Page 142 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 135
Fornication

yin

In a broad sense, this word denotes any sort of sexual practice which is in contravention
of good moral custom: what is obscene and licentious – in a word, excesses of whatever
sort. A proverb says: ‘Of the ten thousand evils, fornication is the worst’, and a tract
on morality lays it down that ‘He who seduces others slays his own relatives for the next
three generations.’ As in Europe, secret religious communities were often suspected of
promiscuity, although trustworthy evidence for this, in the case of China, is extremely
scanty. ‘Licentious/ obscene books’ is a term covering not only pornography but also
such renowned classics as ‘The Dream of the Red Chamber’ (Hong-lou meng) by Cao
Xue-qin (1715–64). In what is probably the most famous erotic novel of
all, ‘Plum-blossom in a golden Vase’ (‘The Golden Lotus’) – better known by its
Chinese title, Jin Ping Mei – we find the man playfully addressing his beloved as ‘my
little wanton’ – not in reproach, that is, but in admiration of her beauty. What we
might call a ‘fornikit’ consisted of various instruments and devices to heighten sexual
pleasure. Rakes and libertines should beware, however: the yin mo, the ‘debauchery
demon’, is after them, and the skulls of his victims hang from a belt round his hips to
prove it.

Four

si

As a yin number, four can stand for the West and also for the earth, which
was originally thought to be four-cornered, and which was itself subdivided into
rectangles ( fang). The Middle Kingdom was imagined as lying in the middle of
the Four Seas, surrounded by the four barbarian peoples. ‘The “Four Mountains” was the
title given to the leaders who entrusted the feudal lord with the maintenance of the peace
in the “Four Directions”, a charge which he accepted by opening the “Four Portals” of
his residence’ (Marcel Granet on ancient legends in connection with the Emperor’s tours
of inspection).
As arithmetical shorthand for the geometrical properties of a square, or indeed any
rectangle, four can obviously generate an extensive symbolic field, but it is in point of
fact less used in a symbolic sense than five, which has the advantage of being able to
include the (to the Chinese) all-important middle as a fifth direction.