The traditional name "Taichi" and the false name "tengen"

[Kirby]

I more or less agree, and I certainly sympathise if you feel China's contributions have been overlooked. I think you will find it hard to find many people in the West who have dome as much as me to highlight Chinese history. My efforts have won recognition within China. General Lin Jianchao has called me a "Friend of China."

I am very happy to be thought of that way. But I also write extensively about go in Japan and Korea. I therefore think of myself also as a Friend of Japan and a Friend of Korea.

I believe that you know quite a bit about go history in China, Korea, and Japan. You also have shared a great deal with others, which is commendable.

However, it is natural that you don't have equal expertise in the culture of all three countries. Even to natives of China, Korea, and Japan, there are disagreements regarding historical events that happened not too long ago, and it is impossible to have an opinion on those events without having some degree of bias - eg., you have to decide what facts you believe to be true. Many things are controversial, and it impossible to ascertain the truth with certainty about what happened.

The same is true even considering current events in the West today. Folks on every side of the political spectrum decry "fake news" regarding events that the individual has no way of absolutely knowing.

I don't mean this to suggest that any single individual on this forum is biased. Rather, I want to express that all historians and people who write about historical and even current events carry some degree of bias.

We can do our best to learn as much as we can, but our life experiences combined with the particular balance of materials we have researched necessarily leave us with some degree of bias (myself included).

[kvasir]

Revisionism and nationalism is a touchy subject and some pushback can be healthy, else these things will rule the roost everywhere. I think the translated conclusions mostly cleared things up and is a great starting point for a conversation. I have known for a while that tianyuan is not a usual everyday Chinese word outside of Go. This was only a mild surprise because at that time I had recently watched some documentary or a short video from a Chinese public broadcaster which discussed the word as-if it was a usual Chinese word and was a bit propagand-ish in it's way of connecting the center of the Go board to other things. In general I am always surprised how much of Chinese Go vocabulary is almost everyday phrases. It was a very interesting, even if harder to enjoy because the article doesn't have a proper translation.

Hopefully there will be more Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and so on in this forum because many subjects of Go can be better informed and more perspectives are usually better. We really don't need kings and generals to bring us together to enjoy a boardgame.

[pgwq]

I will use Baidu translation to translate my article and make manual correction.

The correct name of the traditional name "太极 Taiji(Taichi)" of the center of Weiqi board and the false name "天元 (Tengen for Japanese pronunciation, Tianyuan for Chinese pronunciation PinYin)"

(outline)


In ancient China, the center of Weiqi board was never named "天元 Tianyuan or Tengen", and the Chinese characters words "天元 Tianyuan" had other meanings and application fields.


1. The cosmology of ancient China -- the innate five Tai(太)s


The congenital five Tais are described in ancient Chinese philosophy as the five stages before the transition from the "nothing" to the birth of heaven and earth, and the five cosmic stages from "nothing" to "being":

太易(Tai Yi), 太初(Tai Chu), 太始(Tai Shi), 太素(Tai Su), and 太极(Tai Ji or Tahchi or taiji).


(References: 易纬·乾凿度 Yiwei , 列子 Liezi)



1.1 太易(Taiyi): There is not any 氣(or 气 Qi, source of terms of weiqi "liberty" in English ).

太易(Taiyi), the beginning of cosmology, the stage where 气（Qi） has not yet appeared.


1.2 太初(Taichu): Taichu is the beginning of 气(Qi).

太初(Taichu) is the beginning of Qi, and there is no form. There is only one innate energy 炁(Qi) in Taichu.



1.3 太始(Taishi): Taishi is the beginning of form.

Taishi is the initial stage of the form, and there is no qualitative stage yet.



1.4 太素(Taisu):Taisu is the beginning of quality.

太素(Taisu) is the beginning of quality and the stage of not yet mature.



1.5 太极(or 太極,Taichi,Taiji): Taiji is born from 无极.
太极(Taichi,Taiji) represents the state of the universe in which 阴(Yin) and 阳(Yang) has not separated yet;
and Yin and Yang, heaven and earth will be separated soon.

taiji.png (15.31 KiB) Viewed 26131 times

2. 黄帝内经 Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon: Plain Questions • The 天元(Tianyuan) Period Discourses and The Five Movements Discourses
（will continue)

[CDavis7M]

The Internet is a place of magic.

[Elom0]

---Side issue---
Japanese have cherished a reminded everyone of a role as a foster mother, but in later years Korea has become their adopted mother. If foot—actual foot—ball was weiqi, then England would be mainland China, Korea would be France/Spain/Netherlands/Brasil, Japan would be Croatia, and Taiwan would be like Wales nearly beating England in the 2016 Euros

However proper inclusion and implementation of the Chinese principles of WeiQi are essential if WeiQi is to become a worldwide sport recognised by the international Olympic committee and other similar bodies.
We need a "WeiQi's coming home" anytime China wins teams competitions.

It is my opinion that in general, unlike Chinese culture, Japanese and Korean culture mostly cannot become genuinely influencial in the west in a non-niche or non-fetish manner by the general western populace, except if they combine forced and balance out each others . . . Weaknesses? So as long as they are catfighting each other China is the best hope to make WeiQi more popular in the west as they've already been doing, much to the shock of the Nihon Kiin who's been doing the initial hard groundwork from nothing for decades. The birth mother wants her babies back.
---Side issue---

Now, what I find most fascinating is that instead of a 'heavenly original' description, here it's simply called 'the Greatest'. So in China it's seen as an ultimate point to reach, and rather a representation of a force balance, whereas in Japan it's seen as a cause for a certain state of the board, it's origin, which is an earlier stage in the Chinese thinking. And that may be due to the playing philosophies of Ancient Chinese WeiQi compared to the later Japanese IGo.

[pgwq]

2. Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon: Plain Questions(黄帝内经.素问) • The Tianyuan(天元) Period Discourses & The Five Movements Discourses

References:
One of the Four Classics of Traditional Chinese Medicine -- Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
https://www.163.com/dy/article/DFTHPVAF0529I2G3.html

Below for English readers:
Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon was written in the period from the Yellow Emperor(about 4000-4500 years ago) to the Western Han Dynasty(202 B.C. - 8 A.D.).

The Chinese characters/word 天元(Tian yuan) is in this book.
In fact, word 天元(Tian yuan) comes from "太始天元册(Tai shi Tian yuan Book)", which has been lost.

============================================================

......

鬼臾区曰：臣积考《太始天元册》文曰：
太虚寥廓，肇基化元，
万物资始，五运终天，
布气真灵，揔统坤元，
九星悬朗，七曜周旋，
曰阴曰阳，曰柔曰刚，
幽显既位，寒暑弛张，
生生化化，品物咸章。
臣斯十世，此之谓也。

......

帝曰：光乎哉道！明乎哉论！请著之玉版，藏之金匮，署曰《天元纪》。

（摘录自“天元纪大论篇”）

============================================================

......

WeiYuQu(鬼臾区) said: subordinate Deeply study 'Tai shi Tian yuan Book'(太始天元册), it said:"

Taixu(太虚) is vast, the foundation is created and the elements are transformed,

all things are original, the Five Movements run in the cosmoses,

Qi(气) is genuine and flexible, distributed in the universe, governs the elements of earth,

the Nine Stars are bright hanging, the Seven Luminaries are circling,

Yin(阴) versus Yang(阳), supple versus hard,

dark versus light, already in their place, cold versus heat, tension and relaxation,

transforming, borning and growing, all things arising, varied and graceful.

What I said，it has been handed down for ten generations."


......


Yellow Emperor said: Tao(道) is bright! theory is clear! Please write the jade version, collect in the Golden Chamber, and sign as 'Tian yuan(天元) period'.


[from Chapter of The Tian yuan(天元) Period Discourses]

============================================================
......

岐伯曰：昭乎哉问也！臣览《太始天元册》文，
丹天之气经于牛女戊分，
黅（jīn）天之气经于心尾己分，
苍天之气经于危室柳鬼，
素天之气经于亢氐昴毕，
玄天之气经于张翼娄胃。
所谓戊己分者，奎壁角轸，则天地之门户也。
夫候之所始，道之所生，不可不通也。

wyxdl.png (391.37 KiB) Viewed 8470 times

......

（摘录自“五运行大论篇”）
============================================================

......(Translate later）

[from Chapter of The Five Movements(五运) Discourses]



2.1 For the records of "Tai shi(太始)" and "Tian yuan(天元)" in Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon, see above.
"Tai shi Tian yuan Book"（太始天元册） talks about the evolution of heaven and earth, Yin and Yang.


2.2 The original meaning of "Tian yuan（天元）":
"Yuan(元)": meaning of head, beginning, basic or fundamental ;
Therefore, "Tian yuan（天元）" means "the beginning of heaven (& earth) and the essence of heaven (& earth)";
The term "Taishi Tianyuan(太始天元)" is interpreted by author of this article as "Taishi（太始） Period, the beginning of heaven and earth, and the essence of heaven and earth"; The "Taishi Tianyuan Book" describes the model of the origin of the universe.


3. "Tian Yuan technique(天元术)" and "Four Yuan technique（四元术）" of Ancient Chinese Mathematics

（will continue)

[pgwq]

References:

Chinese Astroarchaeology Archaeologist：Mr. Fengshi 冯时 先生
Chinese speech:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV18t4y1377t

阴阳交泰(yin yang intersection and prosperous)

[tekesta]

The national culture is the world culture. My goal is to restore the traditional Chinese Weiqi culture so as to distinguish it from the go culture transformed in Japan. This is the only way for the revival of Chinese Weiqi culture.

As for your choice, it is of course freedom.

I think this is a good goal to pursue. The world should know more about Chinese weiqi history and their contributions to the game. It just so happens that since Japan was the first country to introduce weiqi to Western countries, much of what we know about the game and its history comes from Japanese sources. Thus, for a long time weiqi was considered a Japanese game and no substantial efforts were made (outside of academic circles) to establish a strong link between China and weiqi. Even so, now we can learn more about Chinese historical contributions to weiqi thanks to the work of Ruoshi Sun, who has published several English translations of classical Chinese weiqi books and the academic research of people like Mr. Fairbairn, who has published his own books. (And I happen to have 2 of his works.)

Do you believe we should establish tournaments to resurrect the playing of weiqi under old Chinese rules, like the ones under which Huang Longshi, Fan Xiping, and Shi Xiangxia played?

[pgwq]

I think this is a good goal to pursue. The world should know more about Chinese weiqi history and their contributions to the game. It just so happens that since Japan was the first country to introduce weiqi to Western countries, much of what we know about the game and its history comes from Japanese sources. Thus, for a long time weiqi was considered a Japanese game and no substantial efforts were made (outside of academic circles) to establish a strong link between China and weiqi. Even so, now we can learn more about Chinese historical contributions to weiqi thanks to the work of Ruoshi Sun, who has published several English translations of classical Chinese weiqi books and the academic research of people like Mr. Fairbairn, who has published his own books. (And I happen to have 2 of his works.)

Do you believe we should establish tournaments to resurrect the playing of weiqi under old Chinese rules, like the ones under which Huang Longshi, Fan Xiping, and Shi Xiangxia played?

Thank you for your reply.
Of course,we will restore old Chinese rules.
However, it is still difficult now. The Chinese Weiqi Association does not in fact support it,
there are some spontaneous activities by private enthusiasts who love ancient Chinese Weiqi.

For example: Weiqi Baby( https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/jI9ki7zIi2jOK65KpN9KfA ), a small program for playing on WeChat, already supports ancient Weiqi rules, where folk enthusiasts can play games based on ancient Weiqi rules with their friends.

[John Fairbairn]

pgwq: there is a big, though very inexact, difference in English between 'ancient' and 'old'. You use both terms in your reply, so it would be useful to know which is intended.

In the case of go, references to go in, say, the Dunhuang Classic would certainly count as ancient, and probably that would be acceptable to many people for anything up to the late Ming Dynasty, too. But from Qing times, including the time of Huang Longshi, I think we would more usually call that simply "old" Chinese go, and even (some) Ming Dynasty go would count as "old."

I think this distinction would apply simply because of the huge timespan involved. However, the fact that Chinese rules changed in (apparently) Ming times fortuitously makes that distinction even more useful.

So, the obvious questions are:

1. What do you mean by "ancient" Chinese rules? If you mean go of the era of Guo Bailing and Huang Longshi onwards (which I would call "old Chinese go"), do you wish to restore a form of go that simply uses group tax, or do you want to include the four starting stones as well?

2. If you really do mean ancient (pre-Ming), do you want to use the pre-Ming method of counting, and do you want to allow variants with differing numbers of starting stones, for example? (It would seem strange to take this choice as we have no reliable documentary evidence, such as game records, that show us how ancient go was played.)

If your answer is (1), why do you want to restore it, and do you know why the Chinese Weiqi Association rejects it? It seems to me that both forms can easily just co-exist, with the ancient version reserved perhaps for small-case private use, as happens with chess players who sometimes play ancient Arabic or Indian versions of the game.

Just for information, there are similar problems when talking about older forms of Chinese (or any language, really). The umbrella term is usually "classical Chinese" (and we can likewise easily talk of all of Chinese go prior to, say, the 20th century as "classical Chinese go". But to make finer distinctions, linguists use terms such as Archaic Chinese, and split this into Early Archaic and Late Archaic and so on. It sounds very scientific but doesn't really tell us very much.

If I was forced to try to make a meaningful distinction for Chinese go, I would diffidently say "ancient" for go up to and including the Tang period. Then Tang to Mid-Ming, then Late Ming to Late Qing. How would you divide it up, and what would your criteria be?

In Japan it's easy: Edo go and modern go. In Korea, sunjang go and modern go (though with the reservation that sunjang go may also be Chinese in origin).

[pgwq]

pgwq: there is a big, though very inexact, difference in English between 'ancient' and 'old'. You use both terms in your reply, so it would be useful to know which is intended.

In the case of go, references to go in, say, the Dunhuang Classic would certainly count as ancient, and probably that would be acceptable to many people for anything up to the late Ming Dynasty, too. But from Qing times, including the time of Huang Longshi, I think we would more usually call that simply "old" Chinese go, and even (some) Ming Dynasty go would count as "old."

I think this distinction would apply simply because of the huge timespan involved. However, the fact that Chinese rules changed in (apparently) Ming times fortuitously makes that distinction even more useful.

So, the obvious questions are:

1. What do you mean by "ancient" Chinese rules? If you mean go of the era of Guo Bailing and Huang Longshi onwards (which I would call "old Chinese go"), do you wish to restore a form of go that simply uses group tax, or do you want to include the four starting stones as well?

2. If you really do mean ancient (pre-Ming), do you want to use the pre-Ming method of counting, and do you want to allow variants with differing numbers of starting stones, for example? (It would seem strange to take this choice as we have no reliable documentary evidence, such as game records, that show us how ancient go was played.)

If your answer is (1), why do you want to restore it, and do you know why the Chinese Weiqi Association rejects it? It seems to me that both forms can easily just co-exist, with the ancient version reserved perhaps for small-case private use, as happens with chess players who sometimes play ancient Arabic or Indian versions of the game.

Just for information, there are similar problems when talking about older forms of Chinese (or any language, really). The umbrella term is usually "classical Chinese" (and we can likewise easily talk of all of Chinese go prior to, say, the 20th century as "classical Chinese go". But to make finer distinctions, linguists use terms such as Archaic Chinese, and split this into Early Archaic and Late Archaic and so on. It sounds very scientific but doesn't really tell us very much.

If I was forced to try to make a meaningful distinction for Chinese go, I would diffidently say "ancient" for go up to and including the Tang period. Then Tang to Mid-Ming, then Late Ming to Late Qing. How would you divide it up, and what would your criteria be?

In Japan it's easy: Edo go and modern go. In Korea, sunjang go and modern go (though with the reservation that sunjang go may also be Chinese in origin).

I think the Tang and Song Weiqi rules are very mature rules.

I don't agree with the paranoid discrimination of a certain Go rules expert against the Japanese counting rule (derived from the Tang and Song rules), but have an unusual preference for the "modern Chinese counting" rule.

I like the Tang and Song rules more than the "Ming and Qing counting" rules. The Tang and Song rules do not have the "last dame" problem, and are more precise than the Ming and Qing rules.

The rules of Weiqi as described in the Dunhuang Classic, the rules of Tang and Song, and the rules of Ming and Qing are in fact one and the same, they all agree that the "basic eye(s) for groups living" can not "be filled".

See my research article on ancient rules.
Research of ancient weiqi rules in two Chinese classic books https://www.lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=17865

The 4 starting stones are necessary, and this is what the majority of Chinese players, including the Chinese Weiqi Association, are against.

The starting stones also includes the ancient way of seating the stones in handicap games.

Rebuttal article(Chinese):
批驳日本的棋史谎言：“取消座子增加了围棋的变化，使围棋得到极大的发展。”
Criticism of Japanese lies about the history of Weiqi: "The elimination of the starting stones has increased the variations of Weiqi and has led to its great development."
https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/344776623

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)