Fan (Daoism)
In ancient China, the term fan became associated with a basic concept within Daoism: the Daodejing remarks "Reversal is the movement of the Way... Being is born from nonbeing." Daoist texts use fan in three interconnected meanings: as 'return to the root', 'cyclical return', and 'return to the contrary'. In Chinese cosmology, everything in the universe emerges from the primordial Dao, continually transforms, and inevitably returns to it, which parallels the eternal return in philosophy or cyclic model in physical cosmology. Fan is also significant in Chinese alchemy and Daoist meditation.
Terminology
The word is relatively common in both ancient and modern Chinese, and is semantically complex. A dictionary of pre-modern Chinese lists five translated meanings:- 'turn over', 'invert', 'turn upward'
- 'turn back', 'reverse', 'go back', 'revert', 'return', 'turn round', 'repeat', 'do again'
- go counter to', 'contrary', 'opposite', 'oppose; rebel', 'revolt
- look inside', 'introspection
- on the contrary', 'nevertheless', 'despite '
The Chinese character was originally a compound ideograph with a and a line, interpreted as representing either some item that the hand is turning over, or the turning motion itself.
Axel Schuessler's dictionary of Chinese etymology reconstructs Old Chinese for, which is cognate with <, <, and probably < . The Sino-Tibetan etymology is evident in Tibetan ' interest', 'exchange', and Lepcha 'price' and 'buy'.
Related terminology
Early Daoist texts use fan with two near synonyms. has translation equivalents of: "1. Return home; return whence one came, originally or recently; go back to, retreat to; come full circle; recede; withdraw. 2. Take refuge with, as though going home; bring allegiance to; find haven with, resort to. 3. A daughter going to her new home in marriage. 4. Give back, return to its proper place or owner; restore, make restitution...". or "tautologically enlarged" by the radical translates as meaning: "1. Go back over the same road, retrace; return, repair to; repeat, duplicate; again, once more; resume restart, start over... 2. Return to earlier state, restore, renew. 3. Reply to, respond... 7. "Return" name of 24th hexagram of Yijing."Fan and huan both have the significance of 'reaction' or 'return', as "when some kind of reverse change takes place as the result of a former action, or when a cyclical process brings back the phenomena to a state similar to that at the beginning, or identical with it."
''Daodejing''
In the classic Daodejing the terms,, and each share the semantic field of 'reversal', 'return', 'reversion', 'renewal'. The philologist Victor H. Mair says that all three "suggest the continual reversion of the myriad creatures to the cosmic principle whence they arose", which corresponds with the philosopher Mircea Eliade's "myth of the eternal return".Fan occurs four times in the Daodejing:
Fan expresses the idea of reversal. Things constantly changing into their opposites, winter turns into summer, day into night, similar to yin-yang processes: yin becomes yang, yang again becomes yin. It is the cyclical motion of history and natural processes, implying that things and situations eventually change into their counterparts.
occurs fourteen times in eight sections of the text. Six occurrences are in the word, which is a compound of two synonyms.
The remaining occurrences are simply of fu alone.
Fu or fugui is a return to one's origin, as in the biblical saying "... for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return". It expresses the transitory nature of all existence; beings appear, exist for a while, and then disappear to make room for new beings.
Gui occurs eleven times in the Daodejing, including the six fugui and mentioned above.
The Chinese philosopher and historian Fung Yu-lan said that fan meaning 'reversion' and fu meaning 'return' refer to the greatest of all the laws underlying phenomenal change: "if any one thing moves to an extreme in one direction, a change must bring about an opposite result".
''Zhuangzi''
The Zhuangzi reiterates the Daodejing concerning the importance of returning or reversing.occurs 90 times in the text, such as:
The text uses the 'return' synonyms fu, gui, and fugui 50 times, 34 times, and twice, respectively. The Zhuangzi mentions the Daodejing theme of 'returning to the root', 'origin', or 'beginning'.
Two chapters mention "returning to the simplicity of the unhewn log".
''Huainanzi''
The Huainanzi, a collection of essays by scholars in the court of Liu An, Prince of Huainan. It quotes from many pre-Han schools of thought, including Huang–Lao Daoism, Confucianism, and Legalism.Fan is a key concept in the Huainanzi. The text conceives all cosmic and human realms in terms of the basic, i.e. the 'fundamental peripheral' framework in which any move from a 'branch' state back toward a 'root' state is marked as a 'return' or 'reversion'. On a cosmic level, fan characterizes the Dao itself, as all phenomena tend over time to revert to the undifferentiated root from which they emerged. Second, on a human level, the return or reversion process can unlock great potential power in the adept of Daoist cultivation.
The Huainanzi uses several near-synonyms with fan referring to the Daoist doctrine of "returning to one's original, undifferentiated nature", a pervasive theme that occurs more than ninety times in fifteen of the twenty-one chapters. They include,,, and. Non-differentiation refers to the "perfect beginning before distinction, division, multiplicity and separateness emerged: everything was smoothly and harmoniously blended into one compact whole; everything was simultaneously 'together'."
The Huainanzi describes the ability of a zhenren to "return to the origin — the state of primordial undifferentiation, the perfect beginning before things appeared as distinct and separate".
The text frequently transfers specific attributes of the Daoist zhenren genuine person to the sage ruler. For instance, the Huainanzi says:
Even though the text asserts that certain changes, such as developments in human social and political institutions, are not ultimately reversible, it concedes that effective governance depends upon political leaders returning to the root by through personal cultivation.
Daodejing "Heaven's creatures abound, but each returns to its roots []" is quoted in one 'Huainanzi passage:
Interpretations
The French sinologist Isabelle Robinet analyzed how commentators and interpreters broadly understand fan in three interrelated meanings: "return to the root", "return cyclically", and "return to the contrary".Return to the root
First, fan indicates 'returning to the root'. is a basic Daoist expression, as seen in the Daodejing and Zhuangzi above. In a literal sense, "fan is the root", it is 'to return to the root', and "to return to the beginning". In contexts that identify the Dao with the human spirit or nature, Shao Ruoyu speaks of fan "returning to the interior", Li Yue suggests "to return to the empty spirit," and Su Che says "to return to ". An early example of this first meaning is the Guodian Chu Slips manuscript entitled Taiyi Shengshui, which states that Water, after being generated, returns to the Great One to assist it in forming Heaven.The Daodejing translator D. C. Lau refuted the usual interpretation that fan "turn back" in "turning back is how the way moves" refers to endless cycles of development and decline; Something weak inevitably develops into something strong, but when this process reaches its limit, the opposite process of decline sets in and what is strong once again becomes something weak, until decline reaches its lowest limit only to give way once more to development. Lau reasoned that if change is cyclic and a thing that reaches the limit in one direction will revert to the opposite direction, then the central Daoist precept that "To hold fast to the submissive is called strength" becomes both "useless" because if both development and decline are inevitable, the purpose of the former is to avoid latter, and "impracticable" because it advocates that we should remain stationary in a world of incessant change. Instead of "cyclic return", Lau reinterpreted fan to mean "return to one's roots". The Daodejing says that once a thing has reached the limits of development, it will inevitably return to its roots and decline, but says nothing about redevelopment being equally inevitable after the return.
Return cyclically
Second, Robinet cited a Chinese cosmogonic interpretation is that fan means "cyclic return; beginning anew", referring to the reversal of a force that, when it arrives at its apogee, then declines, due to a complementary force in cyclical alternation "like a ring". On a phenomenological level, fan is the rhythm of life's movements. When something has grown to its, it decreases or reverses to its contrary, as do Yin and Yang or night and day. For instance, the Liezi says, "Death and life are one going and one returning", and the Yijing's explains that the Dao is "one [time] Yin and one [time] Yang." The first and second meanings are essentially identical, but in different realms. For the universe, fan denotes returning to its cosmic Origin, the Dao, or the Void. Analogically, for people, fan is returning to the original Void that is the basis for their.Norman J. Girardot says the Dao is a living thing that follows a "law of cyclic return", which manifests creative activity and life-giving force. Beginning in its primordial condition of hundun chaos, the Dao "goes out" giving birth to all phenomenal things, finally reaching an "apogee" of movement, at which point it reverses itself and "returns" to its beginning state. The "life" of the Dao is generated by and returning in on itself, going out and coming back in a spontaneous and creative way characterized by its ziran freedom of movement.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Return to the Dao is one of the most important basic concepts of Daoism: within the universe's rhythmic fluctuations and transformations, all things eventually return or revert to the Dao from which they emerged.
Return to the contrary
Third, Robinet said fan can metaphysically mean "return to the contrary initial state", by which the cause of a thing is not the same as the thing itself, but rather its opposite. Wang Bi says "in movement, if we know that there is non-being, all things interpenetrate". He also describes fan as the "Dao of ziran", which is to say that it is a natural law of motion for renewing the source. Lu Xisheng says fan is the reversal that form begins from the formIess. Fan has different ontological meanings according to whether it refers to our closed world, in which everything is finite and forever reverses to its opposite or initial state, or refers to the absolute Dao that is infinitely void and limitless, transcending changes and reversals.The sinologist Bryan W. Van Norden says fan "reversal" in the Daodejing is the fact that things tend to change over to their opposites, for example, "things may be diminished by being increased, increased by being diminished". Another context asks a rhetorical question about ) to illustrate the unpredictability of reversals. "It is on disaster that good fortune perches; It is beneath good fortune that disaster crouches. Who knows the limit? There is no straightforwardness. The straightforward changes once again into the crafty, and the good changes once again into the monstrous." Van Norden says any conscious effort to anticipate changes in the world is doomed to failure, because no one knows the "limits" or points at which reversal will occur. One should instead avoid self-conscious thinking and rely on mystical insight into the Dao. He agrees with D. C. Lau that cyclical change is not inevitable, the Daodejing says disaster "crouches" beneath good fortune, but it does not "necessarily follow" it. For instance, it is possible that a person can overcome the strong by being weak, yet avoid becoming strong themself, while maintaining wuwei, for "reversal is the movement of the Dao."
A professor of Chinese philosophy and religion says notion of fan suggests not only the need to "return" to the Dao, but also that the Daoist way of life would inevitably "appear the very opposite of 'normal' existence, and that it involves a complete revaluation of values".
Eric Sean Nelson philosophically interprets as "unending transversal without a terminating synthesis". The Dao is characterized by motility and reversibility, "reversal is the dao's movement", but reversibility does not end with the first fan reversal, whether it is a return to the root, nature, or the origin. "All reversal is itself further reversible, as the source returns to and moves toward itself repeatedly without finality or a concluding synthesis." The dialectic of non-identity and the mutuality of opposites means that reversal can be infinitely transversed.