魂 魄

Hun (Chinese: 魂; pinyin: hún; Wade–Giles: hun; literally "cloud-soul") and po (Chinese: 魄; pinyin: pò; Wade–Giles: p'o; literally "white-soul") are types of souls in Chinese philosophy and religion. Within this ancient soul dualism tradition, every living human has both a hun spiritual, ethereal, yang soul which leaves the body after death, and also a po corporeal, substantive, yin soul which remains with the corpse of the deceased. Some controversy exists over the number of souls in a person; for instance, one of the traditions within Daoism proposes a soul structure of sanhunqipo 三魂七魄; that is, "three hun and seven po". The historian Yü Ying-shih describes hun and po as "two pivotal concepts that have been, and remain today, the key to understanding Chinese views of the human soul and the afterlife."

The Chinese characters 魂 and 魄 for hun and po typify the most common character classification of "radical-phonetic" or "phono-semantic" graphs, which combine a "radical" or "signific" (recurring graphic elements that roughly provide semantic information) with a "phonetic" (suggesting ancient pronunciation). Hun 魂 (or 䰟) and po 魄 have the "ghost radical" gui 鬼 "ghost; devil" and phonetics of yun 云 "cloud; cloudy" and bai 白 "white; clear; pure".
Besides the common meaning of "a soul", po 魄 was a variant Chinese character for po 霸 "a lunar phase" and po 粕 "dregs". The Shujing "Book of History" used po 魄 as a graphic variant for po 霸 "dark aspect of the moon" – this character usually means ba 霸 "overlord; hegemon". For example, "On the third month, when (the growth phase, 生魄) of the moon began to wane, the duke of Chow [i.e., Duke of Zhou] commenced the foundations, and proceeded to build the new great city of Lǒ" (tr. Legge 1865:434). The Zhuangzi "[Writings of] Master Zhuang" wrote zaopo 糟粕 (lit. "rotten dregs") "worthless; unwanted; waste matter" with a po 魄 variant. A wheelwright sees Duke Huan of Qi with books by dead sages and says, "what you are reading there is nothing but the [糟魄] chaff and dregs of the men of old!" (tr. Watson 1968:152).
In the history of Chinese writing, characters for po 魄/霸 "lunar brightness" appeared before those for hun 魂 "soul; spirit". The spiritual hun 魂 and po 魄 "dual souls" are first recorded in Warring States Period (475–221 BCE) Seal Script characters. The lunar po 魄 or 霸 "moon's brightness" appears in both Zhou Dynasty (1045–256 BCE) Bronzeware script and Oracle bone script, but not in Shang Dynasty (ca. 1600–1046 BCE) oracle inscriptions. The earliest form of this "lunar brightness" character was found on a (ca. 11th century BCE) Zhou oracle bone inscription (Yü 1987:370).

The po soul's etymology is better understood than the hun soul's. Schuessler (2007:290, 417) reconstructs hun 魂 "'spiritual soul' which makes a human personality" and po 魄 "vegetative or animal soul … which accounts for growth and physiological functions" as Middle Chinese γuən and pʰak from Old Chinese *wûn and *phrâk.
The (ca. 80 CE) Baihu Tang 白虎堂 gave pseudo-etymologies for hun and po through Chinese character puns. It explains hun 魂 with zhuan 傳 "deliver; pass on; impart; spread" and yun 芸 "rue (used to keep insects out of books); to weed", and po 魄 with po 迫 " compel; force; coerce; urgent" and bai 白 "white; bright".
What do the words hun and [po] mean? Hun expresses the idea of continuous propagation ([zhuan] 傳), unresting flight; it is the qi of the Lesser Yang, working in man in an external direction, and it governs the nature (or the instincts, [xing] 性). [Po] expresses the idea of a continuous pressing urge ([po] 迫) on man; it is the [qi] of the Lesser Yin, and works in him, governing the emotions ([qing] 情). Hun is connected with the idea of weeding ([yun] 芸), for with the instincts the evil weeds (in man's nature) are removed. [Po] is connected with the idea of brightening ([bai] 白), for with the emotions the interior (of the personality) is governed. (tr. Needham and Lu 1974:87)
Etymologically, Schuessler says pò 魄 "animal soul" "is the same word as" pò 霸 "a lunar phase". He cites the Zuozhuan (534 BCE, see below) using the lunar jishengpo 既生魄 to mean "With the first development of a fetus grows the vegetative soul".
Pò, the soul responsible for growth, is the same as pò the waxing and waning of the moon". The meaning 'soul' has probably been transferred from the moon since men must have been aware of lunar phases long before they had developed theories on the soul. This is supported by the etymology 'bright', and by the inverted word order which can only have originated with meteorological expressions … The association with the moon explains perhaps why the pò soul is classified as Yin … in spite of the etymology 'bright' (which should be Yang), hun's Yang classificiation may be due to the association with clouds and by extension sky, even though the word invokes 'dark'. 'Soul' and 'moon' are related in other cultures, by cognation or convergence, as in Tibeto-Burman and Proto-Lolo–Burmese *s/ʼ-la "moon; soul; spirit", Written Tibetan cognates bla "soul" and zla "moon", and Proto-Miao–Yao *bla "spirit; soul; moon". (2007:417)
Lunar associations of po are evident in the Classical Chinese terms chanpo 蟾魄 "the moon" (with "toad; toad in the moon; moon") and haopo 皓魄 "moon; moonlight" (with "white; bright; luminous").
The semantics of po 魄 "white soul" probably originated with 霸 "lunar whiteness". Zhou bronze inscriptions commonly recorded lunar phases with the terms jishengpo 既生魄 "after the brightness has grown" and jisipo 既死魄 "after the brightness has died", which Schuessler explains as "second quarter of the lunar month" and "last quarter of the lunar month". Chinese scholars have variously interpreted these two terms as lunar quarters or fixed days, and (Shaughnessy 1992:136–145) Wang Guowei's lunar-quarter analysis the most likely. Thus, jishengpo is from the 7th/8th to the 14th/15th days of the lunar month and jisipo is from the 23rd/24th to the end of the month. Yü (1987:370) translates them as "after the birth of the crescent" and "after the death of the crescent". Etymologically, lunar and spiritual po < pʰak < *phrâk 魄 are cognate with bai < bɐk < *brâk 白 "white" (Matisoff 1980, Yü 1981, Carr 1985). According to Hu Shih (1946:30), po etymologically means "white, whiteness, and bright light"; "The primitive Chinese seem to have regarded the changing phases of the moon as periodic birth and death of its [po], its 'white light' or soul." Yü (1981:83) says this ancient association between the po soul and the "growing light of the new moon is of tremendous importance to our understanding of certain myths related to the seventh day of the months." Two celebrated examples in Chinese mythology are Xi Wangmu and Emperor Wu meeting on the seventh day of the first lunar month and The Princess and the Cowherd or Qixi Festival held on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.
The etymology of hun < γuən < *wûn 魂 is comparatively less certain. Hu (1946:31) said, "The word hun is etymologically the same as the word yun, meaning "clouds." The clouds float about and seem more free and more active than the cold, white-lighted portion of the growing and waning moon." Schuessler cites two possibilities.
Since pò is the 'bright' soul, hún is the 'dark' soul and therefore cognate to yún 雲 'cloud' [Carr 1985:62], perhaps in the sense of 'shadowy' because some believe that the hún soul will live after death in a world of shadows [Eberhard 1967:17]. (2007:290)

Based on Zuozhuan usages of hun and po in four historical contexts, Yü (1987:370) extrapolates that po was the original name for a human soul, and the dualistic conception of hun and po "began to gain currency in the middle of the sixth century" BCE.
Two earlier 6th century contexts used the po soul alone. Both describe Tian 天 "heaven; god" duo 奪 "seizing; taking away" a person's po, which resulted in a loss of mental faculties. In 593 BCE (Duke Xuan 15th year, tr. Legge 1872:329), after Zhao Tong 趙同 behaved inappropriately at the Zhou court, an observer predicted: "In less than ten years [Zhao Tong] will be sure to meet with great calamity. Heaven has taken his [魄] wits away from him." In 543 BCE (Duke Xiang 29th year, tr. Legge 1872:551), Boyou 伯有 from Zheng (state) acted irrationally, which an official interpreted as: "Heaven is destroying [Boyou], and has taken away his [魄] reason." Boyou's political enemies subsequently arranged to take away his hereditary position and assassinate him.
Two later 6th century Zuozhuan contexts used po together with the hun soul. In 534 BCE (Duke Zhao 7th year, tr. Legge 1872:618), the ghost of Boyou 伯有 (above) was seeking revenge on his murderers, and terrifying the people of Zheng. The philosopher and statesman Zi Chan, realizing that Boyou's loss of hereditary office had caused his spirit to be deprived of sacrifices, reinstated his son to the family position, and the ghost disappeared. When a friend asked Zi Chan to explain ghosts, he gave what Yu (1972:372) calls "the locus classicus on the subject of the human soul in the Chinese tradition."
When a man is born, (we see) in his first movements what is called the [魄] animal soul. [既生魄] After this has been produced, it is developed into what is called the [魂] spirit. By the use of things the subtle elements are multiplied, and the [魂魄] soul and spirit become strong. They go on in this way, growing in etherealness and brightness, till they become (thoroughly) spiritual and intelligent. When an ordinary man or woman dies a violent death, the [魂魄] soul and spirit are still able to keep hanging about men in the shape of an evil apparition; how much more might this be expected in the case of [Boyou]. … Belonging to a family which had held for three generations the handle of government, his use of things had been extensive, the subtle essences which he had imbibed had been many. His clan also was a great one, and his connexions [sic] were distinguished. Is it not entirely reasonable that, having died a violent death, he should be a [鬼] ghost?
Compare the translation of Needham and Lu (1974:86), who interpret this as an early Chinese discourse on embryology.
When a foetus begins to develop, it is (due to) the [po]. (When this soul has given it a form) then comes the Yang part, called hun. The essences ([qing] 情) of many things (wu 物) then give strength to these (two souls), and so they acquire the vitality, animation and good cheer (shuang 爽) of these essences. Thus eventually there arises spirituality and intelligence (shen ming 神明)."
In 516 BCE (Duke Zhao 20th year, tr. Legge 1872:708), the Duke of Song (state) and a guest named Shusun 叔孫 were both seen weeping during a supposedly joyful gathering. Yue Qi 樂祁, a Song court official, said: "This year both our ruler and [Shusun] are likely to die. I have heard that joy in the midst of grief and grief in the midst of joy are signs of a loss of [xin 心] mind. The essential vigor and brightness of the mind is what we call the [hun] and the [po]. When these leave it, how can the man continue long?" Hun and po souls, explains Yu (1987:371), "are regarded as the very essence of the mind, the source of knowledge and intelligence. Death is thought to follow inevitably when the hun and the p'o leave the body. We have reason to believe that around this time the idea of hun was still relatively new."