Hun and po

hun
Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyinhún
Wade–Gileshun
Old Chinese
Baxter–Sagart (2014)*[m.]qʷˤə[n]
po
Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin
Wade–Gilesp'o
Old Chinese
Baxter–Sagart (2014)*pʰˤrak

Hun and po are types of souls in Chinese philosophy and traditional 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), i.e., "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".[1]

  1. ^ Yü 1987, p. 363.

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