Luoshu Square
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Nine Halls Diagram | |||||||||
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The Luoshu (pinyin), Lo Shu (Wade-Giles), or Nine Halls Diagram is an ancient Chinese diagram and named for the Luo River near Luoyang, Henan. The Luoshu appears in myths concerning the invention of writing by Cangjie and other culture heroes. It is a unique normal magic square of order three. It is usually paired with the River Map or Hetu—named in reference to the Yellow River—and used with the River Map in various contexts involving Chinese geomancy, numerology, philosophy, and early natural science.
Traditions
[edit]The Lo Shu is part of the legacy of ancient Chinese mathematical and divination (cf. the I Ching
History
[edit]A Chinese legend concerning the pre-historic Emperor Yu (
Early records dated to 650 BCE are ambiguous, referring to a "river map", but clearly start to refer to a magic square by 80 CE, and explicitly give an example of one since 570 CE.[2][3] Recent publications have provided support that the Lo Shu Magic Square was an important model for time and space.[citation needed] It served as a basis for city planning, and tomb and temple design. The magic square was incidentally used to designate spaces of political and religious importance.[4]
The layout
[edit]The odd and even numbers alternate in the periphery of the Lo Shu pattern; the four even numbers are at the four corners, and the five odd numbers (which outnumber the even numbers by one) form a cross in the center of the square. The sums in each of the three rows, in each of the three columns, and in both diagonals, are all 15.[notes 1] Since "5" is in the center cell, the sum of any two other cells that are directly through the five from each other must be 10; e.g., opposite squares and corners add up to 10, the number of the Yellow River Map.[citation needed]
In numerology
[edit]The Lo Shu is sometimes connected numerologically with the "Bagua" (
See also
[edit]References
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ 15 is the number of days in each of the 24 cycles of the Chinese solar year.
Citations
[edit]- ^ Cammann, Schuyler (April–June 1960). "The evolution of magic squares in China". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 80: 116–124. JSTOR 595587.
- ^ Cammann 1961
- ^ Swaney, Mark. "Mark Swaney on the History of Magic Squares". Archived from the original on 2004-08-07.
- ^ Schinz 1996[pages needed]
Bibliography
[edit]- Cammann, Schuyler (Summer 1961). "The Magic Square of Three in Old Chinese Philosophy and Religion". History of Religions. 1 (1): 37–80. doi:10.1086/462439. S2CID 162306354.
- Schinz, Alfred (1996). The Magic Square: Cities in Ancient China. Axel Menges. ISBN 9783930698028.
- Yoshio, Mikami (1913). The Development of Mathematics in China and Japan. LCCN 61-13497.
Further reading
[edit]- Swetz, Frank J. (2008). The Legacy of the Luoshu (2nd Rev ed.). A. K. Peters / CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-56881-427-8.
- Berglund, Lars (1990). The Secret of the Luo Shu: Numerology in Chinese Art and Architecture. Tryckbiten. ISBN 9789162800680.
External links
[edit]- Media related to Luoshu at Wikimedia Commons
- Lo Shu Square: Definition, Nature and History