Page 259 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols 252

Modern New Year pictures

Nine

jiu

The square of three is a very potent male number, which plays an important part in
the Yi-jing (the ‘Book of Changes’). Thus, regarding the first hexagram: ‘When only
nines appear, this means: a troop of headless dragons appear… the whole sign qian
(= the creative) is set in motion and turns into the sign kun (= the receptive)’ (tr. Richard
Wilhelm).

The ancient ‘Book of Rites’ (Li-ji) enumerates nine rites: ‘Initiation ceremony of a
male child, marriage, audience, embassies, burial, sacrifice, hospitality, ceremonial
drinking, military traditions. In addition, we are told that these nine symbolise the five
permutations of matter ( elements).
Expounding the principles of things, the earliest Chinese encyclopaedia, the ‘Spring
and Autumn of Lü Bu-wei’, says: ‘ Heaven has nine fields, earth has nine
regions, the country has nine mountains, the mountains have nine passes, in the sea
there are nine islands.’ The mythical Emperor Yu is said to have subdued the nine
big rivers in the form of the nine-headed dragon: he travelled over the nine provinces
and measured them, i.e. he divided the earth into nine square fields each of which he
then further subdivided into nine smaller fields.