The Correspondence Table

對應 · Correspondences

對應 · Correspondences

The Correspondence Table

How the parts fit the whole.

Chinese cosmology is a web of correspondences. Each of the five elements anchors a cluster of phenomena: a season, a direction, a pair of heavenly stems, a set of earthly branches, and the trigrams and palaces that rule it. Read the table across to see the classical resonances; click any cell to follow the thread.

A note on the table: not every correspondence line is reversible. A direction carries a season; a stem carries an element and a polarity; a branch carries an element and a zodiac animal. The columns here represent the strongest classical resonances. Follow an entity's page to see its full context.