明堂

míng táng

Bright hall · ming tang

Also rendered: The Bright Hall (this site; literal, and it keeps 明 as the brightness of seeing rather than as a proper name) · Ming tang (transliteration; used where the hall is treated as an institution with a literature of its own rather than as a room)

Core vocabulary

Reviewed · 2026-10-06

At a glance

Pinyin: míng táng
Simplified: 明堂
Literal: 明 míng — bright, and by extension clear-sighted; 堂 táng — the raised hall of a house, the room in which a family or a ruler receives. 《說文》 has 堂，殿也. The Bright Hall is where the Suwen's emperor sits when the subject is the calendar rather than the body: 黄帝坐明堂，始正天綱，臨觀八極，考建五常. Four clauses of staging, and then the question. It is the only occurrence in this chapter, and it is the first thing the chapter says.
Shuowen: **「明」讀 míng，本篇13見：明堂、陽明8見、神明、其政爲明、昭乎之屬**；**「堂」讀 táng，本篇止此一見，是全站首見之字**；**《說文》：堂，殿也**；**「明堂」本篇1見，在第一段之首，是本篇發端之第一句**

In brief

The hall Huang Di sits in at the opening of this chapter, and the room the Suwen uses whenever the business is the ordering of a year rather than the treatment of a patient. The chapter’s sentence gives it four verbs — sit, set right, look out over, examine and establish — and all four belong to the calendar: 始正天綱，臨觀八極，考建五常. What follows from the hall is not a remedy but a question about why two orders of things fail to agree.

Senses in the classical corpus

The graphs 明堂

明者照也，堂者殿也

黄帝坐明堂 — Suwen 67

What is done there 始正天綱

正天之綱紀，明堂之第一事

黄帝坐明堂，始正天綱 — Suwen 67

How far the view reaches 臨觀八極

由明堂而臨觀八方之極

臨觀八極，考建五常 — Suwen 67

What is established there 考建五常

考訂而建立五常之法

臨觀八極，考建五常 — Suwen 67

Who is then called in 請天師而問之

既坐明堂，乃請天師

請天師而問之曰 — Suwen 67

Why the hall matters here 不以數推，以象之謂也

本篇所言在象不在數，故發端於明堂

天地陰陽者，不以數推，以象之謂也。 — Suwen 67

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 67 Suwen 67 · 五運行大論 Read in context →

黄帝坐明堂，始正天綱，臨觀八極，考建五常，請天師而問之曰：論言天地之動靜，神明爲之紀；陰陽之升降，寒暑彰其兆。余聞五運之數於夫子，夫子之所言，正五氣之各主歲爾，首甲定運，余因論之。黄帝坐明堂，始正天纲，临观八极，考建五常，请天师而问之曰：论言天地之动静，神明为之纪；阴阳之升降，寒暑彰其兆。余闻五运之数于夫子，夫子之所言，正五气之各主岁尔，首甲定运，余因论之。

Huáng dì zuò míng táng, shǐ zhèng tiān gāng, lín guān bā jí, kǎo jiàn wǔ cháng, qǐng tiān shī ér wèn zhī yuē: lùn yán tiān dì zhī dòng jìng, shén míng wéi zhī jì; yīn yáng zhī shēng jiàng, hán shǔ zhāng qí zhào. Yú wén wǔ yùn zhī shù yú fū zǐ, fū zǐ zhī suǒ yán, zhèng wǔ qì zhī gè zhǔ suì ěr, shǒu jiǎ dìng yùn, yú yīn lùn zhī.

Huang Di sat in the Bright Hall, set right the framework of heaven, looked out over the eight extremes, examined and established the five constants, and then called the heavenly teacher to ask: the treatises say that the movement and stillness of heaven and earth take spirit brightness as their framework, and that the rising and falling of yin and yang show their signs in cold and summer heat. I have heard the numbers of the five circuits from you, master, but what you spoke of was only that each of the five qi governs a year — that the first jia settles the circuit — and I have reasoned on from there.

**「明堂」本篇1見，在第一段之首，為本篇發端第一句**；**「堂」讀 táng，是全站首見之字**；**「坐」讀 zuò，本篇1見**；**此句四事並舉：坐明堂、正天綱、觀八極、建五常，皆為考訂歲曆之事**；**下文「請天師而問之曰」之「天師」，即指歧伯**

Compounds built on this term

天綱

tiān gāng

the framework of heaven

本篇1見；與明堂同在第一段，為明堂中所正之事

五常

wǔ cháng

the five constants

本篇1見；與明堂同在第一段，為明堂中所考建之事

天師

tiān shī

heavenly master

本篇1見；既坐明堂，乃請天師而問之

八極

bā jí

the eight extremes

本篇1見；自明堂臨觀之所及

How it has been translated

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

This site	the Bright Hall	literal from 明 and 堂; the chapter is arguing that the yin and yang of heaven and earth are named by images, and it opens in the one room built for looking at them
Transliteration	ming tang	how the phrase appears in writing on the institution of the hall; right about the referent, and it drops the two graphs that make the name
Descriptive	the hall of light	faithful, and it reads like a gloss; also, 明 in this book is at least as often clear-sightedness as brightness

Entry status

Review pending — who reviews this?

2026-10-06

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