升明

shēng míng

Rising Brightness · sheng ming

Also rendered: Rising Brightness (this site; 升 is rising and 明 is shining out, and an even fire is named for its light rather than its heat) · Sheng ming (transliteration; how the name appears in tables of the fifteen circuits)

Cosmology

Reviewed · 2026-10-13

At a glance

Pinyin: shēng míng
Simplified: 升明
Literal: 升 shēng — to rise (《說文》: 升，十龠也; the received sense here is the verb of going up); 明 míng — bright, to shine out (《說文》: 明，照也). 升明 is fire at its even: the qi goes up and what it gives is light, not heat. It is the one circuit named for light rather than for warmth, and the chapter's paragraph says why — 正陽而治, it governs as the upright yang, in the straightness of the sun rather than in its blazing.
Shuowen: **「升明」本篇2見：一在「火曰升明」，一在「升明之紀」**；**《說文》：明，照也**；**「正陽而治」本篇1見、「德施周普」本篇1見，皆升明之紀之文**；**「五化均衡」本篇1見，唯此段有**；**「其藏心」本篇3見，「其數七」本篇1見**

In brief

Fire in its even state. 火曰升明 — fire is called rising brightness — and its 紀 runs: 升明之紀，正陽而治，德施周普，五化均衡，其氣高，其性速，其用燔灼，其化蕃茂，其類火，其政明曜，其候炎暑，其令熱，其藏心，心其畏寒，其主舌，其榖麥，其果杏，其實絡，其應夏，其蟲羽，其畜馬，其色赤，其養血，其病瞤瘛，其味苦，其音徵，其物脉，其數七. Two words carry the judgement: 正陽 and 周普 — the upright yang, and a virtue given out on every side. Fire even is not fire damped; it is fire governing by its rightness rather than by its force, and its five transformations come out 均衡, even in measure, where wood’s spread and levelled. Its viscus is the heart, its creature the feathered, its number seven; when it fails it does so as 伏明, brightness hidden, and when it goes too far as 赫曦, blazing sunlight.

Senses in the classical corpus

The graph 升明

升者上也，明者照也

火曰升明 — Suwen 70

Its phase 火之平氣

正陽而治，德施周普

升明之紀，正陽而治 — Suwen 70

Its five transformations 五化均衡

五化皆均而衡

五化均衡 — Suwen 70

Its nature and use 其性速，其用燔灼

火性速，其用燔灼而不烈

其性速，其用燔灼 — Suwen 70

Its viscus and number 其藏心，其數七

藏心而數七，火之成數

其藏心 / 其數七 — Suwen 70

Its two failures 伏明、赫曦

不及曰伏明，太過曰赫曦

火曰伏明 / 火曰赫曦 — 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 →

升明之紀，正陽而治，德施周普，五化均衡，其氣高，其性速，其用燔灼，其化蕃茂，其類火，其政明曜，其候炎暑，其令熱，其藏心，心其畏寒，其主舌，其榖麥，其果杏，其實絡，其應夏，其蟲羽，其畜馬，其色赤，其養血，其病瞤瘛，其味苦，其音徵，其物脉，其數七。升明之纪，正阳而治，德施周普，五化均衡，其气高，其性速，其用燔灼，其化蕃茂，其类火，其政明曜，其候炎暑，其令热，其藏心，心其畏寒，其主舌，其谷麦，其果杏，其实络，其应夏，其虫羽，其畜马，其色赤，其养血，其病瞤瘛，其味苦，其音徵，其物脉，其数七。

Shēng míng zhī jì, zhèng yáng ér zhì, dé shī zhōu pǔ, wǔ huà jūn héng, qí qì gāo, qí xìng sù, qí yòng fán zhuó, qí huà fán mào, qí lèi huǒ, qí zhèng míng yào, qí hòu yán shǔ, qí lìng rè, qí zàng xīn, xīn qí wèi hán, qí zhǔ shé, qí gǔ mài, qí guǒ xìng, qí shí luò, qí yìng xià, qí chóng yǔ, qí chù mǎ, qí sè chì, qí yǎng xuè, qí bìng shùn chì, qí wèi kǔ, qí yīn zhǐ, qí wù mài, qí shù qī.

In the era of Rising Brightness the upright yang governs; its virtue is bestowed all round and the five transformations are evenly balanced. Its qi high, its nature quick, its use burning and scorching, its transformation luxuriant growth, its class fire, its governance bright shining, its climate blazing heat, its command heat, its viscus the heart; the heart fears cold; it governs the tongue; its grain wheat, its fruit the apricot, its kernel the network, its answering summer, its creature the feathered, its domestic animal the horse, its colour red, its nourishment the blood, its illness twitching of the flesh and cramping of the vessels, its flavour bitter, its note zhi, its thing the vessels, its number seven.

**「升明」本篇2見：一在「火曰升明」，一在「升明之紀」**；**此段以「正陽而治，德施周普」立火之平，與木之「木德周行」相對**；**「五化均衡」本篇1見，唯此段有**；**火之二變：不及曰伏明，太過曰赫曦，各立一目**

Compounds built on this term

伏明

fú míng

hidden brightness

本篇2見；火不及之名，與升明對

赫曦

hè xī

blazing sunlight

本篇2見；火太過之名

其藏心

qí zàng xīn

its viscus the heart

本篇3見

正陽

zhèng yáng

the upright yang

本篇1見；升明之紀之首句

How it has been translated

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

This site	rising brightness	the qi goes up and gives light; the rendering keeps both halves, as the chapter's 正陽而治 does
Transliteration	sheng ming	right about the referent, and it says nothing about rising or light
Descriptive	fire in its even state	exact, and it loses the name the sentence 火曰升明 uses as a subject

Entry status

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2026-10-13

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