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Hun and po

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hun_and_po

Hun and po

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hun (Chinese: 魂; pinyin: hún; Wade–Giles: hun; literally "cloud-soul") and po (Chinese: 魄; pinyin: ; Wade–Giles: p'o; literally "white-soul") are types of souls in Chinese philosophy and 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; that is, "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]

Characters

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Chinese Bronze script for po 魄 or 霸 "lunar brightness"

 

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Chinese Seal script for po 魄 "soul"

 

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Chinese Seal script for hun 魂 "soul"

 

The Chinese characters 魂 and 魄 for hun and po typify the most common character classification of "radical-phonetic" or "phono-semantic" graphs, which combine a "radical" or "signific" (recurring graphic elements that roughly provide semantic information) with a "phonetic" (suggesting ancient pronunciation). Hun (or 䰟) and po have the "ghost radical" gui "ghost; devil" and phonetics of yun "cloud; cloudy" and bai "white; clear; pure".

 

Besides the common meaning of "a soul", po 魄 was a variant Chinese character for po "a lunar phase" and po "dregs". The Shujing "Book of History" 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" (tr. Legge 1865:434). 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!" (tr. Watson 1968:152).

 

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 (ca. 11th century BCE) Zhou oracle bone inscription (Yü 1987:370).

 

Etymologies

 

The po soul's etymology is better understood than the hun soul's. Schuessler (2007:290, 417) 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 (ca. 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".

 

What do the words
hun
and [
po
] mean?
Hun
expresses the idea of continuous propagation ([
zhuan
] 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, [
xing
] 性). [
Po
] expresses the idea of a continuous pressing urge ([
po
] 迫) on man; it is the [
qi
] of the Lesser Yin, and works in him, governing the emotions ([
qing
] 情).
Hun
is connected with the idea of weeding ([
yun
] 芸), for with the instincts the evil weeds (in man's nature) are removed. [
Po
] is connected with the idea of brightening ([
bai
] 白), for with the emotions the interior (of the personality) is governed. (tr. Needham and Lu 1974:87)

Etymologically, Schuessler says 魄 "animal soul" "is the same word as" 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".

 

, 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 classificiation 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
and Proto-
*
s/ʼ-la
"moon; soul; spirit",
cognates
bla
"soul" and
zla
"moon", and Proto-
*
bla
"spirit; soul; moon". (2007:417)

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 (Shaughnessy 1992:136–145) 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 (1987:370) translates them as "after the birth of the crescent" and "after the death of the crescent". Etymologically, lunar and spiritual po < pʰak < *phrâk 魄 are cognate with bai < bɐk < *brâk 白 "white" (Matisoff 1980, Yü 1981, Carr 1985). According to Hu Shih (1946:30), 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." Yü (1981:83) 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." 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 (1946:31) said, "The word hun is etymologically the same as the word yun, 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,
hún
is the 'dark' soul and therefore cognate to
yún
雲 'cloud' [Carr 1985:62], perhaps in the sense of 'shadowy' because some believe that the
hún
soul will live after death in a world of shadows [Eberhard 1967:17]. (2007:290)


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Edited by White Wolf Running On Air
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basically po is the lunar energy - hun is the solar....

 

etheric body is po -- electrochemical qi - yin qi and yang jing energy....

 

hun - coherent photons - quantum coherent - bends spacetime -- higher dimensional perceptions -higher frequency - precognition, telepathy, etc. long distance healing.

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Chinese Seal script for po"soul" "body"

 

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Chinese Seal script for hun 魂 "soul"

 

 

 

I think there was a publication error.

 

魂 is a soul; and

魄 is a body

 

Compound characters:

魂魄: soul and body

 

The compound characters are most commonly used, in the Chinese language, describing the soul and body are always together as a living human being.

 

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Hun is our etherial soul, travels at night, help you to do the right thing.

Po is our corporeal soul, is our animal nature, the Po will protect you no matter the consequences.

 

The Hun will sacrifice yourself for the benefit of self, other and word.

The Po will sacrifice other so you do not get hurt.

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