chéng
Also rendered: Bearing (this site; literal enough, and it keeps 承 as taking up what comes before rather than as merely receiving) · Cheng (transliteration; used where 承 is being listed with 亢)
Reviewed · 2026-10-06
At a glance
What comes after a qi and holds it down. Asked why each of the six positions has something beneath it, Qi Bo answers with the sentence the tradition never let go of: 亢則害，承乃制，制則生化 — when a thing is excessive there is harm; what bears it down then restrains it; with restraint there is generation and transformation. The six cases make the rule concrete: water under minister fire, earth under water, wind under earth, metal under wind, fire under metal, and the yin essence under sovereign fire. Without the restraint, 害則敗亂, ruin and disorder, and generation and transformation are gravely ill.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
| This site | bearing | from 承，奉也，受也; what stands under a qi and holds it is not its opposite but its successor, and that is why the rule can be stated in four characters |
| Transliteration | cheng | how the graph appears in writing on 亢害承制; right about the referent, and it drops the sense of taking up |
| Descriptive | the restraining successor | exact, and it is a gloss rather than a name; the chapter says 承 and lets the six cases say the rest |
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