Archives: Glossary

Each entry gives the term in traditional and simplified form, its pinyin, the senses it carries in the classical corpus, the passages where it does real work, and how published translations have rendered it.

  • 天癸

    tiān guǐ

    Heavenly water

    The reproductive endowment: it arrives at fourteen (二七) and is exhausted at forty-nine (七七). The chapter treats fertility as a measurable substance on a fixed schedule, not as a matter of temperament or conduct.

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