中國二十四方位觀念之傳承及應用

The ancient Chinese made use of the sun to distinguish directions. The east, the west, the south and the north were the first four directions distinguished. The ba fang 八方 (eight directions) and the jiu ye 九野 (eight directions plus the centre) and eventually the twenty-four directions followed. This development was recorded in the Yi Zhou shu 逸周書 before 300 B.C. and the Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋. The concept of the twenty-four directions originated from the division of the year into four season and twelve months as well as the motion of the stars. It showed also the influence of Gaitian shuo 蓋天說 (Theory of Canopy-heavens). That is why the characters used to designate the twenty-four directions are the same as those used to designate the twelve months, i.e., 子, 丑, 寅, 卯 , 辰, 巳, 午, 未, 申, 酉, 戌, 亥.The rest of them are designated by eight heavenly stems 甲, 乙, 丙, 丁, 庚, 辛, 壬, 癸 and four of the ba gua 八卦 (eight diagrams) 乾, 坤, 艮, 巽 which are added in the Western Han 西漢. The twenty-four directions were aimed at dividing the stars which were used to indicate the ershi si jieqi 二十四節氣 (twenty-four solar terms). Eventually, an instrument was invented to indicate the twenty-four directions. In the Tang 唐 and the Song 宋 the Chinese invented the compass for sailing. They used the twenty-four directions as well as the symbols that were handed down from antiquity. From the Ming 明 and the Qing 清 onward, the compass with twenty-four directions (subsequently subdivided into seventy-two directions) came to be used more and more frequently as marine traffic became more and more busy. It was not until 1880 when the Chinese government began to send student to study at naval academies in Britain and bought British and German naval vessels that the Chinese became more and more Westernized and eventually accepted the Western concept of the sixteen directions.

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中國二十四方位觀念之傳承及應用

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