Page 401 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols 394
Wind
Wind

feng

In Shang times (up to c. 1050 BC) the wind seems to have been venerated as the god
Feng-bo, who was represented as a sort of bird, perhaps an original form of the
phoenix. The ancient Chinese had names for eight different winds, and the

‘The urns all overthrown, hairpins and badges of office have disappeared –
suddenly a gust of wind blows in. Dust and ashes fly about in confusion’
(Han Shan)

wind-rose was represented as a fan with eight radial sections.
Symbolically, wind figures in two entirely disparate sets of images. One of these
seems to be connected with the way the wind blows over wide areas of the land: Guo-
feng (‘Wind of the Land’) is the title of a special section in the Shi-jing (‘Book of Odes’),
a section which contains some of the oldest folk-songs in the collection. Feng-shui is the
science of wind and water ( geomancy), feng-su is ‘customs and usages’, where su =
general; thus, wind can also be used to mean ‘rumour’, ‘report’ (la calunnia è un
venticello!).