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Classical element
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Many ancient philosophies used a set of archetypal classical elements to explain patterns in nature. In this context, the word element refers to a substance that is either a chemical compound or a mixture of chemical compounds (as in the Chinese Five Phases), rather than a chemical element of modern physical science.
The Greek Classical Elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Aether) date from pre-Socratic times and persisted throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, deeply influencing European thought and culture.
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Many ancient philosophies used a set of archetypal classical elements to explain patterns in nature. In this context, the word element refers to a substance that is either a chemical compound or a mixture of chemical compounds (as in the Chinese Five Phases), rather than a chemical element of modern physical science.
The Greek Classical Elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Aether) date from pre-Socratic times and persisted throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, deeply influencing European thought and culture. The concept of essentially the same five elements were similarly found in ancient India, where they formed a basis of analysis in both Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, particularly in an esoteric context, the four states-of-matter describe matter, and a fifth element to describe that which was beyond the material world (non-matter). Similar lists existed in ancient China and Japan. In Buddhism the four great elements, to which two others are sometimes added, are not viewed as substances, but as categories of sensory experience.
The modern, scientific states of matter, and also (to a lesser extent) the periodic table of elements and the concept of combustion (fire), can be considered successors of such early models.
By contrast the Chinese had a somewhat different series of elements, namely Fire, Earth, Water, Metal and Wood, which were understood as different types of energy in a state of constant interaction and flux with one another, rather than the Western notion of different kinds of material.
Hindu, Japanese, and Greek systems
The dominant theory of classical elements, held by the Hindu, Japanese, and Greek systems of thought, is that there are five elements, namely
Earth,
Water,
Air,
Fire,
and a fifth element known variously as Idea, Void "quintessence" or Aether (the term "quintessence" derives from "quint" meaning "fifth"). In Greek thought the philosopher Archemides added aether as the quintessence, reasoning that whereas fire, earth, air, and water were earthly and corruptible, since no changes had been perceived in the heavenly regions, the stars cannot be made out of any of the four elements but must be made of a different, unchangeable, heavenly substance.
The Greek five elements are sometimes associated with the five platonic solids.
Classical elements in Greece
The Greek classical elements are fire (), earth (), air (), and water (). In Greek philosophy, science, and medicine they represent the realms of the cosmos. The ancient Greek word for element (stoicheion) meant "letter (of the alphabet)", the basic unit from which a word is formed.
Plato characterizes the elements as being pre-Socratic in origin from a list created by the Sicilian philosopher Empedocles (ca. 450 BC). Empedocles called these the four "roots." Plato seems to have been the first to use the term "element (stoicheion)" in reference to air, fire, earth, and water.
According to Aristotle in his Physics:
- Air is primarily wet and secondarily hot.
- Fire is primarily hot and secondarily dry.
- Earth is primarily dry and secondarily cold.
- Water is primarily cold and secondarily wet.
One classic diagram (right) has one square inscribed in the other, with the corners of one being the classical elements, and the corners of the other being the properties. The opposite corner is the opposite of the these properties, "hot - cold" and "dry - wet". Of course, some of these qualities are predicated on a Mediterranean climate; those living further north would be a lot less likely to describe air as being hot, or earth as being dry.
According to Galen, these elements were used by Hippocrates in describing the human body with an association with the four humours: yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), blood (air), and phlegm (water).
The concept of the classical elements proved extremely persistent in Europe, lasting through the Middle Ages to the early modern era. Just as the Aristotelian dogma was related to the Greek world view, the idea of classical elements in the Middle Ages composed a large part of the medieval world view. The Roman Catholic Church supported the Aristotelian concept of aether because it supported the Christian view of earthly life as impermanent and heaven as eternal.
In Western astrology the concept of the four classical elements has survived from antiquity up until the present. The twelve signs of the zodiac are divided into the four elements: Fire signs are Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, Earth signs are Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn, Air signs are Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, and Water signs are Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces. Most modern astrologers still view the four classical elements as a critical part of interpreting the astrological chart.
In divinatory tarot,the suits of cups, swords, wands (batons) and pentacles (coins) are said to correspond to water, air, fire, and earth respectively. These correspond in the modern deck of playing cards to hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds.
Classical elements in Hinduism
The pancha mahabhuta, or "five great elements", of Hinduism are [Shristi] or bhumi (earth), ap or jala (water), agni or tejas (fire), marut or pavan (air or wind), and byom or akasha (aether).
Hindus believe that God used akasha to create the other four traditional elements, and that the knowledge of all human experience is imprinted in the akashic records. It is also a religious and spiritual belief by most people that the human body is made up of these five essential elements and according to Hinduism, the human body dissolves into these five elements of nature, thereby balancing the cycle of nature, set in motion by the greater Lord God of this world.
Classical elements in early Buddhism
In the Pali literature, the mahabhuta ("great elements") or catudhatu ("four elements") are earth, water, fire and air. In early Buddhism, the four elements are a basis for understanding suffering and for liberating oneself from suffering. The earliest Buddhist texts explain that the four primary material elements are the sensory qualities solidity, fluidity, temperature, and mobility; their characterization as earth, water, fire, and air, respectively, is declared an abstraction -- instead of concentrating on the fact of material existence, one observes how a physical thing is sensed, felt, perceived.
The Buddha's teaching regarding the four elements is to be understood as the base of all observation of real sensations rather than as a philosophy. The four properties are cohesion (water), solidity or inertia (earth), expansion or vibration (air) and heat or calorific content (fire). He promulgated a categorization of mind and matter as composed of eight types of 'kalapas' of which the four elements are primary and a secondary group of four are color, smell, taste, and nutriment which are derivative from the four primaries.
The Buddha's teaching of the four elements does predate Greek teaching of the same four elements. This is possibly explained by the fact that he sent out 60 arahants to the known world to spread his teaching, however it differs in the fact that the Buddha taught that the 4 elements are false and that form is in fact made up of much smaller particles which are constantly changing.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1997) renders an extract of Shakyamuni Buddha's (Kayagata-sati Sutta MN 119) from Pali into English thus:
"Furthermore, the monk contemplates this very body -- however it stands, however it is disposed -- in terms of properties: `In this body there is the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, & the wind property.' Just as a skilled butcher or his apprentice, having killed a cow, would sit at a crossroads cutting it up into pieces, the monk contemplates this very body -- however it stands, however it is disposed -- in terms of properties: `In this body there is the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, & the wind property.'
Classical elements in the Seven Chakras
In the philosophy of the Seven Chakras there are correspondences to the five elements as shared by both Hinduism and Buddhism as well as two other elements:
- Sahasrara (Crown): Thought/Space
- Ajña (Third Eye): Light/Dark
- Vishuddhi (Throat): Ether/Sound
- Anahata (Heart): Air
- Manipura (Navel): Fire
- Svadhisthana (Sacral): Water
- Muladhara (Root): Earth
Classical elements in Japan
Japanese traditions use a set of elements called the (go dai, literally "five great"). These five are earth, water, fire, wind/air, and void. These came from Buddhist beliefs; the classical Chinese elements (go gyô) are also prominent in Japanese culture, especially to the influential Neo-Confucianists during the Edo period.
- Earth represented things that were solid.
- Water represented things that were liquid.
- Fire represented things that destroyed.
- Wind/Air represented things that moved.
- Void represented things not of our everyday life.
Classical elements in Bön
In Bön or ancient Tibetan philosophy , the five elemental processes of: earth, water, fire, air and space are the essential stuff of all existent phenomena or aggregates (ref. Skandha). The elemental processes form the basis of the calendar, astrology, medicine, psychology and are the foundation of the spiritual traditions of shamanism, tantra and Dzogchen.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche comprehensively states:
"...physical properties are assigned to the elements: earth is solidity; water is cohesion; fire is temperature; air is motion; and space is the spatial dimension that accommodates the other four active elements. In addition, the elements are correlated to different emotions, temperaments, directions, colors, tastes, body types, illnesses, thinking styles, and character. From the five elements arise the five senses and the five fields of sensual experience; the five negative emotions and the five wisdoms; and the five extensions of the body. They are the five primary pranas or vital energies. They are the constituents of every physical, sensual, mental, and spiritual phenomenon."
The names of the elements are analogous to categorised experiential sensations of the natural world. The names are symbolic and key to their inherent qualities and/or modes of action by analogy. In Bön the elemental processes are fundamental metaphors for working with external, internal and secret energetic forces. All five elemental processes in their essential purity are inherent in the mindstream and link the trikaya and are aspects of primordial energy. As Herbert V. Günther rather unfathomably states:
"Thus, bearing in mind that thought struggles incessantly against the treachery of language and that what we observe and describe is the observer himself [sic.], we may nonetheless proceed to investigate the successive phases in our becoming human beings. Throughout these phases, the experience (das Erlebnis) of ourselves as an intensity (imaged and felt as a "god", lha) setting up its own spatiality (imaged and felt as a "house" khang) is present in various intensities of illumination that occur within ourselves as a "temple." A corollary of this Erlebnis is its light character manifesting itself in various "frequencies" or colors. This is to say, since we are beings of light we display this light in a multiplicity of nuances."
In the above block quote the trikaya is encoded as: dharmakaya "god"; sambhogakaya "temple" and nirmanakaya "house".
Classical elements in China
In Taoism there is a similar system of elements, which includes metal and wood, but excludes air, which is replaced with qi, which is a force or energy rather than an element. In Chinese philosophy the universe consists of heaven and earth, heaven being made of qi and earth being made of the five elements (in the Chinese view, the attributes and properties of the Western and Indian Air element are equivalent to that of Wood, where the element of Ether is often seen as a correspondent to Metal). The five major planets are associated with and named after the elements: Venus is gold, Jupiter is wood, Mercury is Water, Mars is Fire, and Saturn is Earth. Additionally, the Moon represents Yin, and the Sun represents Yang. Yin, Yang, and the five elements are recurring themes in the I Ching, the oldest of Chinese classical texts which describes an ancient system of cosmology and philosophy. The five elements also play an important part in Chinese astrology and the Chinese form of geomancy known as Feng shui
The doctrine of five phases describes two cycles of balance, a generating or creation (?, sheng) cycle and an overcoming or destruction (?/?, kè) cycle of interactions between the phases.
Generating
- Wood feeds fire;
- Fire creates earth (ash);
- Earth bears metal;
- Metal collects water;
- Water nourishes wood.
Overcoming
- Wood parts earth;
- Earth absorbs water;
- Water quenches fire;
- Fire melts metal;
- Metal chops wood.
There are also two cycles of imbalance, an overacting cycle (cheng) and an insulting cycle (wu).
Elements in Medieval alchemy
The elemental system used in medieval alchemy was developed by the Arabian alchemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber). His original system consisted of seven elements, which included the five classical elements found in the ancient Greek and Indian traditions (aether, air, earth, fire and water), in addition to two chemical elements representing the metals: sulphur, ‘the stone which burns’, which characterized the principle of combustibility, and mercury, which contained the idealized principle of metallic properties. Shortly thereafter, this evolved into eight elements, with the Arabic concept of the three metallic principles: sulphur giving flammability or combustion, mercury giving volatility and stability, and salt giving solidity.
This theory became popular among European alchemists after the Latin translations of the 12th century, and was adopted in 1524 by the Swiss alchemist Paracelsus, who reasoned that Aristotle’s four element theory appeared in bodies as Geber’s three principles. Paracelsus saw these principles as fundamental, and justified them by recourse to the description of how wood burns in fire. Mercury included the cohesive principle, so that when it left in smoke the wood fell apart. Smoke represented the volatility (the mercury principle), the heat-giving flames represented flammability (sulphur), and the remnant ash represented solidity (salt).
Modern Western approaches
The five classical elements are used to the present day by esoteric movements such as neo-paganism, astrology and tarot.
Classical elements in sound and music
In 1987 composer Robert Steadman wrote a chamber symphony each movement of which musically depicts the characteristics of the ancient Greek elements: fire, water, wind and earth.
Rock band Thrice released a four-disc concept album called
"The Alchemy_Index" in 2007/2008. Each disc contained six tracks representing one of the four classical elements: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air.
Classical elements in popular culture
The classical elements are sometimes used together thematically in modern fantasy, literature, movies, television shows, and comic books.
See also
External links
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