wǔ zhǔ
Also rendered: the five charges (Says a thing has been entrusted to each) · what the five viscera govern (Plainest) · the five rulerships (Too feudal for what is described) · wu zhu (Bare transliteration)
Reviewed · 2026-09
At a glance
Heart governs the vessels, lung the skin, liver the sinews, spleen the flesh, kidney the bone. This entry is the other half of the one above it: five lines say what each viscus stores — a faculty — and these five say what it rules over — a tissue. Read together they are the book’s shortest account of what a viscus is: not a pump or a sack but something that holds a power and is answerable for a material. Every later account of the sinews, the skin or the bone as belonging somewhere goes back to these ten lines.
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.
| Wiseman & Feng | the five [viscera] and what they govern | They render 主 as govern throughout, which is consistent and clear. |
| Unschuld | the five [depots] and what they control | 'Control' is a little harder than 主, which is about responsibility rather than command. |
| This site | the five charges | 主 is the flame at the centre of the lamp — what everything else is arranged around. A charge is what has been handed to you to look after, which is closer to the medical sense than command. |
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