Hun () and po () are types of souls in Chinese philosophy and traditional religion. Within this ancient soul dualism tradition, every living human has both a spiritual, ethereal, yang soul which leaves the body after death, and also a corporeal, substantive, yin soul which remains with the corpse of the deceased. Some controversy exists over the number of souls in a person; for instance, one of the traditions within Daoism proposes a soul structure of ; that is, "three and seven ". The historian Yü Ying-shih describes and as "two pivotal concepts that have been, and remain today, the key to understanding Chinese views of the human soul and the afterlife".
Characters
The Chinese characters and for and typify the most common character classification of "radical-phonetic" or "phono-semantic" graphs, which combine a "radical" or "signific" (recurring graphic elements that roughly provide semantic information) with a "phonetic" (suggesting ancient pronunciation). (or ) and have the "ghost radical" "ghost; devil" and phonetics of "cloud; cloudy" and "white; clear; pure".
Besides the common meaning of "a soul", was a variant Chinese character for "a lunar phase" and "dregs". The Book of Documents used as a graphic variant for "dark aspect of the moon" – this character usually means "overlord; hegemon". For example, "On the third month, when (the growth phase, ) of the moon began to wane, the duke of Chow [i.e., Duke of Zhou] commenced the foundations, and proceeded to build the new great city of Lǒ". The Zhuangzi "[Writings of] Master Zhuang" wrote (lit. "rotten dregs") "worthless; unwanted; waste matter" with a variant. A wheelwright sees Duke Huan of Qi with books by dead sages and says, "what you are reading there is nothing but the [] chaff and dregs of the men of old!".
In the history of Chinese writing, characters for "lunar brightness" appeared before those for "soul; spirit". The spiritual and "dual souls" are first recorded in Warring States period (475–221 BCE) seal script characters. The lunar or "moon's brightness" appears in both Zhou dynasty (1045–256 BCE) Bronzeware script and oracle bone script, but not in Shang dynasty (ca. 1600–1046 BCE) oracle inscriptions. The earliest form of this "lunar brightness" character was found on a (c. 11th century BCE) Zhou oracle bone inscription.
Etymologies
The soul's etymology is better understood than the soul's. Schuessler reconstructs "'spiritual soul' which makes a human personality" and "vegetative or animal soul ... which accounts for growth and physiological functions" as Middle Chinese γuən and pʰak from Old Chinese *wûn and *phrâk.
The (c. 80 CE) gave pseudo-etymologies for and through Chinese character puns. It explains with "deliver; pass on; impart; spread" and "rue (used to keep insects out of books); to weed", and with " compel; force; coerce; urgent" and "white; bright".
What do the words and [] mean? expresses the idea of continuous propagation ([] ), unresting flight; it is the of the Lesser Yang, working in man in an external direction, and it governs the nature (or the instincts, [] ). [] expresses the idea of a continuous pressing urge ([] ) on man; it is the [] of the Lesser Yin, and works in him, governing the emotions ([] ). is connected with the idea of weeding ([] ), for with the instincts the evil weeds (in man's nature) are removed. [] is connected with the idea of brightening ([] ), for with the emotions the interior (of the personality) is governed.
Etymologically, Schuessler says "animal soul" "is the same word as" "a lunar phase". He cites the (534 BCE, see below) using the lunar to mean "With the first development of a fetus grows the vegetative soul". , the soul responsible for growth, is the same as the waxing and waning of the moon". The meaning 'soul' has probably been transferred from the moon since men must have been aware of lunar phases long before they had developed theories on the soul. This is supported by the etymology 'bright', and by the inverted word order which can only have originated with meteorological expressions ... The association with the moon explains perhaps why the soul is classified as Yin ... in spite of the etymology 'bright' (which should be Yang), hun's Yang classification may be due to the association with clouds and by extension sky, even though the word invokes 'dark'. 'Soul' and 'moon' are related in other cultures, by cognation or convergence, as in Tibeto-Burman and Proto-Lolo–Burmese *s/ʼ-la "moon; soul; spirit", Written Tibetan cognates bla "soul" and zla "moon", and Proto-Miao–Yao *bla "spirit; soul; moon".