Hun and po are types of souls in Chinese philosophy and traditional religion. Within this ancient soul dualism tradition, every living human has both a spiritual, ethereal, yang soul which leaves the body after death, and also a corporeal, substantive, yin soul which remains with the corpse of the deceased. Some controversy exists over the number of souls in a person; for instance, one of the traditions within Daoism proposes a soul structure of (Chinese: 三魂七魄), i.e., "three and seven ". The historian Yü Ying-shih describes and as "two pivotal concepts that have been, and remain today, the key to understanding Chinese views of the human soul and the afterlife".
Like many Chinese characters, Chinese: 魂 and Chinese: 魄 are "phono-semantic" or "radical-phonetic" graphs combining a semantic radical showing the rough meaning of the character with a phonetic guide to its former pronunciation in Ancient Chinese. Chinese: 魂 and its variant combine the "ghost radical", a pictogram originally showing a figure with an odd face and tail that is used independently as a word for Chinese ghosts and demons, with the character, a pictogram originally showing a cloud and believed to have been pronounced /*[ɢ]ʷə[r]/ or /*ɢun/ in Ancient Chinese. Chinese: 魄 combines the same radical with the character of uncertain origin (possibly a pictogram of an acorn to represent its inner color) but believed to have been pronounced /*bˤrak/ or /*braːɡ/ in Ancient Chinese.
Besides the common meaning of "a soul", Chinese: 魄 was a variant Chinese character for "a lunar phase" and "dregs". The Book of Documents used Chinese: 魄 as a graphic variant for Chinese: 霸 "dark aspect of the moon" – this character usually means Chinese: 霸 "overlord; hegemon". For example, "On the third month, when (the growth phase, Chinese: 生魄) of the moon began to wane, the duke of Chow [i.e., [[Duke of Zhou]]] commenced the foundations, and proceeded to build the new great city of Lǒ". The Zhuangzi "[Writings of] Master Zhuang" wrote Chinese: 糟粕 (lit. "rotten dregs") "worthless; unwanted; waste matter" with a Chinese: 魄 variant. A wheelwright sees Duke Huan of Qi with books by dead sages and says, "what you are reading there is nothing but the [Chinese: 糟魄] chaff and dregs of the men of old!".
In the history of Chinese writing, characters for Chinese: 魄/霸 "lunar brightness" appeared before those for Chinese: 魂 "soul; spirit". The spiritual Chinese: 魂 and Chinese: 魄 "dual souls" are first recorded in Warring States period (475–221 BCE) seal script characters. The lunar Chinese: 魄 or Chinese: 霸 "moon's brightness" appears in both Zhou dynasty (1045–256 BCE) Bronzeware script and oracle bone script, but not in Shang dynasty (ca. 1600–1046 BCE) oracle inscriptions. The earliest form of this "lunar brightness" character was found on a (c. 11th century BCE) Zhou oracle bone inscription.
The soul's etymology is better understood than the soul's. Schuessler reconstructs Chinese: 魂 "'spiritual soul' which makes a human personality" and Chinese: 魄 "vegetative or animal soul ... which accounts for growth and physiological functions" as Middle Chinese γuən and pʰak from Old Chinese *wûn and *phrâk.
The (c. 80 CE) Chinese: 白虎堂 gave pseudo-etymologies for and through Chinese character puns. It explains Chinese: 魂 with Chinese: 傳 "deliver; pass on; impart; spread" and Chinese: 芸 "rue (used to keep insects out of books); to weed", and Chinese: 魄 with Chinese: 迫 " compel; force; coerce; urgent" and Chinese: 白 "white; bright".
What do the words and [] mean? expresses the idea of continuous propagation ([] Chinese: 傳), unresting flight; it is the of the Lesser Yang, working in man in an external direction, and it governs the nature (or the instincts, [] Chinese: 性). [] expresses the idea of a continuous pressing urge ([] Chinese: 迫) on man; it is the [] of the Lesser Yin, and works in him, governing the emotions ([] Chinese: 情). is connected with the idea of weeding ([] Chinese: 芸), for with the instincts the evil weeds (in man's nature) are removed. [] is connected with the idea of brightening ([] Chinese: 白), for with the emotions the interior (of the personality) is governed.[1]
Etymologically, Schuessler says Chinese: 魄 "animal soul" "is the same word as" Chinese: 霸 "a lunar phase". He cites the (534 BCE, see below) using the lunar Chinese: 既生魄 to mean "With the first development of a fetus grows the vegetative soul".
, the soul responsible for growth, is the same as the waxing and waning of the moon". The meaning 'soul' has probably been transferred from the moon since men must have been aware of lunar phases long before they had developed theories on the soul. This is supported by the etymology 'bright', and by the inverted word order which can only have originated with meteorological expressions ... The association with the moon explains perhaps why the soul is classified as Yin ... in spite of the etymology 'bright' (which should be Yang), hun's Yang classification may be due to the association with clouds and by extension sky, even though the word invokes 'dark'. 'Soul' and 'moon' are related in other cultures, by cognation or convergence, as in Tibeto-Burman and Proto-Lolo–Burmese *s/ʼ-la "moon; soul; spirit", Written Tibetan cognates bla "soul" and zla "moon", and Proto-Miao–Yao *bla "spirit; soul; moon".
Lunar associations of are evident in the Classical Chinese terms Chinese: 蟾魄 "the moon" (with "toad; toad in the moon; moon") and Chinese: 皓魄 "moon; moonlight" (with "white; bright; luminous").
The semantics of Chinese: 魄 "white soul" probably originated with Chinese: 霸 "lunar whiteness". Zhou bronze inscriptions commonly recorded lunar phases with the terms Chinese: 既生魄 "after the brightness has grown" and Chinese: 既死魄 "after the brightness has died", which Schuessler explains as "second quarter of the lunar month" and "last quarter of the lunar month". Chinese scholars have variously interpreted these two terms as lunar quarters or fixed days, and Wang Guowei's lunar-quarter analysis the most likely. Thus, is from the 7th/8th to the 14th/15th days of the lunar month and is from the 23rd/24th to the end of the month. Yü translates them as "after the birth of the crescent" and "after the death of the crescent". Etymologically, lunar and spiritual < pʰak < *phrâk Chinese: 魄 are cognate with < bɐk < *brâk Chinese: 白 "white". According to Hu Shih, etymologically means "white, whiteness, and bright light"; "The primitive Chinese seem to have regarded the changing phases of the moon as periodic birth and death of its [{{transliteration|zh|po}}], its 'white light' or soul." Yü says this ancient association between the soul and the "growing light of the new moon is of tremendous importance to our understanding of certain myths related to the seventh day of the months." Two celebrated examples in Chinese mythology are Xi Wangmu and Emperor Wu meeting on the seventh day of the first lunar month and The Princess and the Cowherd or Qixi Festival held on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.
The etymology of < γuən < *wûn Chinese: 魂 is comparatively less certain. Hu said, "The word is etymologically the same as the word, meaning "clouds." The clouds float about and seem more free and more active than the cold, white-lighted portion of the growing and waning moon." Schuessler cites two possibilities.
Since is the 'bright' soul, is the 'dark' soul and therefore cognate to Chinese: 雲 'cloud', perhaps in the sense of 'shadowy' because some believe that the soul will live after death in a world of shadows.
The correlative "soul" words Chinese: 魂 and Chinese: 魄 have several meanings in Chinese plus many translations and explanations in English. The table below shows translation equivalents from some major Chinese-English dictionaries.
| Dictionary | Chinese: 魂 | Chinese: 魄 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The soul, that part of the soul (as opp. to Chinese: 魄) which goes to heaven and is able to leave the body, carrying with it an appearance of physical form; the subliminal self, expl. as Chinese: 人陽神. The mind; wits; faculties. | The soul; that part of the soul (as opposed to Chinese: 魂) which is indissolubly attached to the body, and goes down to earth with it at death; the supraliminal self, expl. as Chinese: 人陰神. Form; shape. The disc or substance of the moon from the time it begins to wane to new moon. | ||
| The soul, the spiritual part of man that ascends to heaven, as contrasted with Chinese: 魄. The wits; the spiritual faculties. | The animal or inferior soul; the animal or sentient life which inheres in the body – the body in this sense; the animals spirits; this soul goes to the earth with the body. | ||
| Chao and Yang | the soul (of a living person or of the dead) | the physical side of the soul | |
| spiritual soul (as opp. to Chinese: 魄) | the animal soul of man (as opp. to Chinese: 魂) | ||
| Soul; the finer spirits of man as dist. Chinese: 魄, the baser spirits or animal forces | (Taoism) the baser animal spirits of man, contrasted with finer elements Chinese: 魂 (三魂七魄 three finer spirits and seven animal spirits), the two together conceived as animating the human body | ||
| a soul; a spirit. | 1. (Taoism) vigor; animation; life. 2. form; shape; body. 3. the dark part of the moon. | ||
| Wu | ① soul ② mood; spirit ③ the lofty spirit of a nation | ① soul ② vigour; spirit | |
| Ling et al. | ① same as Chinese: 靈魂 ... soul; believed by the superstitious to be an immaterial spiritual entity distinguished from but coexistent with the physical body of a person and a dominant spiritual force, and which leaves upon the person's death. ② spirit; mood. ③ lofty spirit. | ① soul; spiritual matter believed by religious people as dependent on human's body. ② vigour; spirit. | |
| soul, spirit; mood | ① soul; ② vigor; spirit |
Both Chinese and are translatable as English "soul" or "spirit", and both are basic components in "soul" compounds. In the following examples, all Chinese-English translation equivalents are from DeFrancis.
and are the most frequently used among these "soul" words.
Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-djen, eminent historians of science and technology in China, define and in modern terms. "Peering as far as one can into these ancient psycho-physiological ideas, one gains the impression that the distinction was something like that between what we would call motor and sensory activity on the one hand, and also voluntary as against vegetative processes on the other."
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein cautions about and translations: "Although the term "souls" is often used to refer to them, they are better seen as two types of vital entities, the source of life in every individual. The is Yang, luminous, and volatile, while the is Yin, somber, and heavy."
Based on usages of and in four historical contexts, Yü extrapolates that was the original name for a human soul, and the dualistic conception of and "began to gain currency in the middle of the sixth century" BCE.
Two earlier 6th century contexts used the soul alone. Both describe Chinese: 天 "heaven; god" Chinese: 奪 "seizing; taking away" a person's, which resulted in a loss of mental faculties. In 593 BCE (Duke Xuan 15th year), after Zhao Tong Chinese: 趙同 behaved inappropriately at the Zhou court, an observer predicted: "In less than ten years [Zhao Tong] will be sure to meet with great calamity. Heaven has taken his [Chinese: 魄] wits away from him." In 543 BCE (Duke Xiang 29th year), Boyou Chinese: 伯有 from the state of Zheng acted irrationally, which an official interpreted as: "Heaven is destroying [Boyou], and has taken away his [Chinese: 魄] reason." Boyou's political enemies subsequently arranged to take away his hereditary position and assassinate him.
Two later sixth-century contexts used together with the soul. In 534 BCE, the ghost of Boyou Chinese: 伯有 (above) was seeking revenge on his murderers, and terrifying the people of Zheng (Duke Zhao, Year &). The philosopher and statesman Zi Chan, realizing that Boyou's loss of hereditary office had caused his spirit to be deprived of sacrifices, reinstated his son to the family position, and the ghost disappeared. When a friend asked Zi Chan to explain ghosts, he gave what Yu calls "the on the subject of the human soul in the Chinese tradition".[2] Compare the translation of Needham and Lu, who interpret this as an early Chinese discourse on embryology.
In 516 BCE (Duke Zhao, Year 20), the Duke of Song and a guest named Shusun Chinese: 叔孫 were both seen weeping during a supposedly joyful gathering. Yue Qi Chinese: 樂祁, a Song court official, said:
Hu proposed, "The idea of a may have been a contribution from the southern peoples" (who originated rituals) and then spread to the north sometime during the sixth century BCE. Calling this southern hypothesis "quite possible", Yü cites the, associated with the southern state of Chu, demonstrating "there can be little doubt that in the southern tradition the was regarded as a more active and vital soul than the . The uses 65 times and 5 times (4 in, which the uses interchangeably with).
The identification of the principle with the and souls evidently occurred in the late fourth and early third centuries BCE, and by "the second century at the latest, the Chinese dualistic conception of soul had reached its definitive formulation." The (11), compounds and with "breath; life force" and "form; shape; body" in Chinese: 魂氣 and Chinese: 形魄. "The [Chinese: 魂氣] intelligent spirit returns to heaven the [Chinese: 形魄] body and the animal soul return to the earth; and hence arose the idea of seeking (for the deceased) in sacrifice in the unseen darkness and in the bright region above." Compare this modern translation, "The breath-soul (hun-ch'I Chinese: 魂氣) returns to heaven; the bodily soul (hsing-p'o Chinese: 形魄) returns to earth. Therefore, in sacrificial-offering one should seek the meaning in the Chinese: 陰陽 principle." Yü summarizes / dualism.
Loewe explains with a candle metaphor; the physical is the "wick and substance of a candle", the spiritual and are the "force that keeps the candle alight" and "light that emanates from the candle".
The Yin and Yang were correlated with Chinese spiritual and medical beliefs. Chinese: 魂 is associated with Chinese: 神 "spirit; god" and Chinese: 魄 with Chinese: 鬼 "ghost; demon; devil". The (c. 1st century BCE) medical text spiritually applies Wu Xing "Five Phases" theory to the "organs", associating the soul with "liver" and blood, and the soul with "lung" and breath.
The also records that the and souls taking flight can cause restless dreaming, and eye disorders can scatter the souls causing mental confusion. Han medical texts reveal that and departing from the body does not necessarily cause death but rather distress and sickness. Brashier parallels the translation of and, "If one were to put an English word to them, they are our 'wits', our ability to demarcate clearly, and like the English concept of "wits," they can be scared out of us or can dissipate in old age."
During the Han Dynasty, the belief in and remained prominent, although there was a great diversity of different, sometimes contradictory, beliefs about the afterlife. Han burial customs provided nourishment and comfort for the with the placement of grave goods, including food, commodities, and even money within the tomb of the deceased. Chinese jade was believed to delay the decomposition of a body. Pieces of jade were commonly placed in bodily orifices, or rarely crafted into jade burial suits.
Generations of sinologists have repeatedly asserted that Han-era people commonly believed the heavenly and earthly souls separated at death, but recent scholarship and archeology suggest that dualism was more an academic theory than a popular faith. Anna Seidel analyzed funerary texts discovered in Han tombs, which mention not only souls but also remaining with entombed corpses, and wrote, "Indeed, a clear separation of a, appeased with the wealth included in the tomb, from a departed to heavenly realms is not possible." Seidel later called for reappraising Han abstract notions of and, which "do not seem to have had as wide a currency as we assumed up to now." Pu Muzhou surveyed usages of the words and on Han Dynasty Chinese: 碑 "stele" erected at graves and shrines, and concluded, "The thinking of ordinary people seems to have been quite hazy on the matter of what distinguished the from the ."[3] These stele texts contrasted souls between a corporeal or at the cemetery and a spiritual at the family shrine. Kenneth Brashier reexamined the evidence for dualism and relegated it "to the realm of scholasticism rather than general beliefs on death." Brashier cited several Han sources (grave deeds, Book of the Later Han, and Jiaoshi Yilin) attesting beliefs that "the hun remains in the grave instead of flying up to heaven", and suggested it "was sealed into the grave to prevent its escape." Another Han text, the says, "The vital energy of the of a dead person floats away; therefore a mask is made in order to retain it."
and souls, explains Yü, "are regarded as the very essence of the mind, the source of knowledge and intelligence. Death is thought to follow inevitably when the and the leave the body. We have reason to believe that around this time the idea of was still relatively new."
Soon after death, it was believed that a person's and could be temporarily reunited through a ritual called the Chinese: 復 "recall; return", Chinese: 招魂 "summon the soul", or Chinese: 招魂復魄 "to summon the -soul to reunite with the -soul". The earliest known account of this ritual is found in the (3rd century BCE) poems Chinese: 招魂 "Summons of the Soul" and Chinese: 大招 "The Great Summons". For example, the Yang (Chinese: 巫陽) summons a man's soul in the "Zhao Hun".
Chinese: 魂 and Chinese: 魄 spiritual concepts were important in several Daoist traditions. For instance, "Since the volatile is fond of wandering and leaving the body during sleep, techniques were devised to restrain it, one of which entailed a method of staying constantly awake."
The Chinese: 三魂七魄 "three and seven " were anthropomorphized and visualized. Ge Hong's (c. 320 CE) frequently mentions the and "ethereal and gross souls". The "Genii" Chapter argues that the departing of these dual souls cause illness and death.
All men, wise or foolish, know that their bodies contain ethereal as well as gross breaths, and that when some of them quit the body, illness ensues; when they all leave him, a man dies. In the former case, the magicians have amulets for restraining them; in the latter case, The Rites [i.e., {{transliteration|zh|[[Yili (text)|Yili]]}}] provide ceremonials for summoning them back. These breaths are most intimately bound up with us, for they are born when we are, but over a whole lifetime probably nobody actually hears or sees them. Would one conclude that they do not exist because they are neither seen nor heard? (2)
This "magicians" translates fangshi Chinese: 方士 "doctor; diviner' magician". Both and Chinese: 道士 "Daoist priests" developed methods and rituals to summon and back into a person's body. The "Gold and Cinnabar" chapter records a Daoist alchemical reanimation pill that can return the and souls to a recent corpse: Chinese: 太乙招魂魄丹法 "The Great One's Elixir Method for Summoning Souls".
In T'ai-i's elixir for Summoning Gross and Ethereal Breaths the five minerals [i.e., [[cinnabar]], realgar, arsenolite, malachite, and magnetite] are used and sealed with Six-One lute as in the Nine-crucible cinnabars. It is particularly effective for raising those who have died of a stroke. In cases where the corpse has been dead less than four days, force open the corpse's mouth and insert a pill of this elixir and one of sulphur, washing them down its gullet with water. The corpse will immediately come to life. In every case the resurrected remark that they have seen a messenger with a baton of authority summoning them. (4)For visualizing the ten souls, the "Truth on Earth" chapter recommends taking Chinese: 大藥 "great medicines" and practicing a "divide/multiply the body" multilocation technique.
My teacher used to say that to preserve Unity was to practice jointly Bright Mirror, and that on becoming successful in the mirror procedure a man would be able to multiply his body to several dozen all with the same dress and facial expression. My teacher also used to say that you should take the great medicines diligently if you wished to enjoy Fullness of Life, and that you should use metal solutions and a multiplication of your person if you wished to communicate with the gods. By multiplying the body, the three and the seven are automatically seen within the body, and in addition it becomes possible to meet and visit the powers of heaven and the deities of earth and to have all the gods of the mountains and rivers in one's service. (18)
The Daoist Shangqing School has several meditation techniques for visualizing the and . In Shangqing Neidan "Internal Alchemy", Baldrian-Hussein says,
the plays a particularly somber role as it represents the passions that dominate the . This causes the vital force to decay, especially during sexual activity, and eventually leads to death. The inner alchemical practice seeks to concentrate the vital forces within the body by reversing the respective roles of and, so that the (Yang) controls the (Yin).
The number of human "souls" has been a long-standing source of controversy among Chinese religious traditions. Stevan Harrell concludes, "Almost every number from one to a dozen has at one time or another been proposed as the correct one." The most commonly believed numbers of "souls" in a person are one, two, three, and ten.
One "soul" or Chinese: 靈魂 is the simplest idea. Harrell gives a fieldwork example.
When rural Taiwanese perform ancestral sacrifices at home, they naturally think of the in the tablet; when they take offerings to the cemetery, they think of it in the grave; and when they go on shamanistic trips, they think of it in the world. Because the contexts are separate, there is little conflict and little need for abstract reasoning about a nonexistent problem.Two "souls" is a common folk belief, and reinforced by theory. These paired souls can be called and, and, or and .
Three "souls" comes from widespread beliefs that the soul of a dead person can exist in the multiple locations. The missionary Justus Doolittle recorded that Chinese people in Fuzhou
Believe each person has three distinct souls while living. These souls separate at the death of the adult to whom they belong. One resides in the ancestral tablet erected to his memory, if the head of a family; another lurks in the coffin or the grave, and the third departs to the infernal regions to undergo its merited punishment.
Ten "souls" of Chinese: 三魂七魄 "three and seven " is not only Daoist; "Some authorities would maintain that the three-seven "soul" is basic to all Chinese religion". During the Later Han period, Daoists fixed the number of souls at three and the number of souls at seven. A newly deceased person may return (Chinese: [[:zh-yue:回魂|回魂]]) to his home at some nights, sometimes one week (Chinese: [[:zh:頭七|頭七]]) after his death and the seven po would disappear one by one every 7 days after death. According to Needham and Lu, "It is a little difficult to ascertain the reason for this, since fives and sixes (if they corresponded to the viscera) would have rather been expected." Three may stand for the Chinese: 三綱 "three principles of social order: relationships between ruler-subject, father-child, and husband-wife". Seven may stand for the Chinese: 七竅 "seven apertures (in the head, eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth)" or the Chinese: 七情 "seven emotions (joy, anger, sorrow, fear, worry, grief, fright)" in traditional Chinese medicine. Sanhunqipo also stand for other names.
Footnotes
