敷和

fū hé

Spreading Harmony · fu he

Also rendered: Spreading Harmony (this site; 敷 is laying abroad and 和 is the measure it keeps, which is what an even wood does) · Fu he (transliteration; how the name appears in tables of the fifteen circuits)

Cosmology

Reviewed · 2026-10-13

At a glance

Pinyin: fū hé
Simplified: 敷和
Literal: 敷 fū — to spread out, to lay abroad; 和 hé — harmony, the blending that keeps each thing in measure (《說文》: 和，相應也). 敷和 is wood at its even: the qi spreads and what it spreads keeps the measure. The name is built the way all five even names are, a verb of the phase's own doing followed by the word that says it does no harm — 敷 and 和, 升 and 明, 備 and 化 — and it is the only one of the fifteen the chapter gives a full twenty-one-item paragraph to first.
Shuowen: **「敷和」本篇2見：一在「木曰敷和」，一在「敷和之紀」**；**《說文》：敷，𢻱也；和，相應也**；**五平紀之名皆二字：敷和、升明、備化、審平、靜順**；**「五化宣平」本篇1見，敷和之紀之文**；**「其藏肝」本篇3見，「其數八」本篇1見**

In brief

Wood in its even state, and the first of the five even circuits. 木曰敷和 — wood is called spreading harmony — and the chapter then gives the whole of its 紀: 敷和之紀，木德周行，陽舒陰布，五化宣平，其氣端，其性隨，其用曲直，其化生榮，其類草木，其政發散，其候温和，其令風，其藏肝…其榖麻，其果李，其實核，其應春，其蟲毛，其畜犬，其色蒼，其養筋，其病裏急支滿，其味酸，其音角，其物中堅，其數八. The shape is the same in all five paragraphs — the circuit’s name and its phase, then its qi, nature, use, transformation, class, governance, season, command, viscus, grain, fruit, the flesh of the fruit, the season it answers, its creature, its domestic animal, its colour, what it nourishes, what it falls ill with, its flavour, its note, its substance and its number — and 敷和 is the standard against which wood’s two failures are read: 委和 when it falls short and 發生 when it goes to excess. Its number is eight, the number of wood.

Senses in the classical corpus

The graph 敷和

敷者散布，和者相應

木曰敷和 — Suwen 70

Its phase 木之平氣

木德周行，陽舒陰布

敷和之紀，木德周行 — Suwen 70

Its five transformations 五化宣平

五化皆宣而平，木為之先

五化宣平 — Suwen 70

Its viscus and season 其藏肝，其應春

藏肝而應春，木之位也

其藏肝 / 其應春 — Suwen 70

Its number 其數八

木之數八

其數八 — Suwen 70

Its two failures 委和、發生

不及曰委和，太過曰發生

木曰委和 / 木曰發生 — Suwen 70

Occurrences in the classics

Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.

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1 passages

Suwen 70 Suwen 70 · 五常政大論 Read in context →

帝曰：三氣之紀，願聞其候。歧伯曰：悉乎哉問也。敷和之紀，木德周行，陽舒陰布，五化宣平，其氣端，其性隨，其用曲直，其化生榮，其類草木，其政發散，其候温和，其令風，其藏肝，肝其畏清，其主目，其榖麻，其果李，其實核，其應春，其蟲毛，其畜犬，其色蒼，其養筋，其病裏急支滿，其味酸，其音角，其物中堅，其數八。帝曰：三气之纪，愿闻其候。歧伯曰：悉乎哉问也。敷和之纪，木德周行，阳舒阴布，五化宣平，其气端，其性随，其用曲直，其化生荣，其类草木，其政发散，其候温和，其令风，其藏肝，肝其畏清，其主目，其谷麻，其果李，其实核，其应春，其虫毛，其畜犬，其色苍，其养筋，其病里急支满，其味酸，其音角，其物中坚，其数八。

Dì yuē: sān qì zhī jì, yuàn wén qí hòu. Qí bó yuē: xī hū zāi wèn yě. Fū hé zhī jì, mù dé zhōu xíng, yáng shū yīn bù, wǔ huà xuān píng, qí qì duān, qí xìng suí, qí yòng qū zhí, qí huà shēng róng, qí lèi cǎo mù, qí zhèng fā sàn, qí hòu wēn hé, qí lìng fēng, qí zàng gān, gān qí wèi qīng, qí zhǔ mù, qí gǔ má, qí guǒ lǐ, qí shí hé, qí yìng chūn, qí chóng máo, qí chù quǎn, qí sè cāng, qí yǎng jīn, qí bìng lǐ jí zhī mǎn, qí wèi suān, qí yīn jué, qí wù zhōng jiān, qí shù bā.

Huang Di said: as for the order of the three qis, I wish to hear their manifestations. Qi Bo said: how thorough the question is! In the era of Spreading Harmony the virtue of wood travels all round; yang spreads and yin is laid out, and the five transformations spread evenly. Its qi is upright, its nature compliant, its use crooked and straight, its transformation growth and flowering, its class grass and trees, its governance dispersion, its climate mild, its command wind, its viscus the liver; the liver fears clear cool; it governs the eyes; its grain hemp, its fruit the plum, its kernel the pit, its answering spring, its creature the hairy, its domestic animal the dog, its colour blue-green, its nourishment the sinews, its illness inner tension and propping fullness, its flavour sour, its note jue, its thing hard within, its number eight.

**「敷和」本篇2見：一在「木曰敷和」，一在「敷和之紀」**；**此段為五平紀之首，其文一式二十一「其」：氣、性、用、化、類、政、候、令、藏、榖、果、實、應、蟲、畜、色、養、病、味、音、物、數**；**「五化宣平」本篇1見，唯此段有**；**木之二變：不及曰委和，太過曰發生，各立一目**

Compounds built on this term

委和

wěi hé

yielding harmony

本篇2見；木不及之名，與敷和對

發生

fā shēng

bursting growth

本篇2見；木太過之名

其藏肝

qí zàng gān

its viscus the liver

本篇3見

其數八

qí shù bā

its number eight

本篇1見；木之成數

How it has been translated

Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.

This site	spreading harmony	the phase's own doing plus the measure it keeps; both halves are in the name and the rendering keeps both
Transliteration	fu he	right about the referent, and it explains nothing about spreading or harmony
Descriptive	wood in its even state	exact, and it drops the name the chapter uses as a subject in the sentence 木曰敷和

Entry status

Review pending — who reviews this?

2026-10-13

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