[Music] [Music] in the previous lessons I have talked about how the ancient Chinese from the Shang to the Jo period believe that the ancestors from Beyond were actively interacting and interfering with those who were still living they believe that most causes of unus can be Trace back to these um date uh often unhappy ancestors and so healing involved negotiation with one's ancestors through the intermediary of the priest definition was used to determine what or who was causing the uness in the first place and so ancient healers had to be experts in local law the patients
lineage because they had to determine if they were talking to the right ancestors early Chinese medicine therefore involved Witchcraft and different healing techniques when the Shan was replaced by the Joe there was a fundamental change in Chinese worldview the cosmos was now dominated by an impersonal t or heaven and it was more powerful than the D um which the Shan people used to worship the Shan custom of um a averting Misfortune or disaster with sacrificial ceremonies chiefly intended to alter The Willpower of spirits and ancestors gradually became secondary the fud system implemented by the Joe
Royal House require a set of agreed rules to maintain it these rules became the RSS or Le which were observed by the social Elite rual sustain the authority of the Joe regime from the 11th um to the 8th Century BC while the Mandate of Heaven or timing gave it legitimacy but the importance of ancestors in medicine remain even though were no longer the um only entity interfering with human Affairs the demons aqu were now present and they could be more malicious in their intent Chinese medicine in the Joe Dynasty still involved divination the usual negotiation
with ancestors uh by the priests but now with the new add element of exorcism because of the Demons so you can say that things got complicated ated however as the power of the Joe Royal House diminished beginning in the 8th Century BC the feudal States became more powerful and tried to assert their independence and as the Jo Authority and social order broke down these Feer states started to fight one another for more resources and this led to the beginning of a period known in Chinese history as the Waring States these fer States devoted all their
resources to conquer other states and for the next 250 years from 481 BC to 221 BC fer States would raise and train huge armies for example as many as a million soldiers for the states of ching and Tru and more than half a million men for the state of we hundreds of thousands of troops were frequently deployed in a single battle the violence and bloodshed were unprecedented in Chinese history in even global history the Chinese people all lived in fear and uncertainty during this time they also believed that the soldiers and civilians who were killed
in these violent Wars and violent conflicts were transformed into vengeful demons creating a new source of unus as much more aggressive healing techniques were devised to deal with unus caused by these demons the this was analogous to the more aggressive Warfare witch for the complete destruction of your enemies under this backdrop of human suffering intellectuals of that time became highly creative in their thinking as they tried to come up with new ways to solve um the social problems of the time and in the process changed the fundamental ways of looking at the world the thinkers
of the Waring States perod saw the were as a beautiful place and despite the chaos and disorder brought about by human actions there was a natural order that was supposedly Timeless The Seasons move in Cycles just like humans who had to go through the cycles of birth growth and death thinkers and philosophers started to view humans as intimately connected to Nature if there is an order to Nature and the cosmos then humans should also follow that order to deviate from the natural order is to bring calamities to oneself and the world some thinkers like confucious
and menus wanted to reshape the government and the society to bring back Harmony others who followed the darwis philosophy emphasized on the importance of living according to the Natural order not try to correct things and only after that will there be peace in this world by the end of the Dr Dynasty as China entered into the Waring States period philosophy gradually broke away and became independent from a belief in spirits and demons which was prevailing during the Shang Dynasty forming a system chiefly founded upon the ideas of inyang the five elements and Chi this was
the beginning of natural philosophy in China this system influenced different schools of thought at that time and each School appropriated what it needed to explain um and establish their own individual theories about cosmogony nature men and Society DSM took some confusion ISM took some and many other philosophies did the same these different schools of philosophy gave their independent interpretations of the concepts and intellectuals were um medical practitioners or medical thinkers also make use of all these um prevalent Trends in philosophic thought to create new theories um of mson this pervasive and prevailing atmosphere Sly contributed
to the integration of a systematic approach during the establishment of Chinese medical Theory as a result Chinese medicine was able to detach itself from demons and spirits with the permeation and integration of ancient natural philosophy into medical practice and Theory we know that some of these thinkers um collectively known as the yyang school who took these um earlier Concepts and modified them for example they redefine Spirits sh as part of the natural world and uh that can be found in the human body uh rather than a supernatural entity uh from the past most importantly they
promoted the concept of inyang a concept based on Duality that help people to understand the relationship of all phenomena in the natural world all natural events can now be explained by a model of um ceaseless rise and fall of opposites yet um complimentary forces the the oppos opposing forces are designated by the symbols in and yang which originally meant Shady Side of the hill and sinite of the Hill respectively in Yang was the foundation to um the creation of the world and the inan concept would eventually find its way into many um classical texts by
the end of the Han Dynasty one one example um of this text is the book of changes or eating originally a definition text um from the Western Joel period eing was transformed into a COS mological text that was reinterpreted by DSM um confusion ISM and even Buddhism at a later date I will now take some time to explain the concept of creation found in eing which eventually also influenced Chinese medicine from the Han Dynasty all the way to the present um so bad with me in eing according to the DST confusion is and other thinkers
there was nothing this nothing is also um known as UI um which means um without limit or Infinity we first find the term UI in the D Classic da Jing the classic of the way from the 4th Century BC no whiteness maintain Blackness and be a model of all under Heaven by being a model for all under Heaven Eternal Integrity will not ear if Eternal Integrity does not ear you will return to Infinity thst thinkers started to associate the concept of th with u now th is a difficult term um to translate and uh could
have um could be the way natural order or the rules of the Universe etra um and there is this famous passage in from the same text th transforms into the one which becomes the two and then the three the 10,000 things then comes into existence in eing this um creation process is represented by the taii or the Grand timate as um the one followed by the L E the two forms which is now associated with in and yang the Primal pair um the two forms then create created the four images or from which are derived
um the eight trigrams all these created the symbol that we are familiar with the inyan concept once accepted by the Chinese intellectuals by the late Han Dynasty would be used in different ways to explain the creation of the universe and um the various natural phenomena for the next 2,000 years of course the inyang concept is is not the only concept of Chinese natural philosophy uh there are others for example T um that's been mentioned earlier and the five elements or five phases um which I will um be discussing very soon together they form a system
of thinking that would have a profound influence on all things Chinese up to um the present day Scholars gave it a name systematic correspondence systematic correspondence is a concept used to describe how the Chinese historically viewed the universe viewed the world and view themselves and to relate everything using schema to explain how everything works in other words everything is related to something if you look at the picture you will see um the eight trigrams also known as bwa if you know Chinese the word bwa um also means nosy or rumor mongering I think it actually
originated from the Cantonese St but I digressed anyway the these eight trigrams are made to correspond to the four seasons summer winter Autumn and spring at the same time the trigrams are made to correspond to the four cardinal directions it is not a perfect feed until you factor in Northeast Southwest Northwest and Southeast which are the intercardinal or ordinal directions now let's look at these picture that illustrates how the different elements of the eight trigrams correspond to different entities and Concepts belonging to the natural world first we have the inyang symbol the Primal pair this
might very well be the most recognizable Chinese cultural symbol in the world in the book of changes eing in and yang are represented by the two symbols Yang is a single Unbroken line while in is the same line broken into two halves these lines are known as um Yao uh Yao is the original divination symbol in Western Jo Dynasty because eing was originally a divination hex so we have the Yang Yao and in Yao which are the basic building blocks of the rest of the trigrams at the next level we have have the four images
or Su and each image is represented by a symbol that is made up of um a combination of um the in and yang lines the in Yao and the Yang Yao there are four different combinations of the lines and each combo is made to correspond to a season four Images Four Seasons and then at the next level the two lines symbol of the of four Images now combines with the earlier in and yang lines and this um forms um the eight trigrams bwa and these eight trigrams all correspond to Heaven Lake Fire Thunder Wind water
mountain and Earth there is a name for each trigram and the two most important trigrams are chin uh which is heaven and Quin Earth um so it's chin and Quin as both um are the limits of the natural world and finally if you stack two trigrams you will get a hexagram and there are a total of 64 permutations or 64 64 Hogs and yes all um the histograms are relational that is they all correspond to something now that you have some ideas about how systematic correspondence Works in classical Chinese thought then it will be easier
for you to understand how Chinese medicine works because Chinese mson from the Han Dynasty onwards reli greatly on the schematization of the concepts of yyang the five elements Chi and many others to give it a theoretical Foundation as the concept of inyang um is taking shape a philosopher and alchemist that um was closely associated with the inyang school Joan created the second um natural philosophy that contributed to um the concept of systematic correspondence and consequently the Chinese medical Theory Zan and his followers arrang um concrete natural phenomena and Abstract Concepts not into two uh that
is the yyang but into five lines of Correspondence these became known as the theory of the five virtues or which was originally a political Theory um I will not go into the details here the five virtues then went on to represent five tangible natural phenomena matter wood water fire and Earth which then um became the theory of the five elements or in Chinese now do bear in mind that um the concept of mum was not invented by these Waring States philosophers but rather they um came from an earlier time in Chinese History Joan merely redefined
it and refined it non-chinese Scholars um preferred the use of elements because of its similarity with the classical G uh Greek concept of the five elements especially when discussing history um of Medicine of the two civilization if you look at the diagram you will see that um the theory of the five faces constitute an easily understandable foundation for the five lines of Correspondence conveying at the same time a number of mutual relationships among various lines the best known of the relationships are mutual destruction or control and mutual generation or production this is the reason why
we use um the translation phases or agents instead of elements because of the active nature of the five entities the theory of the five faces eventually combined with um the concept of um inyang to create a more complex way of looking at and explaining the natural order this would take um systematic correspondence further as more natural phenomena were made to correspond to inyang and the five faces the original concept of um the five faces or using was um developed from man's observation of the natural world they are physical phenomena that could be seen um with
the Naked Eyes and just like the ancient Greeks were considered the foundation of the physic iCal world or you could or you could say the building blocks of the world in the original theory of the five faces water is associated with um the potential of a new life hidden in the dark ground beneath the Snows of winter wood is associated with the exuberance of New Growth as it shoots up from the earth in Spring Fire is associated with the process of maturation that um takes place under the warmth of the summer sun earth is associated
with um ripening of grains in the yellow fields of late summer matter is associated with the Harvest of Autumn and the storage of seed for next year's um planting and the beginning of a new cycle the five phases is a cycle that goes on and on there is um a process known as um Mutual generation or production in this cycle um is also called uh sanction in Chinese the generation of production of faces is one where each element generates the element after it so water would birth wood um then W uh would burth fire as
fire um requires wood in order to burn this creative phase begins with the birth of wood in a time of spring this is a period of generating growth and um where there's abundant um Vitality the psycle then moves on to fire uh in early summer uh which is a time of flowering blooming uh with passion and energy Earth comes next in a late summer which is um a time of leveling and uh dampening of fruition matter is generated during autumn when it is time to harvest and collect and then winter arrives and water is um
generated it is a time to retreat uh to be steal and to store um think of animals uh in Winter um when they actually hibernate besides Mutual generation there is also um neutal controlling or restraining process the control link cycle makes sure no face is too strong or too long it acts like a balancing Force to keep things in check the Chinese name for this process is Sanka um the idea of balance um is very important in this case in this cycle uh and it is likewise very important in Chinese medicine what happens when there
is Over Control by any one of the faces or elements once that happens the destructive process will begin this is the same sequence as the controlling or restraining cycle except now the element going into Over Control uh will destroy the other element the destructive cycle occurs when an element becomes too strong from its control um element and uses up all its energy Earth will absorb um the controlling element of water because Earth is too strong uh water extinguishes fire because as an element fire had use up all tea when trying to control and restrain water
fire melts matter matter Cuts wood and wood breaks Earth you may have noticed by now that the five faes um uh also corresponds with the seasons um but that can be right because um since there are actually Four Seasons but um there are five phases so what happened is that the ancient Chinese divided summer into to um summer uh or early summer and late or long summer uh in Chinese it's called Chia in and so that managed to um feed the four the five seasons into the five faces like in order to have a perfect
feed both the inyang theory and the five ases Theory reflect a worldview in which violence um that involved destruction domination retaliation and revenge was a norm um don't forget um these theories actually um were you know created uh and developed during um the Waring stat period Chinese medical theoreticians were not ignorant of the physicality of the body oopsies um were already performed by physicians and Scholars during the Han Dynasty to study the insights of the human body however the Chinese medical thinkers prefer to visualize a set of physiological functions and relationships subject to regularities perceived
in the external world the human body was not a discrete bounded object in isolation but part of the universe made coherent by the belief in a sympathetic resonance between things deem to be similar since there is a relational cosmology to explain what goes on in this world then it is logical to include human beings in it this was in contrast to the Greek concentration on the body's capacity for individual and independent action in short the terminology and concepts of inyang and five phases gradually came up to um explain in almost all phenomena and their are
transformations in the universe including the structures and functions of the human body the occurrence and development of disorders and principles of treatments the entire process took a long time and um only by the end of the hand Dynasty the basic structures of these conceptual Frameworks um were finally imp place the Chinese conceptualize the body as a microcosm of the universe a reflection of Heaven Earth and humanity and so the human body in Chinese medicine is not a standalone independent entity but rather it is related to the larger world and the cosmos such a concept would
influence how Chinese Physicians View the human medical body for the next two millennium [Music] [Music]
