Hun and po
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 hun spiritual, ethereal, yang soul which leaves the body after death, and also a po 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 sanhunqipo (三魂七魄), i.e., "three hun and seven po". The historian Yü Ying-shih describes hun and po as "two pivotal concepts that have been, and remain today, the key to understanding Chinese views of the human soul and the afterlife".[1] CharactersLike many Chinese characters, 魂 and 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. 魂 and its variant 䰟 combine the "ghost radical" 鬼, 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 云, a pictogram originally showing a cloud and believed to have been pronounced /*[ɢ]ʷə[r]/ or /*ɢun/ in Ancient Chinese. 魄 combines the same radical with the character 白 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", po 魄 was a variant Chinese character for po 霸 "a lunar phase" and po 粕 "dregs". The Book of Documents used po 魄 as a graphic variant for po 霸 "dark aspect of the moon" – this character usually means ba 霸 "overlord; hegemon". For example, "On the third month, when (the growth phase, 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".[2] The Zhuangzi "[Writings of] Master Zhuang" wrote zaopo 糟粕 (lit. "rotten dregs") "worthless; unwanted; waste matter" with a po 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 [糟魄] chaff and dregs of the men of old!".[3] In the history of Chinese writing, characters for po 魄/霸 "lunar brightness" appeared before those for hun 魂 "soul; spirit". The spiritual hun 魂 and po 魄 "dual souls" are first recorded in Warring States period (475–221 BCE) seal script characters. The lunar po 魄 or 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.[4] EtymologiesThe po soul's etymology is better understood than the hun soul's. Schuessler[5] reconstructs hun 魂 "'spiritual soul' which makes a human personality" and po 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) Baihu Tang 白虎堂 gave pseudo-etymologies for hun and po through Chinese character puns. It explains hun 魂 with zhuan 傳 "deliver; pass on; impart; spread" and yun 芸 "rue (used to keep insects out of books); to weed", and po 魄 with po 迫 " compel; force; coerce; urgent" and bai 白 "white; bright".
Etymologically, Schuessler says pò 魄 "animal soul" "is the same word as" pò 霸 "a lunar phase". He cites the Zuozhuan (534 BCE, see below) using the lunar jishengpo 既生魄 to mean "With the first development of a fetus grows the vegetative soul".
Lunar associations of po are evident in the Classical Chinese terms chanpo 蟾魄 "the moon" (with "toad; toad in the moon; moon") and haopo 皓魄 "moon; moonlight" (with "white; bright; luminous"). The semantics of po 魄 "white soul" probably originated with 霸 "lunar whiteness". Zhou bronze inscriptions commonly recorded lunar phases with the terms jishengpo 既生魄 "after the brightness has grown" and jisipo 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[8] Wang Guowei's lunar-quarter analysis the most likely. Thus, jishengpo is from the 7th/8th to the 14th/15th days of the lunar month and jisipo 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".[4] Etymologically, lunar and spiritual po < pʰak < *phrâk 魄 are cognate with bai < bɐk < *brâk 白 "white".[9][10] According to Hu Shih, po 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 [po], its 'white light' or soul."[11] Yü says this ancient association between the po 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."[12] 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 hun < γuən < *wûn 魂 is comparatively less certain. Hu said, "The word hun is etymologically the same as the word yun, meaning "clouds."[13] 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.
SemanticsThe correlative "soul" words hun 魂 and po 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.
Both Chinese hun and po 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.[25]
Hunpo and linghun are the most frequently used among these "soul" words. Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-djen, eminent historians of science and technology in China,[26] define hun and po 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 hun and po 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 hun is Yang, luminous, and volatile, while the po is Yin, somber, and heavy."[27] HistoryOrigin of termsBased on Zuozhuan usages of hun and po in four historical contexts, Yü extrapolates that po was the original name for a human soul, and the dualistic conception of hun and po "began to gain currency in the middle of the sixth century" BCE.[4] Two earlier 6th century contexts used the po soul alone. Both describe Tian 天 "heaven; god" duo 奪 "seizing; taking away" a person's po, which resulted in a loss of mental faculties. In 593 BCE (Duke Xuan 15th year),[28] after Zhao Tong 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 [魄] wits away from him." In 543 BCE (Duke Xiang 29th year),[29] Boyou 伯有 from the state of Zheng acted irrationally, which an official interpreted as: "Heaven is destroying [Boyou], and has taken away his [魄] reason." Boyou's political enemies subsequently arranged to take away his hereditary position and assassinate him. Two later sixth-century Zuozhuan contexts used po together with the hun soul. In 534 BCE, the ghost of Boyou 伯有 (above) was seeking revenge on his murderers, and terrifying the people of Zheng (Duke Zhao, Year &).[30] 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 locus classicus on the subject of the human soul in the Chinese tradition".[31]
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 叔孫 were both seen weeping during a supposedly joyful gathering. Yue Qi 樂祁, a Song court official, said:
Hu proposed, "The idea of a hun may have been a contribution from the southern peoples" (who originated Zhao Hun rituals) and then spread to the north sometime during the sixth century BCE.[35] Calling this southern hypothesis "quite possible", Yü cites the Chuci, associated with the southern state of Chu, demonstrating "there can be little doubt that in the southern tradition the hun was regarded as a more active and vital soul than the p'o.[36] The Chuci uses hun 65 times and po 5 times (4 in hunpo, which the Chuci uses interchangeably with hun).[37] Relation to yin-yangThe identification of the yin-yang principle with the hun and po souls evidently occurred in the late fourth and early third centuries BCE,[38] and by "the second century at the latest, the Chinese dualistic conception of soul had reached its definitive formulation." The Liji (11), compounds hun and po with qi "breath; life force" and xing "form; shape; body" in hunqi 魂氣 and xingpo 形魄. "The [魂氣] intelligent spirit returns to heaven the [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."[39] Compare this modern translation,[38] "The breath-soul (hun-ch'I 魂氣) returns to heaven; the bodily soul (hsing-p'o 形魄) returns to earth. Therefore, in sacrificial-offering one should seek the meaning in the yin-yang 陰陽 principle." Yü summarizes hun/po dualism.
Loewe explains with a candle metaphor; the physical xing is the "wick and substance of a candle", the spiritual po and hun are the "force that keeps the candle alight" and "light that emanates from the candle".[41] Traditional medical beliefsThe Yin po and Yang hun were correlated with Chinese spiritual and medical beliefs. Hun 魂 is associated with shen 神 "spirit; god" and po 魄 with gui 鬼 "ghost; demon; devil".[14] The (c. 1st century BCE) Lingshu Jing medical text spiritually applies Wu Xing "Five Phases" theory to the Zang-fu "organs", associating the hun soul with "liver" and blood, and the po soul with "lung" and breath.
The Lingshu Jing[43] also records that the hun and po souls taking flight can cause restless dreaming, and eye disorders can scatter the souls causing mental confusion. Han medical texts reveal that hun and po departing from the body does not necessarily cause death but rather distress and sickness. Brashier parallels the translation of hun and po, "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."[44] Burial customsDuring the Han Dynasty, the belief in hun and po remained prominent, although there was a great diversity of different, sometimes contradictory, beliefs about the afterlife.[45][46] Han burial customs provided nourishment and comfort for the po with the placement of grave goods, including food, commodities, and even money within the tomb of the deceased.[45] 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. Separation at deathGenerations of sinologists have repeatedly asserted that Han-era people commonly believed the heavenly hun and earthly po souls separated at death, but recent scholarship and archeology suggest that hunpo dualism was more an academic theory than a popular faith. Anna Seidel analyzed funerary texts discovered in Han tombs, which mention not only po souls but also hun remaining with entombed corpses, and wrote, "Indeed, a clear separation of a p'o, appeased with the wealth included in the tomb, from a hun departed to heavenly realms is not possible."[47] Seidel later called for reappraising Han abstract notions of hun and po, which "do not seem to have had as wide a currency as we assumed up to now."[48] Pu Muzhou surveyed usages of the words hun and po on Han Dynasty bei 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 hun from the po."[49][50] These stele texts contrasted souls between a corporeal hun or hunpo at the cemetery and a spiritual shen at the family shrine. Kenneth Brashier reexamined the evidence for hunpo dualism and relegated it "to the realm of scholasticism rather than general beliefs on death."[51] 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."[52] Another Han text, the Fengsu Tongyi says, "The vital energy of the hun of a dead person floats away; therefore a mask is made in order to retain it." Hun and po 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 hun and the p'o leave the body. We have reason to believe that around this time the idea of hun was still relatively new."[53] Soon after death, it was believed that a person's hun and po could be temporarily reunited through a ritual called the fu 復 "recall; return", zhaohun 招魂 "summon the hun soul", or zhaohun fupo 招魂復魄 "to summon the hun-soul to reunite with the po-soul". The earliest known account of this ritual is found in the (3rd century BCE) Chuci poems Zhao Hun 招魂 "Summons of the Soul" and Dazhao 大招 "The Great Summons".[55] For example, the wu Yang (巫陽) summons a man's soul in the "Zhao Hun".
Daoism
Hun 魂 and po 魄 spiritual concepts were important in several Daoist traditions. For instance, "Since the volatile hun 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."[57] The sanhunqipo 三魂七魄 "three hun and seven po" were anthropomorphized and visualized. Ge Hong's (c. 320 CE) Baopuzi frequently mentions the hun and po "ethereal and gross souls". The "Genii" Chapter argues that the departing of these dual souls cause illness and death.
This "magicians" translates fangshi 方士 "doctor; diviner' magician". Both fangshi and daoshi 道士 "Daoist priests" developed methods and rituals to summon hun and po back into a person's body. The "Gold and Cinnabar" chapter records a Daoist alchemical reanimation pill that can return the hun and po souls to a recent corpse: Taiyi zhaohunpo dan fa 太乙招魂魄丹法 "The Great One's Elixir Method for Summoning Souls".
For visualizing the ten souls, the Baopuzi "Truth on Earth" chapter recommends taking dayao 大藥 "great medicines" and practicing a fenxing "divide/multiply the body" multilocation technique.
The Daoist Shangqing School has several meditation techniques for visualizing the hun and po. In Shangqing Neidan "Internal Alchemy", Baldrian-Hussein says,
Number of soulsThe 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."[62] The most commonly believed numbers of "souls" in a person are one, two, three, and ten. One "soul" or linghun 靈魂 is the simplest idea. Harrell gives a fieldwork example.
Two "souls" is a common folk belief, and reinforced by yin-yang theory. These paired souls can be called hun and po, hunpo and shen, or linghun and shen. 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
Ten "souls" of sanhunqipo 三魂七魄 "three hun and seven po" is not only Daoist; "Some authorities would maintain that the three-seven "soul" is basic to all Chinese religion".[65] During the Later Han period, Daoists fixed the number of hun souls at three and the number of po souls at seven. A newly deceased person may return (回魂) to his home at some nights, sometimes one week (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."[26] Three hun may stand for the sangang 三綱 "three principles of social order: relationships between ruler-subject, father-child, and husband-wife".[66] Seven po may stand for the qiqiao 七竅 "seven apertures (in the head, eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth)" or the qiqing 七情 "seven emotions (joy, anger, sorrow, fear, worry, grief, fright)" in traditional Chinese medicine.[57] Sanhunqipo also stand for other names. See also
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