded as masculine becomes feminine and vice-versa through a hierogamic exchange of attributes in which the interior prevails over the exterior.
The moon thus becomes masculine and the sun feminine; the Trigram Li is now feminine while the Trigram Kun is masculine, etc. This inversion implies a destruction which is followed by a reconstruction through a double movement that, starting from the other, goes back to the self and returns to the world after having left it.
As the movement of inversion coexists with the natural one, these two opposite movements can be seen as a figurative realization of the conjunction of the opposites. This article focuses, as its title suggests, on the specificity of the language of interior alchemy.
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As interior alchemy is a technique of enlightenment, the fundamental problem at a didactic level consists in the possibility or impossibility of teaching it. The task of the language of interior alchemy is to assure that the mystical experience of the master can be transmitted to the disciple. Like the Zen kdan gong'an which embodies man's predicament and the need to solve it, the language of interior alchemy displays this same existential problem, but in its own specific terms. It is the human mind which has to be worked on in order to prevent sticking to fixed terms and ideas.
The function of interior alchemy language is to destabilize one who is attached to his own mental habits and thinking framework. To effect this, it uses metaphors, pieces of nonsense, inversed logic, etc. In this transgressive work, the images are the mediators, the necessary instrument to accomplish this deconstructive and constructive task since they are the inductive and intuitive instrument through which the hidden code of the universe becomes apparent, revealing itself in an interplay of resonances. Here, different levels of meaning unify themselves while still maintaining their polysemy see the example given by Robinet of the two alchemical terms "Tripod and Stove".
As an intelligible and structured organization of reality, the interior alchemy language is a rationality which is at the same time pervaded by the figurative irrationality of the coincidentia oppositorum, "a rationality which is transcended by the recall to the silence and to the ineffable. This book represents the summa of Robinet's views on interior alchemy progressively elaborated in previous studies.
While in her earlier work she had focused on single aspects, here she finally presented interior alchemy in all its facets as a phenomenon which cannot be understood without the context of the Chinese view of history, thought, and religion. Interior alchemy or jindan Golden Cinnabar , as the Chinese authors call it, is a technique of enlightenment whose first written sources go back to the 8th century. However, its physiological and speculative techniques date back to the 4th century CE and belong to a specific Chinese background from which Taoism drew inspiration.
Interior alchemy also adopted, especially during the Tang 7th- 10th century , Buddhist and Confucian speculations that have profoundly enriched its intellectual system. This fundamental syncretic aspect of interior alchemy is analyzed in chap. Interior alchemy may be regarded as the main heir of the Han apocryphal tradition weishu with its exegesis of the Yijing to which the Cantongqi, the basic text of alchemy, is intimately related. An innovative feature of interior alchemy consists, however, in its language which is the subject of chap. Although Robinet had already highlighted this point in a previous article, she here provides a masterful synthesis of one of the most complex and fundamental topics of interior alchemy as a discipline of enlightenment.
It explains, for example, the flashing instant of collecting the elixir subitism and its link. The theme of the recreation of the world recalls that of the Saint in Zhuangzi who recreates himself in the primordial chaos, that of the Shangqing adept who, through his ecstatic wandering, paces up and down the poles of the universe while he animates them, and also that of the Taoist priest who does the same in his liturgy.
Interior alchemy is the harbinger of this secular tendency, developing and affirming it with even more strength. Finally, before presenting a fully commented translation of the interior alchemy classic Wuzhenpian by Zhang Boduan with a semiotic interpretation, Robinet provides in chap. It is a useful synthesis of what she has presented in her book on Interior Alchemy see above, Introduction to Taoist interior alchemy and in particular in its chapters 2, 4 and 5. In fact, this lecture deals with the following items: The term Neidan; 2.
The plucking cat He ; 5. The Instant or propitious moment shi fl ; 7. The inversion process diandao MM -. The merit of Isabelle Robinet is to have extrapolated the essence of Neidan through its key concepts and shed light on them by offering her interpretations of their profound meaning and of their role in the alchemical process. The author presents her contribution by including it in a larger context in which Fire and Water are seen as part of the Chinese cosmological view.
After an introduction on the purificatory role played by these two elements in Taoist ritual and visual meditations, Water and Fire are explained in Chinese traditional thought as being part of two category- systems: Yin and Yang, and the Five Agents.
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Once these cosmological categories are applied in Taoism, one finds different associations in which Water is put in relation with the North, the kidneys, and the fluid elements saliva and humours in the body; while Fire is related with South, die heart-mind, and breath. Water is also regarded as the source of life personified in Taiyi, the astral deity residing in the Pole star, center of Heaven. In Interior Alchemy, Water and Fire represent the dynamic of the alchemical process itself which is emblematically summarized in the so-called Fire Phasing.
Thanks to Water, one purifies the alchemical elixir while developing it through Fire. Water is often regarded as purificatory element in its descent as Celestial water while Fire purifies when it blazes up. At the same time, Fire must be diminished in order to tame anger, and Water must be diminished to reduce desire.
Water and Fire have an ambivalent nature, and their exchanges must be understood in order to transcend their inherent duality which forms the basis of the movement of the entire world. Chinese thought and religion. Besides the role that Guo Xiang has played in the controversy between the School of Names Confucianist tendency and the School of Mystery Taoist tendency , which has been sufficiently emphasized by historical studies — the aim of this article is to present the thought of Guo Xiang in a larger perspective that places him in the history of Chinese philosophical tradition.
Guo Xiang has in fact formulated his thought based on different and numerous sources. While the structures of his monist and "transformist" cosmology build on the roots. The most striking feature of his thought, however, is to have attributed more than any other Chinese thinker the value of the Absolute to the natural world. Presses universitaires de France second revised and enlarged edition, This article examines how far the Shangqing texts were from assimilating Buddhist conceptions.
Although these texts were written during the 4 century a period which was already marked by the important presence of Buddhism in the cultural life of China , they show only a superficial use of Buddhist terminology. When Buddhist expressions are borrowed, they have a meaning that differs from their original one. The solidity of these Chinese origins makes the Shangqing texts resistant to Buddhist influence. This article draws attention mainly to two spheres where the resistance of Shangqing was strong: Festschrift fur Hans Steininger zum The aim of this article is to present some of the most exemplary expressions of syncretism showing how Taoist religious practices and notions have been connected from the Song and Yuan onward with philosophical Taoist concepts as well as with Confucian and Buddhist notions and texts.
Chan Buddhism, in particular, with its leitmotiv of "pointing directly to the human being's heart- mind and realizing Buddhahood," was. Equivalent to the One, the Taiji corresponds, for example, to the Mean of the Confucians, the Chaos of Liezi and interior alchemists, and the Void of Buddhists. Similar parallels are drawn with xing nature and xin heart- mind through the analysis of a variety of examples from several Taoist interior alchemy texts. This study is a useful guide to some central terms of interior alchemy texts by providing their source of inspiration and explaining the meaning of such comparisons.
Vandermersch, Wangdao ou la Voie Royale, Paris: The main themes remain the complex unity of Chinese thought, its overall tendency to recover the past in order to include it in the present, and a systematic dynamic that tries to bridge gaps while regarding antagonism as vital. One more theme is the dual reality of oppositions and their intrinsic relationship.
This is well shown by the nei-wai dynamic that counterbalances the contradictions between a society with its worldly morality and the mystical vision of the world. While Taoism presides over the interior net world, Confucianism rules over the external wai and social world. The interactions and retroactions between the different tendencies of Chinese thought concretize themselves around some key- terms such as Great Man daren , human nature, and the relation between language and reality, a theme which rejoins that of the possible relation between teaching and Truth or that of Unity and Multiplicity.
It is then necessary to see the works of Chinese authors in their own context; and since, according to Chinese structure, every part is intrinsically related to the other, it is impossible to study a work as an isolated phenomenon. This is just what Robinet has tried to do in all her studies. This introduction justifies Robinet's choice of thinkers, texts, currents of thought, and terms in her contributions to this philosophical encyclopedia. The "founding texts" that have provided the basis for the reflections of the following generations Yijing, Chunqiu, Zhongyong, etc.
Among the great currents of thought, Confucianism is more relevant than others in this encyclopedia as it is not only the officiai Chinese ideology but also because it is more akin to explaining philosophical subjects. According to Robinet, this does not mean that metaphysical currents of thought have been left out. In Taoism, the texts or authors that have a more religious content have been excluded by Robinet, while for Buddhism, texts and authors were selected that better testify to the sinisation of Buddhism.
Robinet's choice also includes Legalism, Yin- Yang and Five-Agent school, syncretistic and medical thought, military art, music, and aesthetics. Finally, the commentaries also find their place since they allow to see how the "founding texts" have been interpreted and successively used. L'homme cosmique," ; "Chine: Le salut chinois ou l'insertion du microcosme dans le macrocosme," ; "Chine: By means of a brief comparison with Greek philosophy, some of the main features of Chinese thought are singled out: Yin-Yang , Four Four trigrams: Chinese thought is regarded as holistic since it tries to apprehend everything as a whole, the whole or the wholes, and a relation of every part with the whole.
This also accounts for its qualification of correlative or relationship thinking. Furthermore, according to the definition given by Vandermeersch, Chinese thought is characterized as "morphological thinking. This implies the notion of hierarchic order, the vision of space as position or relation, the structuralism of Chinese thought, etc. Finally, the author underlines that some comparisons may be drawn in particular with pre-Socratic, Platonic, and neo-platonic thought, as well as with Western contemporary philosophy.
This article provides at the end a selected choice of passages of Chinese. This article focuses on Buddhist influences on Taoism through the analysis of a series of Taoist texts from the early Tang a useful list is found in the Appendix and some key terms and concepts such as human nature xing , the heart-mind xin , the first thought and the instant of its emergency yinian, chushi or chuxun, etc. In order to measure the impact that Buddhism had on these concepts, the author presents their basic and native meanings before Buddhism and their progressive changes under Buddhist impact.
Buddhism started influencing Taoism at the end of the 4th century and left its marks, at the beginning superficially on Shangqing texts, and later more deeply on Lingbao scriptures. From the beginning of the 7th century one can distinguish Taoist textual groups in which a progressive integration of Buddhist thought occurred. Among them one finds the Bimizang group with the Benjijing, the Haikong jing and the Yuanyang jing.
This group testifies to an overwhelming adoption of Buddhism to such an extent that these texts almost seem not to be Taoist. Here the "exotic" Sanskrit terms of Lingbao have given way to a genuine comprehension of Buddhist terminology, as in the central concept of Emptiness. Between the 7th and the 8th centuries, another important group is formed by the Neiguan with the Zuowanglun,. In it one can discern an evolution of Taoism which, while attempting to free itself from the overwhelming adoption of Buddhism found in the previous Bimizang group, elaborates Buddhist fundamental concepts.
Its interests focus on the innate purity of nature, the distinction between the impure discursive and agitated mind and pure heart-mind the bright and luminous one , and the search for a balance between the cessation of thoughts and the working of the luminous heart-mind. In this progressive Taoist assimilation of Buddhist concepts and liberation from Buddhism itself, the Neidan or internal alchemy played a central role. A new emphasis is then put on the role of human mind and the cosmological rebuilding of a world in which duality must be harmoniously integrated and transcended.
Although the notion of Taiji is strictly linked with cosmological and numerological speculations on the Yijing, Liioshu and Hetu, the aim of this article is to focus on the meaning and the role of Taiji in Taoist sources. After an introduction on the transmission of the Taiji diagram in Pre-Song sources according to which the origin of Chen Tuan's Taiji tushuo still remains a mystery , the article emphasizes the role of continuity that Taoism played in the study of the Yijing and briefly examines the history of the term Taiji in the sources that precede Neo-Confucianism.
Zhuangzi uses it by placing it after the Tao. However, the most famous use of the term comes from the Xici. Although the term is rarely used in classical texts, it seems more common in the iveishu of the Han dynasty where it takes the meaning of primal Chaos before becoming a part of Xuanxue speculations on existence and non-existence. While it is frequently used in ancient Taoism, it has different meanings and takes on a genuine metaphysical and cosmological meaning in Taoist texts of the 7 and 8th century.
From the Song onward, apart from Zhou Dunyi and Shao Yong whose links with Taoism are known, the term seems more familiar to Taoists than to Confucians. Some key meanings are then presented and analyzed, such as Taiji as Genesis, as synonym of hundun Chaos , the relationship between Taiji and Wuji, Taiji as a complex unity both unity and multiplicity , Taiji as Center and North, Taiji as end point and turning point the principle of dynamic changes ,Taiji as cycle and loop, and finally the relationship between Taiji and meditation. As the author suggests, the best translation of Taiji would be "Supreme Term" since it is the meeting point and the point of leaving and separation, the unity which simultaneously contains opposites and differences: Taiji represents a Chinese answer to the philosophical problem of the relationship between the continuous and the discontinuous, the infinite and the finite, One and Two.
This article offers a comparative analysis of chapters 11, 13, and 1 8 of the Huainanzi which present such subjects as the relativity of any value and truth, the changes affecting everything and the necessity of adaptation to these changes by retaining a constant truth, and the need for familiarity with mechanisms and their changes.
These three chapters develop a relativistic and perspectivist point of view which is based on an ultimate truth the Tao. Each of them could carry the title "Of changes and the unchanging" or "On the Tao-One and its diverse and paradoxical applications. To address this question, Robinet clarifies the common points among them. According to certain authors the numbers come before the images xiang , while for others it is just the opposite.
Representing the world by numbers is one of the fundamental features of the xiangshu images and numbers science that is linked to the Yijing exegesis. According to the Chinese, and in particular to the Taoists, numbers are world-producing. One is either identified with Tao or regarded as engendered by the Tao. Two engenders the phenomenal world as well as Three, etc. As the world is engendered from the spreading out of One to multiplicity, it follows that returning to One by going in reverse mode winds back time.
Taoists begin to arrange the progression of numbers that represent the engendering of the world from One, and the return to One by reversing the sequence of numbers. Numbers also have their numerological correspondences such as Three, which in the human sphere represents the phenomenal world, and in the celestial sphere the Three Ones sanyuan or the Three August Ones sanhuang ; Five for Five Emperors, Five Agents, Five planets, etc. Most numbers that play a role can be decomposed in different ways firstly by dividing up into odd or yang and even or yin figures. Beside their role in cosmology, numbers also intervene in interior alchemy for setting Fire Phasing huohou and measuring the alchemic ingredients for example, two-eight.
Numbers are also used for representing trigrams and hexagrams that are, together with the images, the most important symbols on which interior alchemy bases itself. However it is important to recall, as alchemists always do, that figures are in the end no more than metaphors. Does the world have a beginning? The Chinese have tried to answer this question in different ways. While Laozi answers yes and calls the beginning of the world "Mother," Zhuangzi in chap.
By contrast, the weishu attaches a date to the beginning of the world: Every school or current in China has tried to penetrate the secret of creation, to see and know what lets something appear. Making use of systems of divination, arrangement of trigrams and sexagesimal signs, various traditions tried to find the place or Cavity from which the world arose in order to determine the right moment, day, and place to gain access to it. With regard to the passageway to the human world, while Confucians see the problem of the beginning of movement as an ethical question, the place of division between good and evil, Taoist alchemists take it as the starting point of the alchemical Opus, the auspicious moment to recreate the world.
The common point of all Chinese authors of different epochs resides, however, in the conception of a vital and interior principle of auto-creation that every being harbors in itself and must return to; to go back to this Source is to find oneself.
The different modalities of One and its dynamic]. Chinese thinkers have all tried to conciliate unity with duality. In order to clarify how this striving for uni-plurality was a constant of Chinese authors of all lines of thought and all periods, this article distinguishes different levels of conceiving the One: Robinet provides an impressive quantity of examples from Chinese sources. Attempting to combine these two contradictory notions unity and duality , some thinkers like Zhu Xi concede in some aspects of their theories more weight to dualism i.
Robinet illustrates this tendency toward absolute monism by the thought of Wang Fuzhi in opposition to the view of. The notion of Three as world of mixedness also reflects the original unity that provides for some authors, in particular Taoists and among them interior alchemists , the way to transcend duality and recover the original unity embodied in Man and in the Center. Four main dispositions of magical squares are here discussed by Robinet: It forms the basis of a Han divination method.
It is mainly used in meditation and in celestial walks in order to create a sacred space. It is used in ritual and in the star- walks to access the Center, going from Yang to Yin from the sun to the moon or from Heaven to Earth , and attaches importance to the "gates of universe" the intermediary points and their relationship with trigrams. Animated by exorcist power and of cosmic dimension, it is used in ritual to give access to the Center going from the Great Yin to the Great Yang. It represents the conjunction of the Five Agents into three unities of equal value and their final fusion into One.
These four devices may be divided into two groups: While the first group links the single parts of the world, the second arranges them; this matches the xiantian before heaven and the houtian after heaven dispositions of trigrams.