Five elements (Chinese philosophy)

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Classical Elements

	Air
Fire	Aether	Water
	Earth

Chinese

Wood (木) | Fire (火)
Earth (土) |
Metal (金) | Water (水)

Hinduism and Buddhism

Vayu / Pavan — Air / Wind
Agni / Tejas — Fire
Akasha — Aether
Prithvi / Bhumi — Earth
Ap / Jala — Water

In traditional Chinese philosophy, natural phenomena can be classified into the Five Elements (Chinese: 五行; pinyin: wǔxíng): wood, fire, earth, metal, and water (木, 火, 土, 金, 水; mù, huǒ, tǔ, jīn, shǔi). These elements were used for describing interactions and relationships between phenomena. Five phases is the more appropriate way of translating wǔxíng — literally, "five goings". Traditional Taijiquan schools relate them to footwork and refer to them as five "steps".

The doctrine of five phases describes both a generating (生, shēng) cycle and an overcoming or restraining (克, kè) cycle of interactions between the phases. In the generating cycle, wood generates fire; fire generates earth (ash); earth generates metal; metal generates water (if metal is left out at night water will have condensed on it by morning); water generates wood. In the overcoming cycle, wood grows in earth; earth absorbs water; water quenches fire; fire melts metal; metal cuts wood.

The doctrine of five phases was employed in many fields of early Chinese philosophy, including seemingly disparate fields such as music, traditional Chinese medicine, and military strategy.

1 Correlations between the five elements and other categories
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Correlations between the five elements and other categories

The Yuèlìng chapter (月令篇) of the Lǐjì (禮記) and the Huáinánzǐ (淮南子) make the following correlations:

Element	Direction	Color	Musical Note
Wood	east	green or blue	jué 角 (mi)
Fire	south	red	zhǐ 徵 (so)
Earth	center	yellow	gōng 宮 (do)
Metal	west	white	shāng 商 (re)
Water	north	black	yǔ 羽 (la)

(see also pentatonic scale)

(note: The Chinese word 青 includes the range in the spectrum from green to blue, with shades down to black.)

Some other correspondences are shown below:

Element	Heavenly creature	Season	Direction	Planet	Tastes	Sense	Viscera (yin)	Viscera (yang)	Finger
Wood	Azure Dragon 青龍	Spring	east	Jupiter	sour	sight	liver	gall bladder	ring finger
Fire	Vermilion Bird 朱雀	Summer	south	Mars	bitter	taste	heart	small intestine	middle finger
Earth	Yellow Dragon/Qilin/Man 黃麟	Change of seasons (Every third month)	center	Saturn	sweet	touch	spleen/pancreas	stomach	index finger
Metal	White Tiger 白虎	Autumn	west	Venus	spicy	smell	lung	large intestine	thumb
Water	Black Tortoise 玄武	Winter	north	Mercury	salty	hearing	kidney	urinary bladder	little finger

The elements have also been correlated to the eight trigrams of the I Ching:

Element	I Ching	Trigrams
Wood	Wind, thunder	:\|\| (☴ 巽 xùn) \|:: (☳ 震 zhèn)
Fire	Fire	\|:\| (☲ 離 lí)
Earth	Earth, mountain	::: (☷ 坤 kūn) ::\| (☶ 艮 gèn)
Metal	Sky, lake	\|\|\| (☰ 乾 qián) \|\|: (☱ 兌 duì)
Water	Water	:\|: (☵ 坎 kǎn)

The Five Elements appear in the movie "The Mystery of Chess Boxing", where the Ghostface Killer (later a member of the wu-tang clan) uses the a kung-fu style called the five-elements. A chessmaster learns the style, so that he can use the correct element to defeat whatever element the Ghostface Killer is using. It has memorable quotes such as "Five Elements! and first the gold!" "Fire melts gold, earth absorbs water" and last but not least, "I don't think your wood can overcome anything!".