Model humanity:
56-541: Model humanity: Main philosophical traditions: Ritual traditions: Devotional traditions: Salvation churches and sects : Confucian churches and sects: In the Sinosphere , qi ( / ˈ tʃ iː / CHEE ) is traditionally believed to be a vital force part of all living entities. Literally meaning 'vapor', 'air', or 'breath', the word qi is polysemous , often translated as 'vital energy', 'vital force', 'material energy', or simply 'energy'. Qi
112-544: A Chinese religious tradition characterised by a concern for salvation (moral fulfillment) of the person and the society. They are distinguished by egalitarianism , a founding charismatic person often informed by a divine revelation , a specific theology written in holy texts , a millenarian eschatology and a voluntary path of salvation, an embodied experience of the numinous through healing and self-cultivation, and an expansive orientation through evangelism and philanthropy . Some scholars consider these religions
168-572: A language family (alternatively macrofamily or superphylum ) proposed by Stanley Starosta in 2001. The proposal has since been adopted by George van Driem and others. Early proposals of similar linguistic macrophylla, in narrower scope: Precursors to the East Asian proposal: Stanley Starosta 's (2005) East Asian proposal includes a "Yangzian" branch, consisting of Austroasiatic and Hmong–Mien , to form an East Asian superphylum. However, Starosta believes his proposed Yangzian to be
224-486: A lù 彔 phonetic, abbreviating lǜ 綠 "green") "(greenish-yellow) chlorine ". Qì 氣 is the phonetic element in a few characters such as kài 愾 "hate" with the "heart-mind radical" 忄 or 心 , xì 熂 "set fire to weeds" with the "fire radical" 火 , and xì 餼 "to present food" with the "food radical" 食 . The first Chinese dictionary of characters, the Shuowen Jiezi (121 CE) notes that
280-469: A phonetic loan character to write qǐ 乞 "plead for; beg; ask" which did not have an early character. The vast majority of Chinese characters are classified as radical-phonetic characters . Such characters combine a semantically suggestive " radical characters " with a phonetic element approximating ancient pronunciation. For example, the widely known word dào 道 "the Dao ; the way" graphically combines
336-563: A Confucian identity, with the foundation of the Holy Confucian Church of China which aims to unite in a single body all Confucian religious groups. Many of the movements of salvation of the 20th and 21st century aspire to become the repository of the entirety of the Chinese tradition in the face of Western modernism and materialism, advocating an "Eastern solution to the problems of the modern world", or even interacting with
392-559: A campfire from a distance away from the fire. They accounted for this phenomenon by claiming "qi" radiated from fire. At 18:62/122, he also uses "qi" to refer to the vital forces of the body that decline with advanced age. Among the animals, the gibbon and the crane were considered experts at inhaling the qi. The Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu (ca. 150 BC) wrote in Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals : "The gibbon resembles
448-416: A corpse were it not buried at a sufficient depth. He reported that early civilized humans learned how to live in houses to protect their qi from the moisture that troubled them when they lived in caves. He also associated maintaining one's qi with providing oneself with adequate nutrition. In regard to another kind of qi, he recorded how some people performed a kind of prognostication by observing qi (clouds) in
504-560: A direct sister of Sino-Tibetan rather than Austronesian, which is more distantly related to Sino-Tibetan as a sister of Sino-Tibetan-Yangzian. He concludes Proto-East Asian was a disyllabic (CVCVC) language spoken from 6,500 to 6,000 BCE by Peiligang culture and Cishan culture millet farmers on the North China Plain (specifically the Han River , Wei River , and central Yellow River areas). Starosta (2005) proposes
560-542: A macaque, but he is larger, and his color is black. His forearms being long, he lives eight hundred years, because he is expert in controlling his breathing." (" 猿似猴。大而黑。長前臂。所以壽八百。好引氣也。 ") Later, the syncretic text assembled under the direction of Liu An , the Huai Nan Zi , or "Masters of Huainan", has a passage that presages most of what is given greater detail by the Neo-Confucians : Heaven (seen here as
616-507: A single group they are said to have the same number of followers of the five state-sanctioned religions of China taken together. Scholars and government officials have been discussing to systematise and unify this large base of religious organisations; in 2004 the State Administration of Religious Affairs created a department for the management of folk religions. In the late 2015 a step was made at least for those of them with
SECTION 10
#1732765122373672-416: A single phenomenon, and others consider them the fourth great Chinese religious category alongside the well-established Confucianism , Buddhism and Taoism . Generally these religions focus on the worship of the universal God ( Shangdi ), represented as either male, female, or genderless, and regard their holy patriarchs as embodiments of God. "Chinese salvationist religions" ( 救度宗教 jiùdù zōngjiào )
728-507: Is a contemporary neologism coined as a sociological category and gives prominence to folk religious sects' central pursuit that is the salvation of the individual and the society, in other words the moral fulfillment of individuals in reconstructed communities of sense. Chinese scholars traditionally describe them as "folk religious sects" ( 民间宗教 mínjiān zōngjiào , 民间教门 mínjiān jiàomén or 民间教派 mínjiān jiàopài ) or "folk beliefs" ( 民间信仰 mínjiān xìnyǎng ). They are distinct from
784-451: Is a difference between so-called " Primordial Qi " (acquired at birth from one's parents) and Qi acquired throughout one's life. Or again Chinese medicine differentiates between Qi acquired from the air we breathe (so called "Clean Air") and Qi acquired from food and drinks (so-called "Grain Qi"). Looking at roles Qi is divided into "Defensive Qi" and "Nutritive Qi". Defensive Qi's role is to defend
840-554: Is a notion of innate or prenatal qi which is distinguished from acquired qi that a person may develop over their lifetime. The earliest texts that speak of qi give some indications of how the concept developed. In the Analects of Confucius , qi could mean "breath". Combining it with the Chinese word for blood (making 血氣, xue –qi, blood and breath), the concept could be used to account for motivational characteristics: The [morally] noble man guards himself against three things. When he
896-481: Is also a concept in traditional Chinese medicine and in Chinese martial arts . The attempt to cultivate and balance qi is called qigong . Believers in qi describe it as a vital force, with one's good health requiring its flow to be unimpeded. Qi is a pseudoscientific concept, and does not correspond to the concept of energy as used in the physical sciences, with the notion of vital force itself being abandoned by
952-509: Is historically credited with first establishing the pathways, called meridians , through which qi allegedly circulates in the human body. In traditional Chinese medicine, symptoms of various illnesses are believed to be either the product of disrupted, blocked, and unbalanced qi movement through meridians or deficiencies and imbalances of qi in the Zang Fu organs . Traditional Chinese medicine often seeks to relieve these imbalances by adjusting
1008-423: Is very frequently used in word games —such as Scrabble —due to containing a letter Q without a letter U . References to concepts analogous to qi are found in many Asian belief systems. Philosophical conceptions of qi from the earliest records of Chinese philosophy (5th century BCE) correspond to Western notions of humours and to the ancient Hindu yogic concept of prana . An early form of qi comes from
1064-404: Is young, his xue –qi has not yet stabilized, so he guards himself against sexual passion. When he reaches his prime, his xue –qi is not easily subdued, so he guards himself against combativeness. When he reaches old age, his xue –qi is already depleted, so he guards himself against acquisitiveness. The philosopher Mozi used the word qi to refer to noxious vapors that would eventually arise from
1120-467: The "walk" radical 辶 with a shǒu 首 "head" phonetic. Although the modern dào and shǒu pronunciations are dissimilar, the Old Chinese *lˤuʔ-s 道 and *l̥uʔ-s 首 were alike. The regular script character qì 氣 is unusual because qì 气 is both the "air radical" and the phonetic, with mǐ 米 "rice" semantically indicating "steam; vapor". This qì 气 "air/gas radical"
1176-591: The Book of Rites . Some scholars even find influences from Manichaeism , Mohism and shamanic traditions . In the Ming and Qing dynasties many folk religious movements were outlawed by the imperial authorities as "evil religions" ( 邪教 xiéjiào ). With the collapse of the Qing state in 1911 the sects enjoyed an unprecedented period of freedom and thrived, and many of them were officially recognised as religious groups by
SECTION 20
#17327651223731232-457: The Chinese folk religion consisting in the worship of gods and ancestors, although in English language there is a terminological confusion between the two. The 20th-century expression for these salvationist religious movements has been "redemptive societies" ( 救世团体 jiùshì tuántǐ ), coined by scholar Prasenjit Duara . A collective name that has been in use possibly since the latter part of
1288-598: The East Asian languages , qì has three logographs: In addition, qì 炁 is an uncommon character especially used in writing Daoist talismans . Historically, the word qì was generally written as 气 until the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), when it was replaced by the 氣 graph clarified with mǐ 米 "rice" indicating "steam (rising from rice as it cooks.)" and depicting the Traditional Chinese view of
1344-498: The Jixia Academy , followed in later years. At 9:69/127, Xun Zi says, "Fire and water have qi but do not have life. Grasses and trees have life but do not have perceptivity. Fowl and beasts have perceptivity but do not have yi (sense of right and wrong, duty, justice). Men have qi, life, perceptivity, and yi ." Chinese people at such an early time had no concept of radiant energy , but they were aware that one can be heated by
1400-922: The Middle Chinese pronunciation of 氣 standardized to IPA transcription include: /kʰe̯i/ ( Bernard Karlgren ), /kʰĭəi/ ( Wang Li ), /kʰiəi/ ( Li Rong ), /kʰɨj/ ( Edwin Pulleyblank ), and /kʰɨi/ ( Zhengzhang Shangfang ). Axel Schuessler's reconstruction of the Later Han Chinese pronunciation of 氣 is /kɨs/. Reconstructions of the Old Chinese pronunciation of 氣 standardized to IPA transcription include: */kʰɯds/ (Zhengzhang Shangfang), */C.qʰəp-s/ ( William H. Baxter and Laurent Sagart ), and */kə(t)s/ (Axel Schuessler). The etymology of qì interconnects with Kharia kʰis "anger", Sora kissa "move with great effort", Khmer kʰɛs "strive after; endeavor", and Gyalrongic kʰɐs "anger". In
1456-484: The early republican government . The founding of the People's Republic in 1949 saw them suppressed once again, although since the 1990s and 2000s the climate was relaxed and some of them have received some form of official recognition. In Taiwan all the still existing restrictions were rescinded in the 1980s. Folk religious movements began to rapidly revive in mainland China in the 1980s, and now if conceptualised as
1512-621: The qì pronunciation. The modern ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary, which enters xì 餼 "grain; animal feed; make a present of food", and a qì 氣 entry with seven translation equivalents for the noun, two for bound morphemes , and three equivalents for the verb. n. ① air; gas ② smell ③ spirit; vigor; morale ④ vital/material energy (in Ch[inese] metaphysics) ⑤ tone; atmosphere; attitude ⑥ anger ⑦ breath; respiration b.f. ① weather 天氣 tiānqì ② [linguistics] aspiration 送氣 sòngqì v. ① anger ② get angry ③ bully; insult. Qi
1568-921: The English loanword qi or ch'i. The logograph 氣 is read with two Chinese pronunciations, the usual qì 氣 "air; vital energy" and the rare archaic xì 氣 "to present food" (later disambiguated with 餼 ). Hackett Publishing Company , Philip J. Ivanhoe , and Bryan W. Van Norden theorize that the word qi possibly came from a term that referred to "the mist that arose from heated sacrificial offerings". Pronunciations of 氣 in modern varieties of Chinese with standardized IPA equivalents include: Standard Chinese qì /t͡ɕʰi˥˩/ , Wu Chinese qi /t͡ɕʰi˧˦/ , Southern Min khì /kʰi˨˩/ , Eastern Min ké /kʰɛi˨˩˧/ , Standard Cantonese hei /hei̯˧/ , and Hakka Chinese hi /hi˥/ . Pronunciations of 氣 in Sino-Xenic borrowings include: Japanese ki , Korean gi , and Vietnamese khí. Reconstructions of
1624-533: The Qing dynasty is huìdàomén ( 会道门 "churches, ways and gates"), as their names interchangeably use the terms huì ( 会 "church, society, association, congregation"; when referring to their corporate form), dào ( 道 "way") or mén ( 门 "gate[way], door"). Their congregations and points of worship are usually called táng ( 堂 "church, hall") or tán ( 坛 "altar"). Western scholars often mistakenly identify them as " Protestant " churches. The Vietnamese religions of Minh Đạo and Caodaism emerged from
1680-518: The accumulation of qi. When it accumulates there is life. When it dissipates there is death... There is one qi that connects and pervades everything in the world." The Guanzi essay Neiye (Inward Training) is the oldest received writing on the subject of the cultivation of vapor [qi] and meditation techniques. The essay was probably composed at the Jixia Academy in Qi in the late fourth century B.C. Xun Zi , another Confucian scholar of
1736-587: The body against invasions while Nutritive Qi's role is to provide sustenance for the body. To protect against said invasions, medicines have four types of qi; cold, hot, warm, and cool. Cold qi medicines are used to treat invasions hot in nature, while hot qi medicines are used to treat invasions cold in nature. looking at locations, Qi is also named after the Zang-Fu organ or the Meridian in which it resides: "Liver Qi", "Spleen Qi", etc. Lastly, prolonged exposure to
Qi - Misplaced Pages Continue
1792-435: The circulation of qi using a variety of techniques including herbology , food therapy , physical training regimens ( qigong , tai chi , and other martial arts training), moxibustion , tui na , or acupuncture .The cultivation of Heavenly and Earthly qi allow for the maintenance of psychological actions The nomenclature of Qi in the human body is different depending on its sources, roles, and locations. For sources there
1848-433: The concept has been important within many Chinese philosophies, over the centuries the descriptions of qi have varied and have sometimes been in conflict. Until China came into contact with Western scientific and philosophical ideas, the Chinese had not categorized all things in terms of matter and energy. Qi and li ( 理 : "pattern") were 'fundamental' categories similar to matter and energy. "In later Chinese philosophy, qi
1904-574: The following Proto-East Asian morphological affixes, which are found in Proto-Tibeto-Burman and Proto-Austronesian , as well as in some morphologically conservative Austroasiatic branches such as Nicobaric . The following tree of East Asian superphylum (macrofamily) was proposed by George van Driem in 2012 at the 18th Himalayan Languages Symposium, held at the Benares Hindu University . According to van Driem,
1960-595: The four seasons become the myriad creatures. The hot qi of yang in accumulating produces fire. The essence ( jing ) of the fire-qi becomes the sun. The cold qi of yin in accumulating produces water. The essence of the water-qi becomes the moon. The essences produced by coitus (yin) of the sun and moon become the stars and celestial markpoints ( chen , planets). Qi is linked to East Asian thought on magic , and certain body parts were important to magic traditions such as some Taoist sects. The Huangdi Neijing ( "The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine", circa 2nd century BCE)
2016-605: The label "secret sects" ( 秘密教门 mìmì jiàomén ) to distinguish the peasant "secret societies" with a positive dimension of the Yuan, Ming and Qing periods, from the negatively viewed "secret societies" of the early republic that became instruments of anti-revolutionary forces (the Guomindang or Japan ). Many of these religions are traced to the White Lotus tradition ("Chinese Maternism", as mentioned by Philip Clart ) that
2072-476: The linguistic evidence for the East Asian languages matches the genetic evidence from Y-DNA Haplogroup O . (Further information: Father Tongue hypothesis ) According to Michael D. Larish, the languages of Southeast and East Asia descended from one proto-language (which he calls "Proto-Asian"). Japonic is grouped together with Koreanic as one branch of the Proto-Asian family. The other branch consists of
2128-506: The modern discourse of an Asian -centered universal civilisation. The Chinese folk religious movements of salvation are mostly concentrated in northern and northeastern China, although with a significant influence reaching the Yangtze River Delta since the 16th century. The northern provinces have been a fertile ground for the movements of salvation for a number of reasons: firstly, popular religious movements were active in
2184-474: The other hand, the qi of an individual could be degraded by adverse external forces that succeed in operating on that individual. Living things were not the only things believed to have qi. Zhuangzi indicated that wind is the qi of the Earth. Moreover, cosmic yin and yang "are the greatest of qi " . He described qi as "issuing forth" and creating profound effects. He also said "Human beings are born [because of]
2240-454: The population of China, which is around 30 million people, claim to be members of folk religious sects. The actual number of followers may be higher, about the same as the number of members of the five state-sanctioned religions of China if counted together. In Taiwan, recognised folk religious movements of salvation gather approximately 10% of the population as of the mid-2000s. East Asian languages The East Asian languages are
2296-439: The primary qì 气 is a pictographic character depicting 雲气 "cloudy vapors", and that the full 氣 combines 米 "rice" with the phonetic qi 气 , meaning 饋客芻米 "present provisions to guests" (later disambiguated as xì 餼 ). Qi is a polysemous word. The unabridged Chinese-Chinese character dictionary Hanyu Da Cidian defines it as "present food or provisions" for the xì pronunciation but also lists 23 meanings for
Qi - Misplaced Pages Continue
2352-421: The pronunciation as / tʃ i / , the etymology from Chinese qì "air; breath", and a definition of "The physical life-force postulated by certain Chinese philosophers; the material principle." It also gives eight usage examples, with the first recorded example of k'í in 1850 ( The Chinese Repository ), of ch'i in 1917 ( The Encyclopaedia Sinica ), and qi in 1971 ( Felix Mann 's Acupuncture ) The word qi
2408-483: The quality of an energetic phenomenon, the character qi ( 氣 ) inevitably flows from their brushes. The ancient Chinese described qi as "life force". They believed it permeated everything and linked their surroundings together. Qi was also linked to the flow of energy around and through the body, forming a cohesive functioning unit. By understanding the rhythm and flow of qi, they believed they could guide exercises and treatments to provide stability and longevity. Although
2464-504: The region already in the Han dynasty , and they deeply penetrated local society; secondly, northern provinces are characterised by social mobility around the capital and weak traditional social structure, thus folk religious movements of salvation fulfill the demand of individual searching for new forms of community and social network. According to the Chinese General Social Survey of 2012, approximately 2.2% of
2520-494: The same tradition of Chinese folk religious movements. A category overlapping with that of the salvationist movements is that of the "secret societies" ( 秘密社会 mìmì shèhuì , or 秘密结社 mìmì jiéshè ), religious communities of initiatory and secretive character, including rural militias and fraternal organisations which became very popular in the early republican period, and often labeled as " heretical doctrines" ( 宗教异端 zōngjiào yìduān ). Recent scholarship has begun to use
2576-464: The scientific community. Chinese gods and immortals , especially anthropomorphic gods, are sometimes thought to have qi and be a reflection of the microcosm of qi in humans, both having qi that can concentrate in certain body parts. The cultural keyword qì is analyzable in terms of Chinese and Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Possible etymologies include the logographs 氣 , 气 , and 気 with various meanings ranging from "vapor" to "anger", and
2632-409: The sky. Mencius described a kind of qi that might be characterized as an individual's vital energies. This qi was necessary to activity and it could be controlled by a well-integrated willpower. When properly nurtured, this qi was said to be capable of extending beyond the human body to reach throughout the universe. It could also be augmented by means of careful exercise of one's moral capacities. On
2688-424: The three evil qi (wind, cold, and wetness) can result in the penetration of evil qi through surface body parts, eventually reaching Zang-Fu organs . Chinese salvationist religions Main philosophical traditions: Ritual traditions: Devotional traditions: Salvation churches and sects : Confucian churches and sects: Chinese salvationist religions or Chinese folk religious sects are
2744-510: The transformative, changeable nature of existence and the universe. This primary logograph 气 , the earliest written character for qì, consisted of three wavy horizontal lines seen in Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE) oracle bone script , Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE) bronzeware script and large seal script , and Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) small seal script . These oracle, bronze, and seal scripts logographs 气 were used in ancient times as
2800-557: The ultimate source of all being) falls ( duo 墮 , i.e., descends into proto-immanence) as the formless. Fleeting, fluttering, penetrating, amorphous it is, and so it is called the Supreme Luminary. The dao begins in the Void Brightening. The Void Brightening produces the universe ( yu – zhou ). The universe produces qi. Qi has bounds. The clear, yang [qi] was ethereal and so formed heaven. The heavy, turbid [qi]
2856-426: The writings of the Chinese philosopher Mencius (4th century BCE). Within the framework of Chinese thought, no notion may attain such a degree of abstraction from empirical data as to correspond perfectly to one of our modern universal concepts. Nevertheless, the term qi comes as close as possible to constituting a generic designation equivalent to our word "energy". When Chinese thinkers are unwilling or unable to fix
SECTION 50
#17327651223732912-459: Was already active in the Song dynasty ; others claim a Taoist legacy and are based on the recovery of ancient scriptures attributed to important immortals such as Lü Dongbin and Zhang Sanfeng , and have contributed to the popularisation of neidan ; other ones are distinctively Confucian and advocate the realisation of a "great commonwealth" ( datong 大同 ) on a world scale, as dreamt of in
2968-631: Was also thought of as meaning "'forces in nature'" that deity could control and magicians and occultists could harness. Qi was an early Chinese loanword in English. It was romanized as k'i in Church Romanization in the early-19th century, as ch'i in Wade–Giles in the mid-19th century (sometimes misspelled chi omitting the apostrophe), and as qi in Pinyin in the mid-20th century. The Oxford English Dictionary entry for qi gives
3024-427: Was congealed and impeded and so formed earth. The conjunction of the clear, yang [qi] was fluid and easy. The conjunction of the heavy, turbid [qi] was strained and difficult. So heaven was formed first and earth was made fast later. The pervading essence ( xi – jing ) of heaven and earth becomes yin and yang. The concentrated ( zhuan ) essences of yin and yang become the four seasons. The dispersed ( san ) essences of
3080-571: Was only used in a few native Chinese characters like yīnyūn 氤氲 "thick mist/smoke", but was also used to create new scientific characters for gaseous chemical elements . Some examples are based on pronunciations in European languages: fú 氟 (with a fú 弗 phonetic) " fluorine " and nǎi 氖 (with a nǎi 乃 phonetic) " neon ". Others are based on semantics: qīng 氫 (with a jīng 巠 phonetic, abbreviating qīng 輕 "light-weight") " hydrogen (the lightest element)" and lǜ 氯 (with
3136-410: Was thought of as the fundamental 'stuff' out of which everything in the universe condenses and into which it eventually dissipates." Fairly early on, some Chinese thinkers began to believe that there were different fractions of qi—the coarsest and heaviest fractions formed solids, lighter fractions formed liquids, and the most ethereal fractions were the "lifebreath" that animated living beings. Yuanqi
#372627