qì shù
Also rendered: qi numbers (Word-for-word) · the allotted measure of qi (Reads in the later sense of destiny) · qishu (Pinyin)
Reviewed · 2026-09
At a glance
One half of the pair this chapter sets up against itself: 天度 governs the course of sun and moon, 氣數 records the work of generation and transformation. One warning for the reader: in ordinary Chinese 氣數 came to mean allotment, destiny, the number of one’s days. Here it means nothing of the kind — it is a calendar term, the count of the qi that come round in a year.
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.
| Common English | the numbers of qi | Literal, and the safest choice. |
| This site | the numbers of qi | Kept literal, with the gloss pointing out what it does not mean: 氣數 is fate in later Chinese, and a reader who brings that sense to this chapter will read a calendar as a prophecy. |
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Reading path
Guided routes through the corpus, each built on a handful of chapters and their key terms.
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