Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)

Wuxing (Chinese: 五行; pinyin: wǔxíng; Jyutping: Ng5 Hang4), translated as Five Moving Ones, Five Circulations, Five Types of Energy, Five Elements, Five Transformations, 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 terrestrial and celestial relationships, influences, and cycles, that characterise the interactions and relationships within science, medicine, politics, religion and social relationships and education within Chinese culture.

The Five Moving Ones are traditionally associated with the classical planets: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn as depicted in the etymological section below. In ancient Chinese astronomy and astrology, which spread throughout East Asia, there was a reflection of the seven-day planetary order of Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth. When in their "heavenly stems" generative cycle as represented in the below cycles section and depicted in the diagram above, they run consecutively clockwise (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water). When in their overacting destructive arrangement of Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, Metal, natural disasters, calamities, illnesses, and disease will ensue.

The wuxing system was in use before, but 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, religion and traditional medicine, serving as a metaphysics based on cosmic analogy.

Etymology

Wuxing originally referred to the five classical planets (from brightest to dimmest: Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Saturn), which together with the Sun and the Moon, were conceived as creating the five forces of earthly life (including yang and yin). This is why the word is composed of Chinese characters meaning "five" (五; wǔ) and "moving" (行; xíng). "Moving" is shorthand for "planets", since the Chinese word for planets is translated as "moving stars" (行星; xíngxīng).