Mahdihassan S
Am J Chin Med. 1990;18(3-4):181-4. doi: 10.1142/S0192415X9000023X.
As agriculturist, man recognized Earth, Heat and Water as essential to plant life and projected them as cosmic elements. Pastoral man observed animals multiply due to reproduction. He realized that reproduction resulted from the union of opposites as male and female. Projecting reproduction, he conceived creation, which then resulted as the union of the cosmic pair of opposites. Heaven and Earth. The Chinese conceived of creation as starting with creative energy in its latent form, as Thai-Chi, meaning the absolute existence. Later, it assumed its dynamic form called Chhi. It was dual-natured with the opposites called Yang (light) and Yin (darkness). The reproductive power was projected as creative energy called Chhi and male and female opposites were projected as the universal pair of opposites as Yang and Yin. Creative energy produced the cosmic elements which in turn produced all creation. The cosmic elements of Chinese cosmology were Wood, Fire, Water, Earth and Metal. They also included the factors of humorology when the following elements had, as contents, items belonging to humorology, Wood-contained Air, Earth.....Moisture; Metal.......Dryness. By assigning dual-sense to three cosmic elements, Chinese humorology came into existence but has incorporated it in its cosmology. It is easy to equate Air = Vayu of Tridosha doctrine of India, Moisture = Kapha, Dryness = Pitta. Then with five elements of cosmology including three with dual-sense, as belonging to humorology, we have eight elements in all as cosmology-cum-humorology. It is obvious that Air, so important in the cosmologies of India and Greece, is no where explicit in Chinese cosmology.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
作为农学家，人类认识到土、热和水是植物生长所必需的，并将它们视为宇宙元素。牧民观察到动物因繁殖而增多。他意识到繁殖源于雄性和雌性这两种对立物的结合。由此推及繁殖，他构想了创造，而创造则源于宇宙中天地这一对立物的结合。中国人认为创造始于潜在形式的创造力，即太极，意为绝对存在。后来，它呈现出动态形式，称为气。气具有双重性质，其对立物为阳（光明）和阴（黑暗）。生殖力被视为称为气的创造力，而雄性和雌性对立物则被视为宇宙中普遍的对立物，即阳和阴。创造力产生了宇宙元素，这些元素进而产生了万物。中国宇宙论中的宇宙元素是木、火、水、土和金。当以下元素包含属于体液学说的内容时，它们还包括了体液学说的因素，木包含气，土……湿气；金……燥气。通过给三种宇宙元素赋予双重含义，中国的体液学说应运而生，但已将其纳入宇宙论之中。很容易将气等同于印度三体液学说中的风，湿气等同于黏液，燥气等同于胆汁。那么，宇宙论的五种元素中有三种具有双重含义，属于体液学说，这样我们总共就有了八种元素，即宇宙论兼体液学说。显然，在印度和希腊的宇宙论中如此重要的气，在中国宇宙论中却无处明确体现。（摘要截断于250字）
