Legacy Luoshu

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Legacy of the Luoshu

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Legacy of
the Luoshu
The 4,000 Year Search for
the Meaning of the
Magic Square of Order Three
FRANK J. SWETZ
A K Peters, Ltd.
Wellesley, Massachusetts
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Editorial, Sales, and Customer Service Office
A K Peters, Ltd.
888 Worcester Street, Suite 230
Wellesley, MA 02482
www.akpeters.com
Copyright © 2008 by A K Peters, Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice
may be reproduced or utilized in any form, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without written permission from the copyright owner.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Swetz, Frank.
Legacy of the Luoshu : the 4,000 year search for the meaning of the magic
square of order three / Frank J. Swetz.-- 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-56881-427-8 (alk. paper)
1. Magic Squares. I. Title.
QA165.S84 2008
511’.64--dc22
2008011603
Cover images: Images that incorporate the luoshu into their design and purpose.
Top: A Han Cosmic Mirror unites its viewer with the universe. Bottom:
Interpretive luoshu talismans reflect Islamic, Daoist and Kabbalistic traditions.
(Bottom-left image from Georges Ifrah, The Universal History of Numbers: From
Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer, p. 262. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.)
Printed in Canada
12 11 10 09 08 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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To Joan, my yin
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Prologue xi
1. THE JOURNEY BEGINS 1
2. ON THE BANKS OF THE LUO RIVER:

THE CHINESE ORIGINS OF THE LUOSHU 9
Mystical Beginnings on the Shell of a Tortoise 9
The Earliest References to the Luoshu 12
The Traditional Method of Constructing the Luoshu 16
3. YINYANG, WUXING, AND KEY NUMBERS IN THE LUOSHU 19

“Nineness” and “Fiveness” in the Luoshu 20
Yinyang: The Potential to Become 27
Wuxing: Directions for Change 31
4. THE LUOSHU IN COSMIC RITUAL, FORTUNE-TELLING,

AND FENGSHUI 39
Talking to the Sky God in Mingtang Temples 40
Taiyi and the Daoist Dance 48
Divination Enters the Picture: The Eight Trigrams 53
Cycles of Time and the Flying Star System of Fengshui 56
Fortune-Telling with the Luoshu 59
Variations on the Luoshu 61
vii
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viii Contents
5. CHINESE VARIATIONS ON THE LUOSHU THEME 65

Other Magic Squares of Order Three? 65
Higher Order Magic Squares 68
Later Work with Magic Number Arrangements 77
6. THE MAGIC SQUARE OF ORDER THREE IN

OTHER CULTURES 79
Who Didn’t Know about Magic Squares? 79
Babylonia 79
Greece 80
Egypt 82
Who Else Knew about Magic Squares? 82
India 83
Tibet 89
Japan 90
The Islamic World 93
Magic Squares in Latin Europe 107
A Mathematical Interest in Magic Squares 116
7. LUOSHU MISCELLANEA 121

Some Mathematical Considerations 121
Luoshu Puzzles 128
Another Time, Another Place, Another Legend 134
Mr. Browne’s Illustrious Magic Square 135
Feel the Rhythm 140
Taijiquan, the Luoshu, and Immortality 145
8. SOME FINAL THOUGHTS 151

Why Did the Magic Square Originate and Flourish in China
Rather Than in the West? 152
What Happened to the Luoshu as a Visible Symbol of
Harmony? 155
What is the Ultimate Significance of the Luoshu? 156
Epilogue 161
Notes 165
Bibliography 193
Illustration Acknowledgments 207
Index 209
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Acknowledgments
In the undertaking of this study on the origins and uses of the luoshu,
many people have assisted and advised me. I would like to acknowl-
edge and thank them for their help and encouragement. Howard
Sachs, Dean of Research and Graduate Studies at the Pennsylvania
State University Harrisburg, and the Research Council supplied a
modest grant that helped initiate my work on the luoshu. The staff of
the Heindel Library at Penn State Harrisburg, particularly Ruth
Runion-Slear, was most helpful in securing obscure reference material
and in clarifying questionable information. Sue Hipple supplied
expert and patient typing support. Several colleagues and friends
came to my aid when language assistance was needed: Kirk Barbour,
with French; Ali Behagi, with Farsi; Yohchia Chen, with Chinese;
Refik Culpan, with Turkish; and Horst Meilbrandt, with German.
Fruitful research leads were provided by: Mohammad Bagheri,
Tehran; J. L. Berggren, Simon Fraser University; Jean Canteins, St.
Paul, France; Martin Gardner, Hendersonville, N.C.; Noël Golvers,
Ferdinand Verbiest Foundation, Leuven; Takao Hayashi, Doshisla
University; Ho Peng Yoke, Needham Research Institute; Karen Dee
Michaelowicz, Langley School, McLean, Virginia; Yoshimasa
Michiwaki, Maebashi Institute of Technology; Seyyed Hossein Nasr,
George Washington University; P. Rajagapal, York University, Canada;
Helaine Selin, Hampshire College; Jacques Sesiano, Ecole
Polytechnique Fedérale de Lansanne; David Singmaster, South Bank
University; Robin Wilson, Open University; Yvan Saint-Pierre, University
of Montreal; and Christian Boyer, Paris.
ix
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x Acknowledgments
Such widespread interest and support reflects on the appeal and

intrigue of the luoshu and its history, an appeal and intrigue that is still
very captivating. I hope the reader will share this impression and expe-
rience the spell of magic cast by this simple number square.
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Prologue
How I Got Interested in Magic Squares

In the fall of 1968 while searching the New York Public Library for mate-
rials on the history of Chinese mathematics education, I came across a
listing in the card catalogue that caught my attention—“Mandarin
Squares.” Upon obtaining the designated book, I found that it was an
account of Simon de la Loubère’s experiences as envoy to the Kingdom
of Siam from 1687 to1688.1 France had established diplomatic relations
with the Siamese Court in 1680. While the English language translation
of de la Loubère’s title page enticed the reader with the promise:
“Wherein a full and curious Account is given of the Chinese Way of
Arithmetick and Mathematick Learning,” little substantive information
was provided on Chinese mathematics or how it was taught; however,
the book contained a fascinating account of Indian work with magic
squares—the “Mandarin Squares” that I saw cited in the card catalogue.2
I dismissed the book, noting its call number for future reference, but I
was left with two lingering impressions: magic squares were known and
used in Asia at an early date and they were somehow associated with
the Chinese. These were two facts I previously had not known. Before
the year was over, my research had revealed:
• the Chinese claim to the magic square of order three, also known
as the luoshu (meaning “Luo River writing”);
• its legendary origins in antiquity, possibly extending back to the
third millennium B.C.E.; and
• its association with the rise of science and mathematics in China.
xi
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xii Prologue
I sorted through this information and arrived at a tentative but rela-

tively satisfying perspective on the nature of magic squares in early
Chinese society. My major research objective was to investigate the evo-
lution of Chinese mathematics education and magic squares, per se,
were of minor concern.3 But, as in any research project, unanswered
questions remained:
• In what context was the magic square developed in China?

• How did the Chinese use their magic squares?
• Did they develop a mathematical theory of magic squares?
• Did the Chinese theories concerning magic squares influence
other cultures, including those of Europe?
Eventually, I discovered the writings of Schuyler Cammann which

partially resolved some of the luoshu issues that troubled me but they
also gave rise to other issues.4 Ultimately, I was compelled personally
to investigate the mathematical and mystical impact of the luoshu. Now,
thirty years after my initial contact with the subject, I attempt to find
answers for the questions that still plague me regarding the luoshu and
its influence on those who have come into contact with it.
The following chapters represent the sharing of my findings with a
larger audience. At the onset it should be noted that I am neither a
trained Sinologist nor a linguist fluent in Chinese languages but rather
someone interested in the history and development of mathematical
and scientific concepts and how they evolve within a society. My
research approach is focused on the luoshu. It is selective but trav-
erses a wide scope of concerns impinging on topics from sociology,
cosmology, numerology, metaphysics, religion, mythology, mathemat-
ics, and occult beliefs. As such, nuances will remain that should be
investigated further. I have provided a comprehensive bibliography to
assist interested readers in this effort. This book is my attempt to
answer questions, to fit pieces into a puzzle. I hope I have achieved
this goal but I also hope that this work gives rise to further questions
in whose pondering a better understanding of the role of mathematics
in society is realized.
Among the modern Western scholars to examine Chinese rituals,
customs, and traditions, perhaps Marcel Granet was the first to appreci-
ate the deep intellectual significance surrounding the luoshu and its uses
in Chinese society. In his considerations of Chinese ritual numerology,
Granet made reference to some possible meanings associated with the
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Prologue xiii
luoshu and urged that further research on the subject be undertaken.5

Schuyler Cammann of the University of Pennsylvania took up this task
in the 1960s and firmly established that the magic square of order three
was linked with early Chinese philosophy and religion. Cammann also
documented the influence of the luoshu on Islamic and Hindu mystical
thinking.6 In turn his work inspired and stimulated other authors to
investigate the relationship between magic squares and metaphysical
theories. In 1973, Ho Peng Yoke published a survey of the development
and evolution of magic squares in both the East and West.7 More
recently, Lars Berglund of Lund University published a comprehensive
study of the luoshu and its relations to Chinese art and architecture.8
Berglund was deeply affected by Cammann’s theories.
It is following in this tradition, and with the conviction that there is
still much to be learned about the luoshu and its place in human his-
tory, that this investigation now sets forth.
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1
The Journey Begins
As you read this book, you will see that the cultural history of the
magic square known as the luoshu is a fascinating one that
touches on cosmology, mythology, philosophy, religion, occult
practices, mathematics, architecture, and even music. I have
uncovered some interesting aspects of the story of how the luoshu
came to be known in different parts of the world. One of the out-
standing questions concerning the luoshu is: How and when did
it come to be known in the West?
A Tantalizing Discovery
In the fall of 1991, I attended a conference at the University of
Pittsburgh. During my free time I sought out the cultural and intellectual
diversions the large city had to offer. I visited museums and art galleries.
At one museum, I came across a display of rare documents—European
books and manuscripts—that reflected the scientific climate of the
Renaissance. Marking the end of a long hall was a round glass display
case. The centerpiece, elevated within the case, was a copy of
Astronomia Europaea, an account of Jesuit scientific accomplishments
in China during the years 1669 to 1679, written by the head of the Jesuit
mission, Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688), and published in 1687.1
Surrounding this impressive volume were some of Verbiest’s notes con-
cerning his work and life in China. My attention was immediately drawn
to one paper whose penciled diagrams seemed to involve the luoshu.
1
2 Legacy of the Luoshu
The luoshu is a very special magic square. A magic square is a square

array of numbers in which the numbers in each row, each column, and
each diagonal add up to the same sum—a magic sum. The array in fig-
ure 1.1 is a square composed of the numbers 1 through 9, in other
words, the first nine counting numbers.
4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6
FIGURE 1.1
It is a magic square for which the magic sum is 15. The square can be
further described as being of order three; that is, it has three entries in
each row, column, and diagonal. Thus, the whole configuration is made
up of nine numbers, (3 × 3), three squared. This particular magic square
is usually referred to by its Chinese name, luoshu [Luo River writing],
and has been revered in the East for over two thousand years.2 It was
conceived in China and transmitted westward by Arab travelers, influ-
encing various peoples along the journey. The luoshu eventually found
its way into medieval European astrology. In its movement from the East
to the West, the diagram that originated as a cosmic chart upon which
the fortunes and fate of an empire rested ended up as an occult talis-
man that could secure good or bad for the bearer. For many people in
the contemporary world, the luoshu still exerts a powerful influence. In
particular, as we will see in chapter 4, it forms the basis for the Asian
practice of fengshui.3
The luoshu has often served as an emblem of harmony and, as such,
represents one of the many ways traditional cultures have sought har-
mony through numbers, patterns, shapes, and symmetries. For example,
for the Sioux of North America, who believe “the Power of the World
always works in a circle, and everything tries to be round,”4 the circle
holds great significance. The Sioux symbol for life is an empty circle; the
symbol for death is a full circle; and for eternity, a circle with a dot in
the center. Another example is the system of number associations
The Journey Begins 3
arrived at by the ancient Pythagoreans, in which, for instance, the num-

ber six stood for procreation. In the Ten Commandments of the Judeo-
Christian tradition, the sixth commandment—“Thou shalt not commit
adultery”—deals with sex. The Latin word for six was “sex,” so the mod-
ern English word “sex” may really owe its origins to the number six and
the number theory of the Pythagoreans. For more on issues of harmony
and mathematics in traditional cultures, see the epilogue. Now let us
return to the story of my discovery.
I was astounded to learn that Jesuit missionaries in China in the seven-

teenth century knew about and worked with the luoshu! Perhaps they
even communicated this knowledge back to Europe! What an exciting
find this was—I hoped to investigate it further at a later date, and
quickly jotted down some identification data accompanying the paper:
“Misc pieces dated 1668-1671-1697; Borg. cin. 397.” When in 1996 I
began my luoshu investigations in earnest, I resurrected the scrap of
paper bearing the “museum find” data, but maddeningly I had forgotten
the name of the museum I had visited and I had foolishly neglected to
note the title of the display in question. So began a long and frustrating
search, initially by telephone, then finally by a personal visit to
Pittsburgh to retrace my tracks of six years earlier. The visit revealed that
the display had been housed in the Frick Fine Arts Building at the
University of Pittsburgh; however, the exact name of the exhibit
remained elusive. Concomitant with my Pittsburgh-focused search to
locate the tantalizing Jesuit document, I pursued a related avenue of
investigation: I decided to familiarize myself with the career and work
of Ferdinand Verbiest in the hope of tracing the document I had seen
in Pittsburgh by starting from its human source. This effort resulted in a
correspondence with Dr. Noël Golvers, a Verbiest expert.5 Upon my
description of the document, Dr. Golvers identified it immediately as
BAV, Borg. cin. 397, a manuscript held in the Vatican Library. In my
hasty effort years earlier to record the identity of my find, I had omitted
the critical initials, “BAV,” which stand for Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana. Borg. cin. stands for Borgeani Cinesi, the specific collection
title. Now I had it! (See figure 1.2.6)
For various reasons, my scholarly benefactor seriously doubted that
the authorship of BAV, Borg. cin. 397 rested with Ferdinand Verbiest.
FIGURE 1.2
Rather, he was inclined to attribute it to his fellow Jesuit P. Joachim

Bouvet.7
Setting aside the question of authorship, let me describe the contents
of this seventeenth-century manuscript. The center of the group of illus-
trations is occupied by a stylized luoshu with its odd numbers (or yang
numbers) connected by a circle, a symbol of Heaven. The even num-
bers (or yin numbers) form the vertices of a circumscribed square, a
symbol of Earth. (I will discuss the connections between yinyang and
the luoshu in chapter 3.) Possibly this implies that the luoshu, in a cos-
mic connotation, represents both Heaven and Earth.8 Small diagrams at
the four corners of the tableau indicate explorations of the relationships
among the luoshu’s numerical entries: the Daoist dance path called the
yubu is traced out in the upper right (see chapter 4 for more on Daoist
dance and the luoshu); the sums of even and odd numbers are exam-
ined in the upper left, and the diagrams at the bottom seem to explore
Pythagorean relationships based on the right triangle. Throughout the
tableau, sums and products of numbers are examined for possible sig-
nificant relationships. Astrological symbols are evident: ) for the moon,
° for the sun. One interesting computational feature is that the author
designates cubed numbers, such as 43 = 64 and 33 = 27, by sketches of
geometric cubes. But the dominating feature of the scene is the two
large circles, which, in turn, circumscribe a series of regular polygons
and smaller circles. In total, these two large figures embody six circles.
Now if these figures are viewed as being connected sequentially—that
is, with the figure on the right representing a continuation of its com-
panion—then these six circles, each determined by the dimension of an
inscribed polygon, will be concentric. At the beginning and center of
this concentric series of circles lies the luoshu. What emerges from these
geometric gyrations is a seventeenth-century European model of the
universe incorporating the luoshu. This model confined the orbits of the
planets to six circular paths determined by a nested set of celestial, crys-
talline spheres. In fact, the Jesuits tried in vain to convince their Chinese
colleagues that celestial space was impenetrable due to the existence of
confining spherical boundaries. In general, then, what the document
Borg. cin. 397 seems to demonstrate are seventeenth-century mathe-
matical attempts to reconcile Chinese cosmological beliefs with those
prevalent in Europe at the time.
This effort by Jesuit missionaries to reconcile Chinese beliefs with
Western ones coincides with a similar instance of philosophical and
intellectual accommodation. The Jesuit presence in China began with
Matteo Ricci (1552–1655) who entered the Celestial Kingdom in 1583.9

Ricci, and his later missionary successors, hoped to convert the Chinese
to Catholicism and thus offset the Protestant inroads being made in
Europe at the time. The Chinese, however, found the religious and mys-
tical doctrines of Christianity to hold little appeal, but the scientific
knowledge possessed by the Jesuits was another matter. These clerical
envoys brought with them information on the blossoming sciences of
Europe particularly: mathematics, astronomy, and metallurgy, which
included cannon casting. With this knowledge, especially calendar reck-
oning, the Jesuits endeared themselves to the Chinese Court and
secured positions in the imperial bureaucracy. Through this avenue of
access to the Emperor, it was hoped that the superiority of Western
ideas, including those involving religion, would become obvious to the
Chinese. The Jesuits also began an active correspondence informing an
eagerly awaiting European audience to the wonders of the new society
they were experiencing. It was through such a correspondence that
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) became involved in the machi-
nations of religious conversion taking place in China.
Leibniz was one of the most versatile geniuses of the seventeenth
century and perhaps of all time. While primarily noted for his work in
mathematics and philosophy, he was also deeply involved in studies
and applications of history, law, diplomacy, politics, philology, and the-
ology. Leibniz was a systematizer, a seeker of harmony, who attempted
to organize human thought and actions through a system of logic. He
was a fervent Christian who actively worked for Christian reconciliation
in Europe. As an avid correspondent, Leibniz reached out to a wide
audience, both spreading his ideas and increasing his knowledge of the
world. His first expression of interest in China appeared in 1668 when
he commented on the advanced state of Chinese medicine.10 By 1679,
he possessed some knowledge of the structure of written Chinese.
Leibniz sought out information on this strange, distant land. In 1689,
while visiting Rome, he met Claudio Grimaldi, a Jesuit who had spent
seventeen years as a missionary in the Middle Kingdom. Grimaldi
became a correspondent of Leibniz’s through which the latter channeled
numerous questions on Chinese life and customs. This China-centered
correspondence expanded to include other China-based missionaries of
the Society of Jesus among whom was the Frenchman Joachim Bouvet
(1656–1730).
Both Verbiest and Bouvet had obtained a high standing in the
Chinese Court and even served as scientific and mathematical tutors to
the Kangxi Emperor.11 Verbiest dismissed many of the Chinese rites and
customs as hollow superstitions but Bouvet, of a more philosophical
bent, saw some intellectual substance in the customs of the Middle
Kingdom. In particular, Bouvet was fascinated by the theories contained
in the Yijing [Book of Changes] and the existence of the sixty-four hexa-
grams which he called the “figures of Fohi” (Fuxi).12 He envisioned that
in ancient times, the Sage King Fuxi had received the divinely inspired
hexagrams as a notation through which all science could be understood.
Over time, the original meanings and purpose of the hexagrams had
been forgotten. As a result, they had been relegated to serving merely
as a set of symbols used in prognostication. Further, Bouvet recognized
the correspondence between the solid and broken lines forming the
hexagrams and the 1 and 0 of the theory of binary arithmetic recently
proposed by Leibniz.13
Bouvet informed Leibniz of his findings and impressions concerning
the hexagrams. Leibniz was almost overwhelmed by the implications he
saw in this discovery as he associated his binary arithmetic with an
“Ancient Theology” whereby the void, represented by 0, is overcome by
1, representing God and, through binary notation, all numbers (cre-
ation) would follow. At the time, he noted:
Fohi [Fuxi], the most ancient prince and philosopher of the Chinese, had
understood the origin of things from unity and nothing, i.e. his mysterious
figures reveal something of an analogy to Creation, containing the binary
arithmetic (and yet hinting at greater things) that I rediscovered after so
many thousand of years, where all numbers are written by only two nota-
tions, 0 and 1.14
Through his writings, Leibniz informed the European audience of

the Chinese involvement with binary numbers via the “figures of Fohi.”
Further, he urged Bouvet to proceed with his investigations on the orig-
inal uses of the hexagrams because he believed that the conversion of
the Chinese could be accomplished when the true theological principles
known by Fuxi were revealed. For Leibniz, binary arithmetic was the
key to converting the Chinese to Christianity.
This is an amazing episode in the history of mathematics. But with
this incident in mind, these questions arise: Were the contents of BAV,
Borg. cin. 397 intended for Leibniz? If so, what might he have made out
of them? With his appreciation of Chinese philosophy and religion, and
believing that both the Europeans and the Chinese originally possessed
the same ancient theology, how might Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz have
interpreted the luoshu?15 From existing evidence it appears that the con-
tents of Borg. cin. 397 never reached Leibniz and that he remained
unaware of the Chinese reverence for the magic square of order three.
Leibniz was, however, familiar with magic squares. In October of
1715, he forwarded to the French Academy of Sciences a copy of a
magic cube sent to him by an Austrian monk, Augustin Thomas Saint
Joseph. The cube was correct but neither Leibniz nor the academicians
could unravel its method of construction.16
2
On the Banks of the
Luo River:
The Chinese Origins
of the Luoshu
According to legend, a tortoise with numbers inscribed on its shell

visited Sage King Yu as he stood on the banks of the Luo River, a
tributary of the Yellow River. This is how the luoshu entered the
world. The first textual reference to the luoshu is in the writings of
Zhuang Zi (369–286 B.C.E.). Mentions of the luoshu are not always
easy to identify because they sometimes masquerade as references
to something else, such as the “Nine Halls” or “Nine Palaces.”
Mystical Beginnings on the Shell of a Tortoise

The origins of Chinese history are conceived in legends, myths, and folk
tales. A variety of semi-divine cultural heroes are believed to have mas-
tered and taught the Chinese people the arts and skills necessary for
their civilization. One of these heroes, thought to have flourished in the
third millennium B.C.E., was Fuxi, the inventor of fishing and hunting.1
Later in the millennium social order was established through the efforts
of the three Sage Kings: Yao, Shun, and Yu the Great (d. 2197 B.C.E.),
founder of the Xia Dynasty (ca. 2000–1500 B.C.E.) 2
9
In the acquisition of knowledge, both Fuxi and the Sage King Yu

were subjected to strange visitations. While Fuxi was standing on the
banks of the Yellow River, a “dragon-horse” confronted him. On the
horse’s flank was a cruciform configuration of the numbers from 1
through 10. Within its footprints, the strange beast left eight diagrams or
characters composed of line segments. The number configuration has
become known as the hetu [River diagram] and the footprint characters,
the bagua or Eight Trigrams. Later in the Zhou dynasty (1122–255 B.C.E.),
it is believed, Wenwang, the father of the founder of the dynasty, devel-
oped and extended the Eight Trigrams into the system of sixty-four
hexagrams which were incorporated into the Yijing [Book of Changes].3
Under the threat of a devastating flood, villagers sought out Yu, who
was noted for his power over the water. Yu used his knowledge and
directed the people to build canals in addition to dikes to control the
waters. As we are told:
He drained off the rivers and opened up the nine outlets;

he governed their channels and directed them into the nine
courses. He opened the five lakes and settled the eastern sea.4
Yu tamed the waters by channeling them, whereas his father, who

merely tried to hold them back through the use of dikes, failed at the
task. As Yu stood on the banks of the Luo River, a tributary of the Huang
He or Yellow River, a tortoise emerged from the water bearing on the
underplate of its shell (plastron) an array of symbols representing num-
bers—it was the luoshu.
Both the hetu and the luoshu were magical diagrams from which,
the ancient Chinese thought, an understanding of the universe and
humankind’s place in it could be discerned. See figure 2.1. They
believed that all mathematics and science evolved from the number pat-
terns contained in these diagrams. The flood story itself is an allegorical
reference to the belief that civilization emerged from a watery chaos, a
belief held by many ancient peoples.
While these legends are certainly fanciful, they lend an aura of rever-
ence to their subjects and were most probably composed many years
after both the hetu and luoshu configurations were recognized and used
for significant purposes. These stories still shed some light on early
Chinese culture and civilization. Both Fuxi and Yu received their special
knowledge while working on or near the Yellow River. Early Chinese civ-
ilization developed along rivers and on river flood plains, particularly
The Chinese Origins of the Luoshu 11
FIGURE 2.1
those of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. The Yellow River is so named
because the large quantity of yellow loess soil in its waters makes it look
yellow.5 Annual river inundation enriches the soil and benefits agriculture
but also poses hazards to riverbank dwellers. Floods must be controlled
with dikes and channels. In ancient communities located near large
flood-prone rivers, one of the main tasks of the ruling bureaucracy was
to organize and conduct public works projects devoted to water control
and conservation. Such societies have been termed “hydraulic societies.”6
China is a classic example of a hydraulic society, so it is not surprising
that Fuxi’s and Yu’s revelations were associated with water—perhaps it
could be said that their knowledge emerged from the water itself.
Together with the unicorn, the dragon, and the phoenix, the tortoise
is one of the “four spiritually endowed creatures” designated in the Book
of Rites. For the Chinese, this animal has always been a highly enigmatic
and symbolic creature associated with strength, endurance, and immor-
tality. Cultural heroes in their quests to achieve harmony or peace for
the empire were often accompanied by a tortoise. The creature’s shell
was viewed as a model of the universe, the curved dome of the top rep-
resenting the heavens and the flat, squarish underplate, the Earth.7
Further, the plastron or underplate was partitioned along natural fea-
tures into twenty-four regions correlated to the twenty-four divisions of
the Chinese agricultural calendar. Ancient diviners cast such shells into
fires, prognosticating fortunes from the resulting network of cracks.
Later during the early Han Dynasty (ca. 200 B.C.E.), divination devices,
game boards, and ceremonial ritual mirrors were modeled on the shape
and pattern of the tortoise shell.8
The Earliest References to the Luoshu

The earliest references to the luoshu are incomplete and sporadic. This is
understandable given that the use and interpretation of this number array
was considered sacred, ritual practice. Knowledge of such rituals was
reserved for a few select individuals, members of the priestly royal
bureaucracy. Certainly, knowledge of the luoshu conferred on its posses-
sor respect and esteem, social rewards highly coveted and closely
guarded in Chinese society. Quite simply, those with knowledge of the
luoshu kept it secret. Further, whatever information was actually recorded
went through a “burning of the books” movement, an intellectual cleans-
ing, ordered by the first Qin emperor, Qin Shihuangdi in 213 B.C.E.9 Qin
supposedly spared spiritual and occult writing; however, during the Sui
Dynasty (590–618 A.D.), its second emperor, Yang Di, an ardent Confucian
intent on oxthodoxy, ordered the destruction of all occult books in the
year 605 in order to lessen the hold of superstition on the Chinese peo-
ple. Despite these obstacles of secrecy and censorship, scraps of infor-
mation on the early history of the luoshu can still be gathered.
Initial mentions of this magic square appear during the Warring
States Period, the fifth through third century B.C.E., a time of political
strife and social unrest for the Chinese empire. This troubled era wit-
nessed a flowering of philosophical speculation akin to that taking place
in the Hellenic world at the same time. Wise, thoughtful people, in seek-
ing a cure for the societal disunity around them, examined the nature of
human beings and the universe as a whole as well as their relationships
to each other, and sought theories and practices that would ensure har-
mony. It was from their deliberations that the ethical, philosophical, and
many of the cosmological doctrines that have shaped traditional China
arose. For example, Confucianism, Mohism, and Daoism were founded
during the Warring States Period.10
Confucianism, which stresses human relationships and ethics, in gen-
eral, diverted attention from the physical world. Mohism stressed utili-
tarianism, advocated asceticism, and urged world understanding based
on observation and logical argumentation. Daoism, a more mystical phi-
losophy, contends that humans live in a delicate balance with nature in
a vast organistic cosmos. Every being and inanimate object possesses a
consciousness that functions in accordance with the consciousness of all
other objects. This doctrine of balance and harmony was enunciated in
the classical text, Yijing (though it is essentially a Confucian text).
Daoism readily assimilated existing shamanistic traditions and divination
beliefs and practices and maintained elaborate mythologies and pan-
theons. Besides serious explorations in traditional medicine and
alchemy, the religion also advocated the use of magic talismans,
numerology, and charms.11 It is within the embrace of Daoist traditions
that the luoshu eventually gained popular recognition.
The very first textual reference to the luoshu appears to be in the
writings of Zhuang Zi (369–286 B.C.E.), one of the founders of Daoism.12
He mentions the “nine luo,” a phrase which has been assumed to be a
succinct reference to the nine numbers of the magic square.13 Zou Yan
(305–240 B.C.E.), the patron of Chinese magicians, is believed to have
manipulated the luoshu. In the second century B.C.E., the astronomer/
mathematician Xu Yue published Shushu jiyi [Memoir on Some
Traditions of the Mathematical Art]. In his work, Xu discusses the “Nine
Halls Calculation” and refers to the “nine palaces” which are the entries
of the luoshu.
Later in the first century B.C.E., there appeared Dadai liji [Record of
Rites by the Dai the Elder], a book proporting to describe ancient
Chinese rites from the Zhou dynasty. In its Mingtang [Bright Hall] chap-
ter, the author discusses a cosmic temple, the Mingtang, an architectural
model and ceremonial platform embodying many of the cosmological
concepts of early China.14 His description of the Mingtang’s nine rooms
includes a set of numbers: 2, 9, 4; 7, 5, 3; 8, 1, 6, where, it is assumed,
each number was associated with a particular room, each set of num-
bers to be read from right to left. Thus, under the prescribed ordering
the luoshu emerges:
4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6
The luoshu would continue to exist under the guise of the Mingtang’s
“Nine Halls” or “Nine Palaces” diagram for many years. Records indicate
that the astronomer-mathematician Zhang Heng (78–139 C.E.) used the
“Nine Halls” diagram in his system of divination.
In the sixth century, the Daoist Zhen Luan, commenting on the
Shushu jiyi, provides us with a further description of the “Nine Halls”
diagram by noting that: “two and four are the shoulders, six and eight
the feet, three the left and seven the right, nine the head, one the shoe
and five the center.”15 Thus he anthropomorphically depicts the luoshu.
But it is believed that Zhen borrowed this description from a much ear-
lier work, The Classic of the Nine Halls of the Yellow Emperor, which has
since been lost. Finally in the tenth century, Zheng Xuan (ca. 906–989),
a Daoist scholar, published diagrams of both the luoshu and the hetu.
See figure 2.2. He illustrated the numerical entries of each diagram by a
series of white and black dots. Sometimes individual series were con-
nected. These dots were supposed to represent knots on a cord, a
method of numerical communication attributed to the ancient Chinese.16
This pseudo-archaic mode of depicting the luoshu and hetu diagrams
was intended to lend them an air of antiquity.
FIGURE 2.2
In the twelfth century, Cai Yuanding (1145–1198), a respected geo-

mancer (practitioner of fengshui) and disciple of the eminent neo-
Confucian scholar Zhu Xi, acknowledged the “Nine Halls” diagram and
the luoshu as being one in the same. Zhu lent his support to Cai’s con-
clusion and it became widely accepted.17 However, by the time of the
Song Dynasty (960–1279), both the luoshu and the hetu had already lost
much of their cosmic significance; they survived mainly as talismans and
occult diviners’ devices.
The Traditional Method of Constructing

the Luoshu
If we take the sequence of numbers from 1 to 9 and form them into a
square using a lexicographical ordering, either that employed in the
West, which reads from left to right, top to bottom, or the Chinese order-
ing that reads from top to bottom, right to left, we arrive at a “natural
square” of numbers. Using the Chinese ordering, the square shown in
figure 2.3 will be produced.
7 4 1
8 5 2
9 6 3
FIGURE 2.3
Examination of this array reveals that the sums of the diagonal entries
and those of the second column and second row are all the same, 15.
It is almost a magic square! But how to rearrange the numbers so that
all rows, columns, and diagonals add up to 15? How did the Chinese
do it?
The answer to this question is found in the mathematical work Xugu
zhaiqi suanfu [Continuation of Ancient Mathematical Methods for
Elucidating the Strange (Properties of Numbers)] (ca. 1275) written by
the mathematician Yang Hui.18 At that time, Yang studied the luoshu
and several other magic squares merely as mathematical curiosities. He
called the numerical configurations zonghengtu, literally “transverse and
longitudinal diagrams”; a term technically descriptive but devoid of
magical implications. Yang begins his discussion of magic squares by
demonstrating the traditional method of construction for the luoshu.19

First, the natural square for the numbers 1 to 9 is constructed, then it is
rotated 45 degrees counterclockwise so that the 1 is at the top and the
9 on the bottom. See figure 2.4(a). The numbers at the corners of the
array are then interchanged figure 2.4(b). Now, the resulting configura-
tion approximates Zhang Heng’s association of the luoshu with the
extremities of the human body. In fact, Yang quotes Zhang’s description
at this juncture of his demonstration. Finally, the numbers are com-
pressed back into the form of a square resulting in the luoshu, figure
2.4(c)
1 9
4 2 4 2 4 9 2
7 5 3 3 5 7 3 5 7
8 6 8 6
8 1 6
9 1
(a) (b) (c)

FIGURE 2.4
The luoshu’s legendary origins extend back into prehistory and asso-
ciate it with prestigious cultural heroes. During the Zhou dynasty, it
played a part in imperial rituals and in the Warring States Period,
became a focus of cosmological interest. Under the guise of the “Nine
Halls” diagram, it was used for consultation and divination in Han times
(206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). As a mystical symbol and charm, the luoshu was
revered within Daoism. Given that the luoshu occupied a position of
central importance within Chinese spiritual and metaphysical thinking
for a period of over a thousand years, just what was its significance to
the Chinese people? What did they see in it?
3
Yinyang, Wuxing,
and Key Numbers
in the Luoshu
Nine and five have special significance in the luoshu; nine repre-
sents the total number of cells in the luoshu array, and the num-
ber five occupies the important central position in the square.
These same two numbers figure prominently in Chinese geogra-
phy, cosmology, and metaphysics. Early Chinese writings are
filled with references to groups of nine objects and many Chinese
classifications are based on five.
The “Universal Way,” or Dao, expresses itself in the interaction
of two primal forces that are complementary opposites—the yin
and the yang. The luoshu lends itself to yinyang interpretations
because odd numbers are classified as yang and even numbers
are classified as yin.
Wuxing theory is the theory that nature is controlled by five
processes or “phases.” Each phase is named for an essential mate-
rial: water, fire, metal, wood, and earth. Since the numbers 1
through 9 were also associated with particular phases, the luoshu
yields many wuxing interpretations.
For the ancient Chinese, the luoshu represented a map of cosmic har-
mony, a chart for delineating interactions with the gods, heaven, and
19
earthly institutions. It was an adaptable symbol of the Chinese world

view that incorporated major forces and shapers of destiny. The inter-
pretation of the luoshu’s individual numerical entries and their spatial
relationships with each other were carefully correlated to reflect popu-
lar cosmological beliefs, particularly those concerning the theories of
yinyang and wuxing [five phases]. In their reading of the luoshu, divin-
ers and astrologers could discern the potentials for various courses of
action, predict reactions, and prescribe the best path to follow. The
luoshu offered ways to seek harmony and balance both within the
realm of societal interactions and the world of nature at large.
“Nineness” and “Fiveness” in the Luoshu

Numerology in China has always operated at two levels: the traditional
and the popular. Sometimes when they meet, these beliefs reinforce each
other; at other times, they conflict. At the popular level, the magical mean-
ings of numbers usually have been defined on the basis of homonymy
and sound of the words that name them. This means that speakers of dif-
ferent dialects may attribute different mystical meanings to the same num-
bers. In Cantonese, the character for “two” is pronounced yi [YEE] which
is also similar to the pronunciation for the characters which designate
“easy” and “honor.” This makes 2 an auspicious number. In contrast, the
character for “four” is pronounced si [SEE] which sounds like the charac-
ter for “death,” as a consequence, 4 is considered a most unlucky num-
ber for the Cantonese and is to be avoided.1 At the traditional level, which
dominated Chinese thinking for thousands of years, numbers represent
categories with particular qualities into which actions and phenomena can
be conveniently sorted.2 The practice of specifying social obligations in
numbered groups thus helping to promote discipline and orthodoxy also
exists in cultures outside of China: in the West, the Judaic-Christian tradi-
tion rests on observance of the “Ten Commandments”; in Islam, “Six
Articles of Faith” are upheld and “Five Pillars” of obligation are pursued;
and in Buddhism, the faith is built on “Four Noble Truths” and salvation
or liberation is achieved by pursuing an “Eightfold Path” of proper views.
But the tendency to organize concepts in numbered categories is a most
striking feature of Chinese thought. For example, we encounter such
groupings as: “The Gang of Four,” the culprits of the Cultural Revolution
(1966–1976); the “Four Wheels, the desired level of modern economic
affluence (marked by the attainment of a sewing machine, a watch, and
a bicycle); and the “Five Guarantees” of the Communist Party.
Yinyang, Wuxing, and Key Numbers in the Luoshu 21
Two numbers, in particular, dominate the conception and operation

of the luoshu. They are 9 and 5. In the Chinese situation, it would
appear that the significance of the numbers 9 and 5 was based on
mathematical considerations and then imposed on metaphysical and
cosmological theories. Historically the Chinese were the first people to
develop a position-based, decimal numeration system.3 Oracle-bone
inscriptions from the Yin period (ca. 14th–11th century B.C.E.) attest to
this fact. By the time of the Warring States period (475–221 B.C.E.), this
numeration system had been formalized in the configurations of rod
numerals so named because they originated from the physical manip-
ulation of wooden or ivory rods (small sticks) in a computational
scheme. Nine primary symbols represented the numbers 1 to 9, which,
of course, are the counting numerals. Zero, as a numeral, is a later his-
torical acquisition, although its function as a placeholder was well
understood and utilized at this time.4 Thus the numbers 1 through 9 are
sufficient to count all objects.5 Nine represents completeness, fulfill-
ment, and longevity—all desirable attributes. In old China one finds a
reckoning of time based on “Nine Cycles” where each cycle represents
twenty years; the imperial civil service was comprised of “Nine Grades”
of Mandarins who, in turn, were rewarded for their services by a sys-
tem based on “Nine Classes of Merit” that they could earn. In particu-
lar, the number 9 was associated with the emperor: royal gifts were
presented in groups of nine and imperial submission was indicated by
kneeling three times before the emperor and touching one’s head to
the ground nine times—the famous or infamous “kowtow”; the
emperor’s throne in the Tai Hedian Palace of the Forbidden City was
adorned with nine carved dragons; and all imperial palaces had to be
constructed on a podium nine feet above the surrounding surface.
Grouping by nines was particularly popular in Han times for discussing
geographical features. References in early Chinese literature can be
found for: the “nine rivers,” the “nine marshes,” the “nine branches of
the Yellow River,” and the “nine strategic mountain locations.” One
description of the accomplishments of Yu the Great (he of luoshu tor-
toise fame as described above) attributed to Prince Jin of the Zhou
dynasty abounds with “nines”:
[Yu the Great] stamped up high the nine mountains; dredged

the nine rivers; embanked the nine marshes; flourished the nine
swamps, cleared up the nine highlands, inhabited the nine far
corners afar, and united the Four Seas.6
Even human geography (in other words, anatomy) at that time followed
a similar classification system based on nine in which was found the
“nine divisions of the body,” the “nine viscera,” and the “nine orifices.”
Five was also a significant number for the ancient Chinese. The psy-
chological basis for a decimal number system is usually attributed to the
anatomical fact that humans possess ten fingers. In primitive counting sit-
uations, a one-to-one correspondence was established between an indi-
vidual’s fingers and the collection of objects under concern. When
counting on your fingers, there is a natural break at 5 when you reach the
end of one hand; thus, you really count to five and then repeat the count.
The quantity 10 can be conceived of as 5 + 5.7 In the Chinese case, this
theory is supported by the graphic configuration of their counting rod
numerals which rely on the accumulation of simple tally strokes to rep-
resent the numbers up to 5 at which point a code symbol is introduced
for the number 6 and carried through to 9. See figure 3.1. The numerals
are written on the basis of fives: 1, 2, . . . 5, 5 and 1, 5 and 2, . . . .8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
FIGURE 3.1
Similarly, when the bead abacus was introduced in China during the Ming
Dynasty (1368–1644) to replace the counting rod scheme, a total of 10
within a vertical column position was obtained by manipulating two, 5-
valued beads. The Chinese abacus of today retains this feature and differs
from other popular abacuses which use one bead to represent a 10.9 On
a mathematical note, in the sequence of numbers from 1 to 9, 5 holds the
middle position. Thus, conceptually, symbolically, and operationally—the
number 5 represents the center. It occupies the “middle position,” desig-
nates “balance,” and institutes a link that holds the other numbers in the
sequence together. At times in Chinese history, the number 5 was associ-
ated with imperial power. For example, the emperor’s robes bore the
image of a dragon—only the emperor’s dragon could have five claws,
lesser dragons were limited to four claws. Within Chinese numerology 5
is a most auspicious number and many things have been classified
according to five: the “Five Loves,” “Five Punishments,” “Five Weapons,”
“Five Musical Instruments,” and so forth. Sinologist Wolfram Eberhard has
tallied over 100 five-based categories.10
The “nineness” of the luoshu is obvious in its configuration of nine

cells and nine numbers. The total sum of its entries is 45: 1 + 2 + 3 +
. . . + 9 = 45; if the digits comprising 45 are then added together 4 + 5,
the sum is 9. Thus one returns to or achieves completion at 9. But a
more comprehensive association with “nineness” is obtained through
various correlational analogies. During the Warring States period, schol-
ars tended to divide things into groups of nine equal units of which the
center unit held a position of special importance. This plan of organi-
zation may have been modeled on the concept of a rural village where
eight families shared a central well. A feudal lord lived surrounded by
eight vassals who benefited from his protection. Yu the Great was cred-
ited with dividing China into nine provinces, of which the central one
contained the capital and the emperor. The Shujing [Historical Classic],
attributed to Confucius, contains the Hong Fan or “Great Plan” chapter.
This writing was divided into nine sections describing the duties and
responsibilities of a sovereign. The first four sections relate how royal
perfection might be achieved, the fifth and central section describes the
ideal ruler and his attributes, while the last four sections focus on how
to maintain royal status. In an ordering of nine, the essence of the
emperor was associated with the fifth or central position. The concept
of nineness and China’s place in the universe was further formalized in
the writings of Zou Yan (ca. 350–270 B.C.E.), a contemporary of Mencius,
who theorized that China was one of nine territories comprising a con-
tinent and that nine continents comprised the world, each separated
from the other by nine oceans, and from the central continent and the
central territory there arose a great mountain that formed the cosmic
axis around which the universe revolved.11 China, of course, occupied
the central position in this scheme—it was the “Middle Kingdom.”
Heaven also was believed to be divided into nine regions with the
Divine Ruler living in the center. Nine mountain ranges and nine rivers
were believed to interlace China and there were nine directions for pur-
poses of orientation.
The luoshu could be fixed to any of these schemes. With its nine
cells associated with the nine regions, halls, or palaces of Heaven, it
became a celestial map and the basis of Mingtang ritual. Correlated with
the “nine provinces,” the “nine rivers,” or the “nine mountain ranges,”
the luoshu became a symbolic analogue for China. More than one of
these interpretations could come into play at the same time.
Figure 3.2(a) depicts the nine original provinces of China as pre-
sented in the Shujing. This map was made by nineteenth-century
FIGURE 3.2(a)
Xu Ji Yan
W Yong Yu Qing E
Liang Jing Yang
S
FIGURE 3.2(b)
Western missionaries who employed their own system of transliterating

Chinese names. Figure 3.2(b) shows the corresponding luoshu map
employing the same provinces with names given in the Pinyin system.
In order to facilitate a comparison between the traditional geography of
China and its symbolic luoshu rendering, the square is presented with
the direction of north at its top. As discussed below, this was not the
usual directional orientation for the luoshu.
The prominence of nine in the luoshu actually gives it a large claim.
It means that the luoshu can be seen as the basis for all mathematics
and science in China. Records of the Zhou dynasty (1027–256 B.C.E.)
contain the earliest evidence of educational curricula. Children at this
period were expected to study the “nine calculations of mathematics.”
This phrase has been interpreted in several ways but one of the most
dominant understandings is that they were expected to know multipli-
cation and division facts up to and including the nine times table. In tra-
ditional Chinese literature, the nine times table or “the table of nines”
has become a synonym for mathematics.12 Thus the luoshu viewed as a
table of nine numbers could easily be associated with “the table of
nines” and the origins of mathematics.
While the “nineness” of the luoshu establishes the diagram as some-
thing of a map, its “fiveness” quality provides it with a dynamic charac-
ter. The number 5 occupies the key central cell. By virtue of that
position, 5 figures into the calculation for the magic constant more often
than any other number: four times out of eight. It is one of the addends
for one column sum, one row sum, and both diagonal sums. Also, five
times the order of the square, three, provides the magic constant, 15.
Similarly, the number in the central cell multiplied by the order of the
square squared provides the total sum for all the elements of the square.
In the case of the luoshu, this is 45 because: 5 × 32 = 45. But a far more
interesting property of this square involves the sums of the pairs of
outer numbers arranged symmetrically along any straight line through
its center: (4, 6), (3, 7), (9, 1), and (8, 2). In each case the sum is
32 + 1 = 10 and the mean is 5. In general, for any magic square of order
n where the sum of each of its symmetric pairs is n2 + 1, the square is
said to be associative. The luoshu is an associative magic square.
See figure 3.3.
S
4 9 2
E 3 5 7 W
8 1 6
FIGURE 3.3
Thus 5 is the element that balances the square. In its pivotal position
one could associate it with either China or the emperor.13 Figure 3.3
also indicates a geographical orientation based on five principle direc-
tions that the Chinese imposed on the square: south at the top, north
at the bottom, east on the left, west on the right, and the center in the
middle.14 By placing north at the bottom of maps, the Chinese felt
they were “putting the cold wind” to their backs and facing the
warmth of the south. In traditional China, this principle was followed
in the architectural design of buildings and living compounds—the
main entrance always faced south. For those of us accustomed to a
system based on four principal directions, the employment of five
directions may seem a bit strange, but after a little contemplation, this
practice makes perfect sense.
Later commentators have pointed out that 5 is embedded in all ele-
ments of the luoshu and when it is subtracted, the magic square will col-
lapse. If we subtract 5 from each element a magic square results whose
magic sum is zero. See figure 3.4.
–1 4 –3
–2 0 2
3 –4 1
FIGURE 3.4
Actually what results is a magic square formed from the integers –4

to 4.
Yinyang: The Potential to Become

Quite early in their cosmological thinking, Chinese scholars noted the
dualistic rhythms of the world around them: night followed by day; the
sun succeeded by the moon in the sky; the dry season followed by the
wet season; planting giving rise to harvests; and birth followed by death.
In a sense, human existence took place in a realm of opposites where one
state of being or status depended on another: wet, dry; hot, cold; male,
female; strong, weak; active, lethargic; and so on. The contrasting quali-
ties of each state of being and its alternate state established a potential for
change, a latent energy—hot becoming cold, cold becoming hot if
sources of stimuli are removed. All things thus existed in a perpetual state
of flux. In their attempt to understand the conditions of change, the
Chinese developed the system of yinyang, according to which the uni-
verse is ruled by Heaven through means of a process called the Dao (“the
Universal Way”). Heaven acting through the Dao expresses itself in the
interaction of two primal forces: the yin and the yang.15 Just how this was
accomplished is described more fully in the “Creation Account” given in
Huainanzi [Book of (the Prince of) Huai-nan] (ca. 122 B.C.E.):
Before heaven and earth had taken form all was vague and amorphous.
Therefore it was called the Great Beginning. The Great Beginning
produced emptiness and emptiness produced the universe. The universe
produced material-force which had limits. That which was clear and
light drifted up to become heaven, while that which was heavy and
turbid solidified to become earth. It was very easy for the pure, fine
material to come together but extremely difficult for the heavy, turbid
material to solidify. Therefore heaven was completed first and earth
assumed shape after. The combined essences of heaven and earth
became the yin and yang, the concentrated essences of the yin and yang
became the four seasons, and the scattered essences of the four seasons
became the myriad creatures of the world. After a long time the hot
force of the accumulated yang produced fire and the essence of the fire
force became the sun; the cold force of the accumulated yin became
water and the essence of the water force became the moon. The essence
of the excess force of the sun and moon became the stars and planets.
Heaven received the sun, moon, and stars while earth received water
and soil.
When heaven and earth were joined in emptiness and all was
unwrought simplicity, then without having been created, things came
into being. This was the Great Oneness. All things issued from this
oneness but all became different, being divided into the various species
of fish, birds, and beasts. . . . Therefore while a thing moves it is called
living, and when it dies it is said to be exhausted. All are creatures.
They are not the uncreated creator of things, for the creator of things
is not among things. If we examine the Great Beginning of antiquity we
find that man was born out of nonbeing to assume form in being. Having
form, he is governed by things. But he who can return to that from which
he was born and become as though formless is called a “true man.” The
true man is he who has never become separated from the Great Oneness.16
Quite simply, the yin and yang can be considered a synchronized

two-force system for change. The yang, or male force, was the source of
heat, light, and dynamic vitality and was associated with the sun,
Heaven, and the seasons of Spring and Summer; in contrast, yin, the
female force, flourished in darkness, cold, and solitude and was associ-
ated with the moon and the seasons of Autumn and Winter.17 In con-
junction, these two forces influenced all things and were present
individually or together in every physical object and situation. Each
force, as it reached its full strength, produced its opposite and the two
continued to succeed each other in a never-ending cycle. This waxing
and waning produced a perpetual state of change. While conceived in
opposition the forces are not antagonistic but complementary; they
depend on each other for their very existence and fulfillment. Yin and
yang have been described as “the exhalation and inhalation of the uni-
verse.” This view of the universe as a living, breathing entity is compat-
ible with the idea of a universe in a constant state of flux or oscillation.
Yinyang theory provides a classification system for objects but it
should be noted that their designation within the system is temporally
relative and depends on the particular relationship under consideration.
For example, a man relative to a woman is yang but a man relative to
Heaven or the gods is yin to the yang Heaven or the gods. Thus, in any
yinyang analysis two factors must be taken into consideration: the
nature of the objects in question and their relationship to each other.
Initial yinyang designations are assigned according to some definable
characteristics. For example, animals are designated yin or yang
depending on how they rise up from a prone position: animals, such as
horses, who rise front end first are yang; whereas, posterior risers, for
example camels, are yin. In the case of numbers, odd numbers are yang
and even numbers are yin.
Since the luoshu represented a state of harmony and cosmic equi-
librium, yin and yang forces had to be balanced and had to comple-
ment each other. Zheng Xuan visually indicated this balance by
representing yin numbers (2, 4, 6, 8) with black dots and yang numbers
(1, 3, 5, 7, 9) with white dots. In the whole configuration there is an
even number (four) of yin numbers and an odd number (five) of yang
numbers. The sum of all the numbers in the diagram is 45, a number
whose digits 4 and 5 represent yin and yang numbers, respectively. Yin
and yang also balance the largest factors of 45, 9 and 15. When the dig-
its of 15 are added together they give 6, a yin number; if the 6 is then
added to yang 9, the sum gives the magic constant, 15.
Chinese scholars applied the yinyang system to directions as well.
The cardinal directions plus the center, as the “strong” directions, were
assigned yang numbers: north, 1; south, 9; the center, 5; east, 3, and
west, 7; this left the weaker yin numbers for the subcardinal, or “weak,”
directions: southwest, 2; southeast, 4; northwest, 6, and northeast, 8.
These orientations are shown in figure 3.5.
Southeast South Southwest
4 9 2
East 3 5 7 West
8 1 6
Northeast North Northeast

FIGURE 3.5
Still more specific orientations could be imposed on the square of

numbers. Maps attributed yin or yang essences to mountains, which are
strong and immovable, were considered yang and represented by odd

numbers on maps, while rivers, sinuous, yielding, and yin, were repre-
sented by even numbers. During the Han Dynasty, such a scheme cate-
gorized the “five sacred mountains” of the time and the “four principal
rivers”: the number 5 stood for Song-Shan in Henan, Central China; 3
stood for Tai-Shan in Shandong, East China; 7 for Hua-Shan in Shaanxi,
West China; 1 for Heng-Shan in Hebei, North China; and 9 for Huo-Shan
in Anhui, which is considered the South Sacred Mountain. These moun-
tains possessed a special cosmological significance. Ascending to Heaven
and shrouded in mist or covered with snow, their peaks were mysterious
places where the gods dwelt. They were gatherers of rain and bringers of
life to the arid agricultural lands of China. To the Chinese they became
conduits of yang energy from Heaven to Earth. As for the rivers: 4 stood
for the Huai in the Southeast; 2, the San Jiang in the Southwest; 8 the Ji
of the Northeast; and 6, the Yellow River found in the Northwest.18
Up to this point in our examination, the luoshu diagram has been
connected with static objects and concepts in which the normally
dynamic yinyang forces are in equilibrium and momentarily at rest.
However, the theory of yinyang implies change and naturally lends
itself to correlations with seasonal and temporal changes. Heat and light
were most prominent in the summer, so this season was associated with
yang; winter, being cold and damp, was yin.
Cycles of change were imposed on the luoshu scheme via a theory
of complementary numbers. Since the Chinese conceived and employed
a decimal number system, in their theory of numbers, they considered
10 the complete number in which the value of each of the first nine
numbers was perfected. Thus, each number was attracted to its com-
plement within 10: so the number 1 “moved towards” 9, 2 “moved
towards” 8, and so forth. Even though odd numbers were primarily
yang and even numbers primarily yin (remember the relative nature of
yinyang designations), their complements had to possess opposite
yinyang status—thus the complement of a yang number would be yin
regardless of whether it was even or odd. The diagrams in figure 3.6
below show several mutations of the luoshu. In each instance the phys-
ical orientation of the parent square with south at the top remains the
same: (a) the luoshu at equilibrium; (b) a yang cycle where yin ele-
ments (circled) are replaced by yang complements; (c) a yin cycle with
yang elements (circled) replaced by yin complements; and (d) yin and
yang at full energy level beginning decline. See figure 3.6.
The term yinyang is composed of two Chinese characters: one
meaning “shade” and the other “sunshine”—the idea of “contrast” is
4 9 2 6 9 8
3 5 7 3 5 7
8 1 6 2 1 4
(a) (b)
4 1 2 6 9 8
7 5 3 7 5 7
8 9 6 8 9 6
(c) (d)
FIGURE 3.6
obvious. Its origins are attributed to Boyang Fu (ca. 8th century B.C.E.)
who is believed to have associated the two metaphysical forces with
earthquakes. A yinyang theory was further enunciated in the Yijing
[Book of Changes] but was more fully formalized in the works of Zou
Yan (ca. 350–270 B.C.E.) and he is usually credited with being the
founder of the theory. Daoism readily absorbed yinyang considerations
into its set of beliefs and practices, particularly those involving alchemy
and medicine. Even in the present day, traditional Chinese medicine
rests on the concept of yinyang and the maintenance of bodily harmony
requires the balancing of yinyang forces. The rhythmic form of Chinese
exercise, taijiquan (seen practiced in parks in China, the U.S. and
throughout the world), functions on the same basis.
Wuxing: Directions for Change

The tumultuous nature of the world at large is explained in part by a
passage in the Zuo zhuan [Master Zuo’s Enlargement of the Spring and
Autumn Annals] (ca. 5th century B.C.E.):
They are Six Qi in nature. When they descend they give rise to the
Five Tastes; display themselves in the Five Colors, and are evidenced
by the Five Sounds. When they are in excess, they generate the Six
Diseases. The Six Qi are yin and yang, wind and rain, dark and light.
They divide to form the Four Seasons, showing the Five Periods in
sequence. When they are in excess, they bring about calamities.
Excess in yin results in cold diseases; excess in yang, hot diseases;
excess in wind, the diseases of the extremities; excess in rain, the
diseases of the stomach; excess in dark, delusions; excess in light,
diseases of the heart.19
Qi refers to primal essences from which all order in the universe pro-
ceeds. Gradually there emerged a theory that all of nature was con-
trolled by “Five Processes” or “Five Agents,” Wuxing. Zou Yan stabilized
the system and specified the “Five Agents”: Water, Fire, Metal, Wood,
and Earth. The term wuxing is difficult to translate. In the sixteenth cen-
tury, Jesuit missionaries interpreted it as a theory of the “Five Elements”
similar to the “Four Elements” theory held by Europeans of the time.20
But the components of wuxing are not distinct substances but rather
types of processes or transformations that enable change. Perhaps a bet-
ter designation of the system is that of the “Five Phases.”
The names of the phases are materials common and necessary in
daily life: Water, Fire, Metal, Wood, and Earth. Each term does not des-
ignate the object itself but rather a type of transformation associated
with the object. Water indicates energy descending, a phase in an
energy cycle at which the subject has obtained a maximum point of rest.
Fire shoots energy upward, under its influence energy achieves a peak.
Metal indicates a dense, inward implosion of energy. Wood designates
growth, an expansion of energy in all directions. Finally, Earth energy
moves cyclically and horizontally about an axis. Scholars of the period
envisioned the vibrations of various phenomena and correlated them
with the “Five Phases,” creating numerous categorical groupings of five,
some of which are listed in table 3.1 below.
These are but a sampling of the categories formed according to wux-
ing theory. Some of the correlations are obvious, for example: Summer
(Heat)–South –Red (the soil of southern China is red in color)–Scorched;
but others, such as Fall–West–Rotten, we can only understand within the
milieu of ancient China.
The principal counting numbers, 1 through 9, were also associated
with the “Five Phases” according to the following scheme:
Water Fire Wood Metal Earth

1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9
TABLE 3.1
Fire Earth Metal Water Wood

Seasons Summer Transition Fall Winter Spring
between periods
Direction South Center West North East
Color Red Yellow White Black Green
Taste Bitter Sweet Pungent Salty Sour
Smell Scorched Fragrant Rotten Putrid Rancid
Creatures Feathered Naked Furred Shelled Scaly
Sounds Zhi Gong Shang Yü Jue21
Organs Heart Stomach Lung Kidney Liver
Planets Mars Saturn Venus Mercury Jupiter
Grains Beans Panicled Hemp Millet Wheat22
millet
Sense Organ Tongue Mouth Nose Ear Eye
Domesticated
Animal Fowl Ox Dog Pig Sheep
Each pair is balanced with a yin number and a yang number; 5 retains
a special status—first, because it is represented by a single number and,
second, because the numbers within each pair differ by 5. Adherents of
the theory of wuxing also categorized numbers as “heavenly” (1 to 5)
and “earthly” (6 to 10). Earthly numbers were derived from heavenly
numbers: 1 + 5 = 6, 2 + 5 = 7, 3 + 5 = 8, and so on. Thus, Earth, 5, is
part of each season.
In a paradigm of change the “Five Phases” had to be related in some
way to each other—they had to interact and yield an ordinal structure.
A basic schema for change, especially in an agriculturally based society,
could be modeled on the seasons as shown in figure 3.7.
South
(Summer)
East Center West

(Spring) (Transition) (Autumn)
North
(Winter)
FIGURE 3.7
Zou Yan designed his wuxing theory primarily to explain natural phe-
nomena; however, he also developed a system of cosmologically pre-
scribed monarchies around the “Five Phases,” associating the decline of
dynasties with a particular ordering of phases.23 This “conquest” or
“destructive” cycle took place when each of the “Five Phases” conflicted
with or frustrated the following phase and it is explained by the order-
ing: water–fire–metal–wood–earth–water. A rationale for such a con-
quest ordering is that water extinguishes fire, fire melts metal, metal cuts
wood, wood penetrates earth, and earth (soil) absorbs water. Now, if
the luoshu’s numbers are allowed to represent the “Five Phases,” Zou’s
conquest cycle appears. See figure 3.8.
A counterclockwise path originating at the center, 5, spiraling down-
ward and to the right results in the conquest cycle.
Luoshu practitioners could fit such a numbering and cycle to agri-
cultural activities. The Chinese agricultural year began in the early
spring, a period of yang increasing in power, symbolized by the north-
east corner of the luoshu; the numbers 3 and 8, assigned to wood, rep-
resented growing plants. The numbers 4 and 9, in the southeast, stood
for summer and were assigned to metal, perhaps in recognition of the
metal tools employed in cultivation. The numbers 2 and 7, in the south-
west, represented autumn and fire. Autumn may have been the time for
post-harvest burning of the fields. (It should be noted, though, that the
luoshu does not preserve the conventional associations for the direc-
tions south and west, as given in figure 3.1, when arranged as shown in
figure 3.8.) Lastly, 1 and 6, in the northwest stood for winter and water,
perhaps because that was the time of the flooding of fields. Earth, or
soil, was central to all these activities—they revolved around it, thus
S (metal)
4 9 2
E (wood) 3 5 7 W (fire)
(earth)
8 1 6
N (water)
FIGURE 3.8
Fire
Wood Earth
Water Metal
Production Conquest
FIGURE 3.9
within the luoshu the cycle of agriculture, from perspective of the con-
quest cycle, moves counterclockwise around the number 5.
The concept of duality permeated Chinese thinking—if there was a
“conquest” or “destructive” cycle, there should also exist its opposite, a
“productive” or “constructive” cycle. In approximately 135 B.C.E., Dong
Zhongshu (fl. 179–93 B.C.E.) proposed such a cycle: wood–fire–earth–
metal–water–wood: wood is nourished by water; fire is fueled by wood;
earth is enriched by fire; metal is born from the contracting action of
earth, and metal penetrating the earth gives rise to water. Ho Peng-Yoke
has effectively illustrated the relationship of the destructive and con-
structive cycles in a single diagram as shown in figure 3.9.24
The productive cycle can also be found in the luoshu. If the cycle
wood–fire–earth–metal–water is traced out within the magic square of
order three, allowing the central 5 to be a junction or transition point
for each branch of the relationship, a swastika-like path emerges.25 See
figure 3.10. For the Chinese, this path was especially auspicious: it
metal
4 9 2
wood 3 5 7 fire
8 1 6
water
FIGURE 3.10
traced out the character wan, which means “ten thousand things,” and
also “everything,” that is, all material things. Thus, in the luoshu mind-
set, all things resulted from the productive cycle of wuxing.
Allowing for a little fanciful flight of thought—if one conceives of
actual forces flowing from wood to fire, metal to water, and so on within
the framework of the luoshu where 5 is a pivotal element, a torque will
result and a clockwise rotation occurs, just the opposite of the direction
of movement evident in the conquest cycle. The image of the luoshu as
a “cosmic pinwheel” is indeed attractive and could be a subject of future
investigation.
Visualizing the productive cycle in the luoshu configuration places a
stress on the corners of the configuration which can be interpreted as
representing the four corners of the Earth; however, in the original lay-
out, the corner numbers represent intermediate directions and are of
lesser importance than the major directional indicators. An alternate
school of “Five Phases” theory sought to correct this deficiency by align-
ing the “Five Phases” with the five major directions. Indeed, Luxuriant
Dews of the Springs and Autumns stresses this point in its description of
the productive cycle:
Wood produces Fire; Fire produces Earth; Earth produces Metal; Metal
produces Water; and Water produces Wood. This is their father-and-son
relation. Wood dwells on the left, Metal on the right, Fire in the front and
Water behind, with Earth in the middle. This is also their father-and-son
order, each receiving from the other in its turn.26
In order to accommodate this revised theory, a new cosmic diagram

was devised, the hetu.27 While the hetu came into being after the
luoshu, legend attributed it with equally spurious ancient origins and
S Fire
7
2
E 8 3 5 4 9 W
Wood (10) Metal
1
6
N Water
(a) (b)
FIGURE 3.11
mysterious river and creature associations. The pseudo-archaic Daoist

rendering of the diagram is given in figure 3.11(a) with a modern inter-
pretation in figure 3.11(b).
The physical differences between the luoshu and hetu models of the
“Five Phases” theory are telling. The hetu’s cruciform configuration
emphasizes “Five Directions” correlations with the opposing natures of
Fire-Water and Wood-Metal visually stressed. Both the numbers 5 and
10 represent Earth, which for the old Chinese was not an uncommon
practice. Hetu orientations interchange the South and West correlations
used in the luoshu scheme and this revision is followed in the contem-
porary understanding of wuxing structural theory. If paths between
yang numbers and yin numbers, respectively, are traced out, it will be
found that they begin at 5 and spiral outwards in a clockwise direction
with yin moving to the right of the center and yang to the left. The num-
ber 5 becomes the axis of the outward movement and maintains its
strong central position. See figure 3.12. Excluding 5 as an addend, the
S
7
2
E 8 3 5 4 9 W
(10)
1
6
N
FIGURE 3.12
Fire Fire
Wood Earth Metal Wood Earth Metal
Water Water
(a) (b)
FIGURE 3.13
sum of both yin and yang numbers is equal, totaling 20—thus yin and
yang are perfectly balanced.
The productive and conquest cycles are conducted along the arms
of the hetu cross. The direction of flow for the productive cycle is clock-
wise whereas an examination of movement in the conquest cycle does
not reveal an easily identifiable direction. See figure 3.13.
While for many, the hetu provided a more satisfying graphic con-
ception of the “Five Phases” theory than its rival diagram, the luoshu
retained its status as a convenient and approachable repository of
Chinese cosmological doctrines. No doubt, the greater part of this
appeal was due to the diagram’s inherent mathematical properties as a
magic square and its geometric shape, a bounded, finite region, easily
identifiable as the Earth and as China within popular beliefs.
4
The Luoshu in
Cosmic Ritual,
Fortune-Telling, and
Fengshui
The luoshu was connected to the ancient cosmic Mingtang ritual

which took place in temple complexes called Mingtang temples.
The base of the Mingtang temple had to be square and the temple
contained nine rooms, each of which came to be associated with
one of the numbers from 1 to 9. The resulting number array
matches the luoshu. In order to honor the sky god, the emperor
had to follow a prescribed path in the temple, moving from one
room to another each month in a certain order and moving in a
certain direction. Later, Daoist priests emulated a variation of this
path as part of their spiritual practice. It became the Daoist dance
known as the yubu (“steps of Yu”).
The luoshu also became part of various other practices and
devices that were intended to bring harmony or good luck or
reveal information about the future. Practitioners of one ancient
Chinese method of fortune-telling cast a set of rods to determine
which of sixty-four possible “hexagrams” they indicate. The char-
acteristics of the hexagrams were correlated with various cosmi-
cally significant diagrams, including the luoshu. The luoshu can
also be tied to the “Flying Star” system of fengshui. Practitioners of
39
one method of fortune-telling in China use the numbers in a per-

son’s date of birth and place them in the luoshu grid, thus creat-
ing a natal chart that can be interpreted to provide information
about the subject’s personality traits, intellectual abilities, and
prospects for future wealth and fortune.
Talking to the Sky God in Mingtang Temples

The magnificient Temple of Heaven Complex in the Beijing’s southern
suburbs, with its white marble Altar of Heaven and its blue-roofed Hall
of Prayer for the Good Harvest, was constructed in the fifteenth century
by the Yongle Emperor, the third Ming ruler, and served as a platform
from which the sovereign supplicated Heaven seeking reconsecration as
a ruler, absolution for the sins of his people, and the assurance of a
good harvest. When it was built, the temple occupied a strategic posi-
tion at the southern extreme of the city’s north-south axis. Its location
and alignment were chosen to attract yang forces. It was believed that
yin reached its climax at the time of the winter solstice. At this time, the
emperor made a pilgrimage to the Temple of Heaven and through a rit-
ual of prayers, fasting, and sacrifice sought to attract the warm celestial
force of yang needed to draw new crops from the kingdom’s wet soil.
These yang forces would attain their maximum influence in midsummer
after which they declined. The Hall of Prayer’s one entrance faced south
to accommodate the arrival of the sought after yang energy.1
This annual excursion became the paramount ritual function per-
formed by the Son of Heaven. The welfare of China and the endurance
of his dynasty rested on the success, or apparent success, of the
endeavor. The temple complex was a sacrosanct reserve of the
emperor and his retinue—common people were forbidden to tread its
grounds until 1912.2 As instruments of communication with the gods,
the Altar of Heaven and the Hall of Prayer were designed to reflect and
reinforce cosmological beliefs. Both were built upon a circular, three-
tiered platform whose levels stand for humankind, Earth, and Heaven.
At its center, the Altar of Heaven contains a circular marble disc sur-
rounded by concentric circles of marble flagstones distributed outward
in integral multiples of nine; the first concentric circle contains nine
stones, the last eighty-one. Perhaps this dependence on groupings of
nine reflects the topographical numerology of Zou Yan. Zou theorized
that China was composed of nine regions, for instance.3 The blue-
The Luoshu in Cosmic Ritual, Fortune-Telling and Fengshui 41
glazed tile roof of the Hall of Prayer symbolizes Heaven and is sup-
ported by a series of wooden columns. The four innermost columns are
distributed in a square and represent the four seasons. These are sur-
rounded by a circle of twelve columns, one for each month of the year.
Lastly, an outer circle of twelve columns represents the twelve hours of
the Chinese day. Thus, the temple displays features that represent both
time and space—it is a cosmic temple and, as such, is the descendant
of an ancient tradition extending back to the Zhou era—the Mingtang
temple tradition.
Much has been written on the existence and use of Mingtang tem-
ples in ancient China; often the information given is speculative and
contentious.4 Agreement, however, can be reached on the following
facts relevant to our discussion of the luoshu:
1. Mingtang temple complexes did exist. Archeological findings

support this premise.5
2. These temples reflected the Chinese people’s perception of their
place in the universe and their dependence on cosmic law.
3. Mingtang beliefs and rituals influenced the development of an
imperial political ideology based on recognizing the supreme sta-
tus of the ruler.
In the earliest conceptions, Mingtang temples are depicted as cere-

monial structures comprised of a square platform from which four pil-
lars rose supporting a round, thatched, conical roof. The circular roof
represented Heaven; the square base or platform represented Earth; and
the four pillars may have represented the four seasons. In this temple,
shamans made offerings to the sky gods. Over time, the architectural
scheme of this structure assumed more aspects of cosmic significance,
the rituals became more complex and specific, and communication with
the gods became the prerogative of the ultimate mediator with Heaven,
the emperor. It was in the Mingtang that the emperor asserted his role
as the representative of humankind, the chief sacrificer to the gods.
Although the idea of this temple is thought to date back to ancient
times, its use flourished and was refined during the Zhou period. Later,
during Han times, a revival of interest in the institution spurred a com-
pilation and reconstitution of older writings on the Mingtang.6 Some of
the resulting accounts appear to have been influenced by the Han meta-
physical climate. For example, Cai Yong provides these number-laden
specifications:
The numerical measures of this institution all have a [cosmological] basis.

The [base of the] hall is square [measuring] 144 feet [on each side], the
number of the trigram k’un [= earth]. The roof is round with a diameter
of 216 feet, the number of the trigram ch’ien [= heaven]. The Great
Ancestral Temple of the Luminous Hall is square, measuring sixty feet
[on each side], and the Chamber for Communicating with Heavens is
ninety feet in diameter, [symbolizing] the changes of the yin and yang
and nine and six [the numbers corresponding to the broken and unbroken
lines of the hexagrams of the Classic of Change]. The round roof and
square base [symbolize] the Way of six and nine. [The structure has]
eight inner passages symbolizing the eight trigrams [of the Classic of
Change]. It has nine rooms symbolizing the nine provinces. It has
twelve palaces, thereby resonating with the twelve hours of the day.
It has thirty-six doors and seventy-two windows, the number [produced
by] multiplying the four doors and eight windows [of each] of the nine
rooms [by nine]. The doors all open to the outside and are not shut, to
illustrate that throughout the realm nothing is concealed. The Chamber
for Communicating with the Heavens is eighty-one feet high, the product
of the nine nines of the huang-chung [the tonic of the twelve pitchpipes].
[The structure’s] twenty-eight pillars are evenly arrayed on the four sides,
[the ones of each side] symbolizing seven of the [twenty-eight] lunar lodges.
The [terrace of the] Hall is three chang high, thus resonating with the three
calendrical cycles [used by the Hsia, Shang, and Chou Dynasties]. The
five colors of its four faces symbolize [the five] phases. Its outer width is
240 feet, resonating with the twenty-four solar periods. It is surrounded
on four sides by water, symbolizing the four seas.7
To actually build a Mingtang temple according to these dimensions

would be impossible. Still, we have gleaned enough details of the struc-
ture from existing accounts to draw an illustration.8 See figure 4.1.
Archeological evidence has confirmed several aspects of the histori-
cal descriptions. In particular, the square, Earth-related base did exist. It
was divided into nine rooms of which the central one, the Taishi [Grand
Chamber], served a special function as the “Chamber for Communica-
tion with Heaven.” Other rooms whose location designated the princi-
pal directions of orientation for the building bore special names: the
south-facing room was called the Mingtang [the Bright Hall] (the name
also applied in general to the whole complex); at the west of center was
Zhongzhang [Assemblage of Decor]; at the east was the Qingyang [Blue
Solarium]; the north-facing room was the Xuantang [the Dark Hall].
These nine rooms also served as the “Twelve Palaces,” as described
below.
FIGURE 4.1
It was to the Mingtang temple that the emperor came on behalf of

the people to perform the monthly tributes and sacrifices to Heaven.
Such reverence was deemed necessary for harmony to prevail. The cen-
ter room served as the sanctum sanctorum for the ceremony in which
the Son of Heaven ritually communicated with the sky god. Then, in
order to carry out the monthly ordinances as specified in the Book of
Rites, the emperor had to circumambulate the complex in a clockwise
direction so that he occupied a different room, or part of a room, for
each month of the year in succession. Each of the rooms bore thrones
facing an open window. The corner rooms of the complex contained
two such thrones each. From these thrones the emperor offered his
prayers for the month in the direction of the open window. The result-
ing twelve offertory locations comprised the “Twelve Palaces.” The
cycle of the royal route is shown in figure 4.2.9
In large part, astronomical beliefs determined the general layout of
the Mingtang temple and the emperor’s path to the twelve locations.
Early Chinese astronomers believed that the North Star had a special
South
4th Month 5th Month 6th Month
Ming Tang
3rd Month 7th Month
East Qing Yang Taishi Zhong Zhang West

2nd Month 8th Month
1st Month 9th Month

Xuan Tang
12th Month 11th Month 10th Month
North
Winter
FIGURE 4.2
status. As a relatively fixed heavenly luminary around which other stars

rotated in clockwise circular paths, the North Star was thought to be the
abode of the sky god. Lesser heavenly gods circled in homage. They
lived in eight surrounding regions of the sky. Thus, Heaven was divided
into nine regions. When the supreme sky god left his purple palace at
the center of Heaven to inspect his domains he traveled in a clockwise
circular path. Further, an imaginary axis mundi originated at the Polar
star and terminated in the Middle Kingdom. Thus, by analogy, the
Emperor of China was associated with the supreme sky god and his
actions within the Mingtang ceremonially paralleled those of his heav-
enly counterpart.
The Book of Rites identifies each month of the Chinese year by defin-
ing characteristics and ritual requirements. For the first month of the
year it specifies:
]In the first month of Spring,

The sun is in the Ying House;
At dusk the constellation Shên culminates,
At dawn Wei culminates.
Its days are Chia and I by name;

Its Guardian is T’ai Hao,
And his attendant, Kou Mang.
Its creatures are the scaly kind;
Its note in music is Chio,
And among the standard pipes, it has the T’ai Ts’ou sound.
Its numeral is eight;

Its taste is sour;
Its smell is rank;
Its sacrifice is that of the door;
And the spleen is first offered.
The east wind sets free the frozen;

Hibernating insects begin to stir;
Fish rise up to the ice;
Otters offer up fish;
The wild geese arrive.10
The role of ordinary people in the seasonal drama is enacted by the

emperor on the stage of the Mingtang.
The Son of Heaven occupies the room to the left of the

Ch’ing Yang, or Greene Bright Hall;
He rides there in the phoenix carriage,
Which is yoked with azure dragons wearing green flags.
He is robed in green robes, wears green jade ornaments,
Eats wheat with mutton;
And his vessels are lightly carved,
In order to aid the springing grain.11
This month, we read, the Son of Heaven on the hsin, or first, day
prays for grain from the Shang Ti. Then, the yüan ch’ên day having been
selected, the Son of Heaven himself bears the plough and share, places
them between the driver of his vehicle and the third occupant, the armed
guard, and leads his three ducal advisers, nine ministers, the barons, and
great officers, in person to plough the plot of ground of Ti. The Son of
Heaven ploughs three furrows, the three dukes five furrows each, the
ministers and barons nine each. On returning he takes hold of a goblet in
the great chamber, the three dukes, nine ministers, barons, and great offi-
cers being in attendance, and gives command saying: “Wine after your
Toil!”12
After this, the text runs, the sacrificial canons are attended to, and
commands are issued for sacrificing to the hills and woods, the streams
and meres; but among the sacrificial victims no female victim may be
used. The felling of trees is forbidden. There must be no disturbing of
nests, and no destruction of miniature creatures, the unborn, the newly-
born, or fledglings, nor of young animals, nor of eggs. There must be no
great assemblages of people and no building of fortifications. Cover up
skeletons and bury corpses. This month it is not permissible to take arms.
To do so would entail calamities from Heaven. Military operations not-to-
be-begun means that they may not commence on our side. There must be
no interference with the ways of Heaven, nor any breach of the laws of
earth, nor any confusion in the bonds of human Society.13
Dire consequences were predicted for any misapplication of the

ordinances:
If in the first month of spring the summer ordinances were carried out, then
the rains would be unseasonable, plants and trees soon wither, and the state
be in constant anxiety. If the autumn ordinances were carried out, then the
people would suffer great epidemics, whirlwinds and violent rains would
occur together, thorns, tares, weeds, and tangle flourish side by side. If the
winter ordinances were carried out, then inundations would work havoc,
snow and frost lay hold with strong grip, and the early seed not strike.14
Just as the emperor had to carry out his ritual requirements, the peo-
ple of the realm were also required to perform certain acts. For exam-
ple, at the time of the equinox in the second and eighth month, royal
officers inspected the empire’s system of weights and measures and
adjusted them as needed since, as noted by Soothill, “Was not Heaven
balancing night and day and the pendulum of the year? Man should take
his place in the cosmic harmony.” At the spring equinox, the music mas-
ter was required to prepare particular instruments for the welcoming of
summer.15 Monthly ordinances closely regulated the lives of the com-
mon people by specifying what tasks they undertook, what color
clothes they wore, what music and dances they performed, and even
what they ate. As the sky god was the regulator of Heaven, so too, the
emperor was the regulator of Earth, ordering the actions and lives of all
people. From the ritual activities associated with the Mingtang temple
the concept of the all-powerful priest-ruler-regulator developed. As
Heaven was ruled from the central purple palace, so Earth, through the
Son of Heaven, was ruled from the Mingtang. This transcendence of the
emperor’s influence and power was manifest in the ceremony of the
“King’s Assemblage.”16
One of the important alternate functions of the Mingtang during the
late Shang and Western Zhou periods was to serve as both a meeting
site and structure for representatives of the empire to reaffirm their sub-
servience to the Son of Heaven. In the “Grand Assemblage of People of
the Four Quadrates,” representatives gathered at the Mingtang complex
and physically grouped themselves in positions symbolizing status and
rank. At the center of the configuration on a raised platform, amid red
tapestries and crane feathers, the emperor sat facing south. Represen-
tatives of previous dynasties, royal ministers, feudal lords, and finally
barbarians were positioned around the emperor at various levels and
distances, representing a hierarchy of social order and political power.17
Even the directions the individuals faced held significance. For example,
the four tribes of barbarians stood outside the four outer walls of the
complex, each facing inwards towards the wall of the square and the
distant emperor.
It appears that the luoshu was based on the layout of the Mingtang.
The temple’s square base was partitioned into nine rooms and this
may have provided the cell matrix for the luoshu. People came to asso-
ciate specific numbers with the cells, resulting in the magic square of
order three. The first mention of such numbers comes from Dadai liji
written by the Western Han scholar Dai De who apparently compiled
information on the Mingtang from a disjointed collection of old bam-

boo slips. In his collage of information, there is no clear relationship
between the given facts:
Mingtang is an ancient institution. There are nine chambers, each

Chamber has four doors and eight windows, altogether thirty-
six doors and seventy-two windows. The roof is covered with
Thatch. The top is round and the bottom square.
Mingtang was so-called, because in it the rank of the lords was
Clearly shown high or low.
The water space [moat] outside is called piyong.
The Man [barbarian] is in the south, Yi is in the east, Di is
in the north and Rong is in the west.
Mingtang is built to hold monthly observances.
The door was Decorated red and the window white.
The magical numbers are in the order: 2, 9, 4; 7, 5, 3, and 6, 1, 8.
The height of the platform [foundation] is three chi, from the
East to the west, it extends nine yan and from the south to the
North stretches seven yan. The top is round and the bottom
is square. There are nine chambers and twelve halls. Each
chamber has four doors and each door is paired with a couple
of windows. The palace is altogether three hundred bu by the
hundred bu square.18
It was assumed that the numbers corresponded to the nine rooms of the
Mingtang and they were assigned according to the order given. These
numbers do not refer to the succession of months or to the emperor’s
path. They are mysterious numbers associated with particular rooms in
the Mingtang temple. When the architectural layout of the Mingtang is
filled in with the numbers, the resulting grid is the luoshu. See figure
4.3.
Taiyi and the Daoist Dance

Under the Han Emperor Wudi (140–87 B.C.E.), one god emerged from
the Chinese pantheon as a deity of special importance. This was Taiyi,
the Sky Emperor, who, it was thought, dwelled in a palace at the cen-
ter of the night sky.19 Further, he was envisioned as having obligations
similar to his earthly counterpart, including the need to make a yearly
inspection tour of his realm, the eight additional halls of his palace.
Emperor Wudi made Taiyi the focus of imperial worship and even led
his armies under the banner of the god. Taiyi’s prominence was further
FIGURE 4.3
enhanced under the reign of the Han usurper Wang Mang (9–23 C.E.)
who elevated him to the status of “Supreme Unity” and worshipped him
in the Mingtang.20
Taiyi’s celestial route was duplicated in ceremonies and evolved into
a ritual dance for later Daoist priests. His imagined route is as follows:
he leaves his hall at the center, proceeds to the North Hall, then to the
Southwest, then to the East, and then the Southeast; from here, he
returns to the Center Hall, then visits the Northwest, after which he
passes on to the West; finally from the West, he moves to the Northeast,
then to the South Hall and returns to the center. If the “Nine Halls,” Jiu
Gong, are numbered according to the order of visitation, the luoshu
emerges. See figure 4.4.
4 9 2 4 9 2 4 9 2
3 5 7 3 5 7 3 5 7
8 1 6 8 1 6 8 1 6
4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6
FIGURE 4.4
When committed to memory, this path becomes a kinematic algo-

rithm for generating the magic square of order three and its associated
magic squares. Daoists held the stars in the constellation known to them
as Beidou, the Plough (also known as the Great Bear), in special rever-
ence. While there are seven stars visible in this constellation, Daoists
theorized there were actually nine.21 In order to invoke the spiritual
power of these stars, Daoist priests moved in a pattern that emulated
the progression from one star to another along the path followed by
Taiyi. This movement or dance became known as the yubu, the “steps
of Yu,” in deference to the “Father of Chinese culture,” the Emperor Yu.
Much as Western dance manuals of the 1940s offered footprint illustra-
tions of dance steps, Daoist manuals contained visual instructions for
performing the yubu.22 See figure 4.5. Jiu Gong (meaning the “Nine
Halls”) became a Daoist expression for the luoshu.
Medieval Daoists used the yubu algorithm to devise three alternate
paths among the luoshu cells or the “Nine Halls.” Together with the
FIGURE 4.5
original luoshu configuration, these four paths, as they found their way
into Daoist charms, became symbols for the four seasons. The alternate
paths represent a series of 90-degree counterclockwise rotations of the
luoshu. See figure 4.6.
OC Luoshu_ver.qxp:OC Luoshu rev
Winter Fall Summer Spring
52
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Legacy of the Luoshu
11:11 AM
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4 9 2 2 7 6 6 1 8 8 3 4
3 5 7 9 5 1 7 5 3 1 5 9
8 1 6 4 3 8 2 9 4 6 7 2
Luoshu Rotation 90° Rotation 180° Rotation 270°
FIGURE 4.6
Illustrations of yubu paths were catalogued in the multivolume col-

lection of texts that make up the Daoist canon, Daozang [Daoist
Patrology], descriptions of beliefs and practices compiled principally
during the Song Dynasty.
Divination Enters the Picture: The Eight Trigrams

One of the principal systems of divination in ancient China consisted
of the casting of a set of rods, actually yarrow stalks, which resulted
in two possible outcomes. Eventually, this dual possibility found
meaning in the yinyang context and became symbolized in written
characters consisting of straight line segments. A yin result of a rod
casting was symbolized by a broken line stroke like this: – –, a yang
result by a solid line stroke like this: —. Combining two or more rod
castings created additional possibilities: the two yinyang results were
combined to form the “Four Images”; all possible three-choice (three-
stroke) combinations of yinyang occurrences gave rise to the bagua,
the “Eight Trigrams,” which, in turn, were combined to arrive at the
sixty-four hexagrams. This progression up to the bagua stage is illus-
trated in figure 4.7.
FIGURE 4.7
FIGURE 4.8
Through a rod-choosing ritual, the diviner would arrive at a hexa-

gram.23 Each hexagram could be read as the “sum” of six yinyang
inputs or the combination of two trigrams. Metaphorical meanings were
established for each hexagram and these meanings tabulated.24 This tab-
ulation of hexagram meanings became the substance of the Yijing [Book
of Changes] and the ultimate reference for the diviner.25 The nuances of
rod selection and hexagram interpretation allowed for 4,096 mathemat-
ically possible responses to any given question. Of course, a diviner’s
creativity could expand this number even further.
At the cornerstone of this system of divination lay the Eight Trigrams.
They were accorded honorific association with the legendary Emperor
Fuxi (figure 4.8) and provided with names, attributes, images, and a
familial role. See table 4.1. 26
The Eight Trigrams were also associated with the eight directions or
“Spirit Paths” of the compass. Two separate sequences exist for this, cor-
responding to the “Earlier Heaven Circle” and the “Later Heaven
Circle.”27 This directional association then permitted further correlations
with the cosmic diagrams of the hetu and the luoshu respectively. It was
the luoshu that lent its structure for the purposes of divination as its
association with the sky god Taiyi implied motion, and hence, change.
TABLE 4.1
Characteristics of the Eight Trigrams
Name Attribute Image Family Relationship
Qian, the Creative strong Heaven father

Kun, the Receptive devoted, yielding Earth mother
Zhen, the Arousing inciting movement thunder first son
Kan, the Abysmal dangerous water second son
Gen, Keeping Still resting mountain third son
Sun, the Gentle penetrating wind, wood first daughter
Li, the Clinging light-giving fire second daughter
Dui, the Joyous joyful lake third daughter
Seeking harmony within change was a primary purpose of divination

exercises. Correlating the bagua with the numbers of the luoshu pro-
duced additional correlations with the wuxing values of the numbers.
Thus, a complex system of yinyang, wuxing, and bagua relationships
were encompassed in the luoshu and its interpretations. See figure 4.9.
LI
N
KU
SU
N
ZHEN
DUI
Q
EN
IA
G
KAN
FIGURE 4.9
By calling on the numbers of the luoshu in some fashion, a diviner

would become enmeshed in a network of possible interactions. By rely-
ing on the traditions of divination and the ultimate authority of the
Yijing, the diviner would arrive at an advisable course of action for a
client.28 During the Song Dynasty (960–1279), examination candidates
in the astronomical bureau had to be knowledgeable in three tech-
niques of divination, two of which—Taiyi and Dunjia —relied on the
luoshu.
Cycles of Time and the Flying Star System

of Fengshui
Chinese astrologers devised a system of measuring time based on the
luoshu. Among Daoists, the stars of Beidou were viewed as nine gods
residing in nine palaces.29 These nine deities were thought to control
the destiny of humanity. When the central god moved from his palace
to visit an adjoining palace, its occupant also had to move on. Thus, all
the gods moved following the yubu path. This heavenly shuffling of
positions was known as “flying across the palaces” and took nine years
to complete. Yubu movement could be in one of two directions: clock-
wise or counterclockwise. Yin energy flows in a counterclockwise pat-
tern, yang energy clockwise. In astrology, the nine phases within this
cycle of movement were represented by derivatives of the luoshu con-
figuration, each identified by the number and color occupying the cen-
tral cell. The colors associated with the luoshu’s elements in this system
are given in figure 4.10.
4 9 2
green purple black
3 5 7
blue-green yellow red
8 1 6
white white white
FIGURE 4.10
Using their zibai [purple and white] system of identification, astrologers

could specify a year of the nine-year cycle, a month within a counter-
clockwise nine-month cycle, and a day within a nine-day clockwise
cycle. A clockwise derivation of the nine-phase cycle is shown in figure
4.11.30
4 9 2
3 8 1 3 5 7 5 1 3
2 4 6 8 1 6 4 6 8
(a) 9 2 7
7 9 5
(i) (b)
2 7 9 6 2 4
1 3 5 4 9 2 5 7 9
6 8 4 3 5 7 1 3 8
(h) 8 1 6 (c)
1 6 8 Path between the 7 3 5

Palaces
9 2 4 (Yang Cycle) 6 8 1
5 7 3 2 4 9
(g) (d)
9 5 7 8 4 6
8 1 3 7 9 2
4 6 2 3 5 1
(f) (e)
FIGURE 4.11
These phases are identified as (a) “five yellow,” (b) “six white,”
(c) “seven red,” (d) “eight white,” (e) “nine purple,” (f) “one white,”
(g) “two black,” (h) “three blue-green,” and (i) “four green,” respec-
tively. A clockwise path is generated if one starts with the yang
complement of the luoshu and follows a yubu path in a clockwise
direction. In both these cyclic derivations only two of the number
arrays—the luoshu and its yang complement—are truly magic
squares in a mathematical sense.
A form of divination that relies heavily on the zibai system for its
time dimension is fengshui, “the science of wind and water.”31
Practitioners of fengshui attempt to determine auspicious locations for
buildings or tombs and for rooms within homes—and also the arrange-
ment of objects within rooms—by examining the topographical features
of a geographical location, using a special compass, and constructing an
appropriate zibai-based chart. In theory, they are aligning the structure
or object in question with desirable yinyang force fields. The computa-
tion of time in fengshui is based on a 180-year cycle divided into nine
periods of twenty years each.32 Individual periods are designated by a
“reigning star” which corresponds with a zibai year. Practitioners of the
“Flying Star” system of fengshui construct a geomantic chart for each site
under consideration.33 This chart consists of three superimposed
luoshu-derived number squares: the first is the “Earth Square,” domi-
nated by the reigning star and arrived at by correlating the construction
date with the existing 180-year cycle; secondly, the direction the front
of the site faces will determine the “Facing Star” square; and finally, the
direction that the rear of the site faces will determine the “Mountain
Star” square. The reigning star is fixed; the earth and mountain star are
movable and may, therefore, assume either yin or yang configurations.
The particular orientation of these latter stars is determined by use of a
geomancer’s compass. When the geomantic chart is complete, each of
its nine cells will contain three numbers representing yinyang energy
levels. The diviner will interpret the interaction of these three numbers
and accordingly designate the status of the site or structure and even the
status of particular rooms or parts of a house.34
As an example of this fengshui technique, assume a house was built
in 1972. Its reigning star is six-white (figure 4.11b). Its front is facing
south, so its facing star is one-white and its mountain star is two-black.
Further careful orientation and alignment indicate that the facing star is
moving in the yang direction, the mountain star in the yin direction. The
appropriate geomantic chart for this example is shown in figure 4.12 in
1 5 2 6 1 6 8 3 8
9 43 2 61 4 88
5 97 7 25 3 79
FIGURE 4.12
which the normal-sized numbers represent the “Earth Square,” the

small superscripted numbers on the right side of each regular number
belong to the “Facing Star” square, and the superscripted numbers on
the left of each regular number belong to the “Mountain Star” square.
Some readings of the “Earth base and Facing Star” interactions for this
square indicate: children of the house will do well in academic mat-
ters (16); those occupying this region of the house will enjoy good
health (88); and a threat of fire exists in this corner (97). Combinations
of 5 and 2 are considered particularly inauspicious as they are
believed to indicate sickness and accidents. Such a combination exists
at the back of this house. Remedies can be undertaken: the effects of
bad fortune can be reduced by placing a prescribed object in the prob-
lem room. By imposing more time constraints, that is, consultation for
a special year and/or month, additional numbers can be added to the
grid and more complex, detailed readings undertaken.35 A “Flying
Star” fengshui analysis is based primarily on time factors. More
detailed fengshui considerations also take into account topographical
factors that influence the structure.
Fortune-Telling with the Luoshu

In the Chinese divination arts, the magic square of order three also plays
a role in predicting an individual’s destiny. One popular fortune-telling
method takes the numbers in a person’s birth date and relates them to
the numbers in the luoshu. According to this method, the numbers
themselves, their locations, and their relationship to other numbers all

influence the predictions. Within the luoshu grid, the uppermost hori-
zontal row of numbers reflects on an individual’s intellectual abilities,
the middle row on spiritual aspects of the person’s life, and the bottom
row represents the material dimension. Any straight-line configuration
composed of three numbers indicates a personal trait of special signifi-
cance, any empty line, a special weakness. To best illustrate how this
system works, let us read a fortune for an imaginary person. Assume our
person is a woman born January 18, 1944. First we change this date to
its Chinese lunar equivalent: 12th month, 23rd day, 1943 (12/23/43). We
then place these numbers in their respective positions in the luoshu grid
to form a natal chart (figure 4.13).
4 9 22
33
11
FIGURE 4.13
According to the precepts of Chinese numerology: a 4 indicates a flair

for logical thought; a single 9 indicates cleverness, ambition, and self-
assurance; a double 2 is not auspicious and is associated with illness;
double 3 suggests a good sense of initiative and a high degree of sen-
sitivity; and a double 1 predicts prosperity.36 The full row of numbers
points to the existence of a powerful intellect. In total, the fortune for
our imaginary individual may indicate that she is blessed with high intel-
ligence and if she combines this intelligence with her innate under-
standing of people and situations it will bring her prosperity. She must,
however, be on her guard to protect her health and avoid circumstances
leading to illness.37
It is interesting to note that if a person’s natal chart duplicates the
luoshu, that is, if its nine numerical entries form the magic square of
order three, then that person is considered to be perfect. Such high
honor is due to the fact that the magic sum for the square would be fif-
teen, the number of days it takes a new moon to become full or the
number of human fulfillment for the Chinese. However, due to the sys-
tem of traditional dating, the maximum number of numerals possible for
a birth date is eight. Human perfection, in this scheme, is impossible to

achieve.
Variations on the Luoshu

In Chinese culture, the luoshu appeared in many forms contrived to suit
the purposes of the moment—to reinforce a ritual, serve as a basis for
prognostication, and so on. As the luoshu became more entrenched in
Daoist beliefs, such uses became more common. Representations of the
luoshu in the form of knotted cords or dance steps that followed the
“steps of Yu” were joined by other imaginative configurations featuring
caldrons, bagua-like lines, turtle shell anomalies, and explanatory text.
See figure 4.14.38
Printed on paper or cloth, the luoshu became a powerful charm to
attract spirits. On temple lanterns, the diagram symbolized a state of har-
mony between Heaven, Earth, and human beings and served as a map
for spirits. Two such lantern motifs are given in figure 4.15.39
Such charms became repositories of power and were held in high
esteem.
FIGURE 4.14
FIGURE 4.15
During the Han Dynasty, the practice of carrying a round bronze

mirror to ensure personal good fortune became common. The develop-
ment and distribution of such mirrors reached a high point under
Emperor Wang Mang who was noted for constructing a large Mingtang
complex. The mirrors bore a highly polished surface on one side in
which the user could see his or her image; the other side carried a cos-
mologically symbolic motif. Prominent in this motif was a square repre-
senting the Earth; at its center was a smaller square representing
China.40 Thus, in looking at this side of the mirror, one saw a square
within a square within a circle—the cosmological world view of the
Chinese. In addition, the larger “Earth square” bore markings indicating
the four major directions, and the smaller “China square” contained a
projecting knob that represented the axis mundi through which
Heavenly power passed to Earth. In a practical sense, the knob was
pierced so that a rope passed through it allowing the mirror to be
attached to the belt of its beneficiary. See figure 4.16.
Inscriptions accompanying some of these mirrors urged their users
to “move towards the center”—the position of power and harmony.41
Certainly viewing one’s personal image at this early date was a mys-
tical experience in itself; in using such a mirror, the individual was
psychologically and physically placing himself or herself at the center
of a microcosmic universe. Thus, these “cosmic mirrors,” as they came
to be known, allowed their bearers to become actively involved with
the metaphysical and, in a sense, undergo a mystical or religious
experience. The embossed square with its symbolic accouterments
represented the Earth in a cosmic context, an antecedent of the
luoshu.42
FIGURE 4.16
Cosmological theories and conventions, applied on a larger scale,

also influenced early Chinese architecture and the planning of cities and
official compounds.43 The association between the luoshu and the
Mingtang temple has already been discussed. City planning principles
were devised during the Zhou dynasty and recorded in the Kaogong ji
[Treatise on the Examination of Artisans]. While the original copy of this
text was lost, Liu Xiang of the Han Dynasty compiled a version based
on then existing information. It is this text that has guided subsequent
Chinese town planners up to the modern period. In the Kaogong, the
Zhou capital was held up as a model city for emulation. It is described
as being laid out in a square, nine li (about three miles) on a side. The
sides of the city are oriented along the four major directions. Each city
wall contains three gates, with the major gate being the one marking the
south central position. Emanating from each gate and crossing the city
is an avenue, three lanes wide to accommodate nine chariot widths;
thus the city is interlaced with nine major thoroughfares. The intersec-
tion of these thoroughfares forms nine squares, of which the central one
houses the royal government. A schematic plan of this ideal city is
shown in figure 4.17.44
Architectural emphasis on a directionally oriented square, a nine-part
division of the city’s space, and the association of centrality with author-
ity are all reminiscent of the luoshu.
Capital cities were meant to be microcosms of the universe. Most
ancient Chinese capitals were destroyed and later rebuilt by succeeding
dynasties. Often renovations deviated from the original plans but
FIGURE 4.17
cosmological factors reflecting the theories of yinyang and wuxing were

always followed. Every important structure was preceded by appropri-
ate siting consultations which depended on applications of the luoshu.
Beijing was established as a human settlement during the Warring
States era (403–221 B.C.E.) of Chinese history and served periodically as
a capital for several early dynasties. In 1402, the Yongle Emperor rebuilt
the city as his capital. In their construction requirements, Ming architects
adhered closely to a numerology dictated by the Yijing and the luoshu
stressing the “dignity of nine and five.” As noted by He Junshou who
made a study of this numerology: the outer city possessed seven gates,
a yang number indicating “outer”; the inner city had nine gates, the
strongest yang number; of the three southern gates, the central one was
the most important and measured nine zhang in width and nine chi in
height and the central north-south axis through the city measured fifteen
li long—the magic constant of the luoshu.45 The Forbidden City, resi-
dence of the emperor, became a microcosm within the macrocosm of
Beijing and also adhered to prescribed numerology—it contained 9,999
rooms.46
5
Chinese Variations
on the
Luoshu Theme
As a result of the discussion up to this point, a natural question

would seem to arise: Was the luoshu unique in its status as a
number chart that Chinese scholars and diviners used in an
attempt to understand the interplay of cosmic forces? We have
seen that the hetu was devised as a sort of auxiliary diagram to
the luoshu for the purposes of illustrating wuxing theory but that
it was not a magic square. In their early proto-scientific investi-
gations, did the Chinese employ any other magic squares?
Evidence available from documents of the times would seem to
indicate not. However, Yang Hui’s discussion of magic squares in
his 1275 work implies a surviving interest in magic squares fol-
lowing the luoshu tradition.1 The theory of magic squares that
evolved appears to have been based more on mathematical prin-
ciples rather than cosmological or occult concerns.
Other Magic Squares of Order Three?

According to Yang’s technique for constructing the luoshu, illustrated in
figure 2.4, yang numbers (the corner elements) were exchanged in
arriving at the final results. 2 The magic square that emerges, the luoshu,
65
is basically yang—perfectly appropriate because it represents Heaven,

the ultimate source of yang influence. From the primary configuration
given in figure 2.4(b), another magic square could be created by
exchanging yin elements. The resulting magic square is a yin square
and is related to the Earth. See figure 5.1.
6 8 6 1 8
7 5 3 7 5 3
2 4 2 9 4
9
(a) (b)
Construction form Compressed into magic squares
FIGURE 5.1
Some evidence exists that diviners also knew of and employed this
alternate square. Cammann speculates on the possibility of the two
squares being used simultaneously as a model for the interplay of
yinyang between Heaven and Earth.3 His theory is picturesque. It was
believed that one hub of the cosmic axis was located in the central room
or palace of the heavenly diagram; accordingly, the other hub of the
cosmic axis on Earth resided in the central cell, the “China” cell of the
Earth model. The squares thus revolved around this mutually shared
axis with Heaven above and Earth below. A yang cycle would begin
with the Heaven square,
taking every second number in its succession from the complimentary

numbers in the lower square. Meanwhile, the Yin cycle would start in the
lower, basically Yin square, taking its alternate numbers from the
complements in the corners of the upper square.4
While this theory is appealing, there is no evidence that the Chinese

envisioned so dramatic a ritual.
At first it might seem surprising that the Chinese did not utilize other
possible variants of the luoshu.5 Because it is symmetrical, the magic
square of order three allows for eight permutations of its elements, pro-
Chinese Variations on the Luoshu Theme 67
ducing seven other magic squares of order three that are mathemat-
ically equivalent to the luoshu. One can derive all of these squares
from the luoshu configuration by physical manipulation or mathe-
matical visualization. From the fixed position of the luoshu, clock-
wise rotations by 90 degrees about its center point or reflections
about horizontal, vertical, or diagonal axes will produce equivalent
magic squares. See figure 5.2.
rotations
horizontal
right diagonal left diagonal
vertical
4 9 2 2 9 4 8 1 6
3 5 7 7 5 3 3 5 7
8 1 6 6 1 8 4 9 2
luoshu vertical reflection horizontal

reflection
4 3 8 6 7 2
9 5 1 1 5 9
2 7 6 8 3 4
left diagonal right diagonal
8 3 4 6 1 8 2 7 6
1 5 9 7 5 3 9 5 1
6 7 2 2 9 4 4 3 8
rotation 90o rotation 180o rotation 270o

FIGURE 5.2
A rotation of 180 degrees has transformed the luoshu yang square

into its yin complement. Although these permutations are easily
achieved and were probably found through Chinese divination prac-
tices, the resulting squares apparently had no ritual significance. This
lack of status could have been due to the restrictive nature of existing
yinyang and wuxing orientations. Quite simply, the luoshu variants did
not make cosmological sense and were thus not used. It must be
remembered that early Chinese considerations of the magic square of
order three were not primarily mathematical but metaphysical.
Higher Order Magic Squares

By the time of the Song Dynasty (960–1279), the Chinese had amassed a
large body of knowledge on magic squares. Some of it may have come
from Hindu or Arab contacts, but the majority appears to have been
indigenously conceived.6 This information was scattered and fragmentary.
Yang Hui compiled findings on magic squares from various existing
sources; he did not take credit for the procedures he discussed and, at
times, actually seemed confused by some of them.7 Neither did he attach
a particular significance to the squares—they were merely mathematical
curiosities of former times. Besides the luoshu, Yang presented examples
of magic squares up through order ten.8 The construction of most of
Yang’s squares of order n begin with the natural square of the numbers
1–n2 written in the Chinese lexicographical fashion, from right to left, top
to bottom. Here are some of Yang’s examples that reflect on the luoshu
tradition.
Order Four. The method employed to construct the magic square of
order four parallels the luoshu technique in that pairs of elements are
interchanged. These pairs lie along the diagonals of the natural square.
See figure 5.3.
13 9 5 1 4 9 5 16
14 10 6 2 exchange 14 7 11 2
15 11 7 3 elements
15 6 10 3
16 12 8 4 1 12 8 13
FIGURE 5.3
The resulting magic square has a magic sum of 34, a number whose
digits are a balanced yinyang combination, 3-yang, 4-yin.
Order Five. Although Yang Hui does not provide specific construction
methods for his squares beyond order four, luoshu techniques can be dis-
cerned. He exhibits two magic squares of order five. The first seems to
be constructed by extracting a nine-number core from the natural square,
figure 5.4(a); converting this core to a magic square of order three using
the luoshu yin technique, figure 5.4(b); and then returning it to the orig-
inal square and rearranging the large square’s outer border elements so
that opposite number pairs possess the same sum, 26, figure 5.4(c).
21 16 11 6 1
22 17 12 7 2 17 12 7
23 18 13 8 3 18 13 8
24 19 14 9 4 19 14 9
25 20 15 10 5 (a)
12 8 14 7 18
17 13 9 17 13 9
18 14 8 19 12
19 (b)
21 16 11 6 1 1 23 16 4 21
22 14 7 18 2 15 14 7 18 11
23 17 13 9 3 24 17 13 9 2
24 8 19 12 4 20 8 19 12 6
25 20 15 10 5 5 3 10 22 25
(c)
FIGURE 5.4
The second magic square of order five is more complex and is best
understood by analyzing it or “tearing it down” in a reverse fashion. Its
sequence of numbers runs from 9 to 33; thus it is an augmented square
where 8 has been added to each entry. Subtracting 8 from each entry of
the given square, its structural matrix appears. See figure 5.5.
12 27 33 23 10 4 19 25 15 2
28 18 13 26 20 20 10 5 18 12
subtract 8
11 15 21 17 31 3 17 13 9 23
22 16 29 24 14 14 8 21 16 6
32 19 9 15 30 24 11 1 7 22
(a) (b)
FIGURE 5.5
In this reduced magic square, figure 5.5(b), notice that the first four
numbers, the middle number, and the last four numbers in the sequence
1 to 25 occupy relative positions in the luoshu configuration (the circled
elements in figure 5.5[b]). Further, if 16, twice 8, is subtracted from the
last four numbers of the sequence, the luoshu will appear. Thus, a
luoshu framework is established. The remaining numbers in the 1 to 25
sequence are arranged in complementary pairs around the central entry,
13. Each pair totals 26. In this manner, the square is completed. Such a
magic square, where elements along all diagonals through the center
form complementary pairs whose sum is twice the central element, is
called an “associated square.” This example of a magic square of order
five is both augmented and associated.
Cammann, in his study of old Chinese magic squares, offers a plau-
sible reason as to why the ancient Chinese bothered to augment this
square in the first place.9 If the digits for the central entry of the reduced
square are added together, their sum is 4; similarly, if the digits for the
sum of each of the complementary pairs, 26, are added together their
sum is 8, or 2 × 4. “Fourness,” then, becomes a fundamental property of
this square; 4, however, is a yin number, represents the Earth and is
inauspicious in itself unless balanced by the yang number 3, which rep-
resents Heaven. By adding 8, sometimes repeatedly, to all entries of the
square, the Chinese alleviated this undesirable situation.
Order Six. Historically, magic squares of order six have been difficult to
devise. The Chinese used the luoshu principle to construct such squares
of order six (shown in figure 5.6).
13 28 18 27 11 20 4 13 36 27 29 2
31 4 36 9 29 2 22 31 18 9 11 20
12 21 14 23 16 25 3 21 33 32 25 7
30 3 5 32 34 7 30 12 5 14 16 34
17 26 10 19 15 24 17 26 19 28 6 15
8 35 28 1 6 33 35 8 10 1 24 33
(a) (b)
FIGURE 5.6
Since both of these squares were constructed by the same method, it

will suffice to demonstrate the method of construction for the first
square, that is, figure 5.6(a). First the numbers 1 to 36 are written in their
natural sequence in four columns. Then each row of this configuration
is rewritten as a 2 × 2 matrix. See figure 5.7.
28 19 10 1
29 20 11 2
30 21 12 3 10 19
31 22 13 4 28 1
32 23 14 5
33 24 15 6
34 25 16 7
35 26 17 8
36 27 18 9
FIGURE 5.7
The resulting nine four-element number squares are then ordered

according to the luoshu configuration with their lower right entry serv-
ing as the luoshu reference number. A magic square of order six results.
See figure 5.8 where circled entries indicate luoshu reference numbers.
13 22 18 27 11 20
31 4 36 9 29 2
12 21 14 23 16 25
30 3 32 5 34 7
17 26 10 19 15 24
35 8 28 1 33 6
FIGURE 5.8
The set of nine four-element squares has an amazing property: if the

digits for each entry are added together until a one-digit number
remains, all subsquares are reduced to their luoshu elements, and then
if the entries for each subsquare are added, a new magic square of order
three appears, as shown in figure 5.9.
44 99 22
44 99 22
16 36 8
33 55 77 12 20 28
33 55 77
32 4 24
88 11 66
88 11 66
FIGURE 5.9
The total sum of each of Yang Hui’s magic squares of order six is
666—a demonic symbol in medieval European numerology.10 When
these digits are added together the result is 18, and when those digits are
added together the result is 9: 6 + 6 + 6 = 1 + 8 = 9, the same number

obtained by adding the digits of the luoshu’s total sum, that is, 4 + 5 =
9. The magic square of order nine yet to be considered yields the same
result.
Order Seven. Yang Hui presents two magic squares of order seven. The
first is apparently constructed from the natural square for the numbers
1 to 49; however, the lexicographical ordering differs from previous
instances: it goes from right to left, bottom to top. Next, a diamond-
shaped core of elements is selected from the resulting number square
as show in figure 5.10.
49 42 35 28 21 14 7
48 41 34 27 20 13 6
47 40 33 26 19 12 5
46 39 32 25 18 11 4
45 38 31 24 17 10 3
44 37 30 23 16 9 2
43 36 29 22 15 8 1
FIGURE 5.10
The luoshu yin technique is applied to the elements of this numeri-

cal array to obtain a magic square of order three, as shown in figure
5.11.
27 23
33 23 19
33 19 33 19
39 25 11 11 25 39 11 25 39
31 17 31 17
31 27 17
23 27
FIGURE 5.11
The remaining numbers from the parent square are then arranged in com-
plementary pairs whose sum is 50, twice the value of the central entry.
This first magic square of order seven is called a “bordered square.”
The second square of order seven is constructed on a luoshu frame-
work. The first four numbers, the middle number, and the last four num-
bers of the sequence 1 to 49 occupy positions of the luoshu entries.
Then complementary pairs of numbers whose sum is 50 are placed
diagonally and equidistant around the central entry, 25. The resulting
magic square is an associated square. See figure 5.12.
4 43 40 49 16 21 2
44 8 33 9 36 15 30
38 19 26 11 27 22 32
3 13 5 25 45 37 47
18 28 23 39 24 31 12
20 35 14 41 17 42 6
48 29 34 1 10 7 46
FIGURE 5.12
Order Nine. The magic square of order nine is the most complex and
fascinating of all the old Chinese magic squares. Its construction seems
strikingly simple. After the natural square for the numbers 1 to 81 is con-
structed, each row of the configuration is then folded into a 3 × 3 magic
square whose central, lower, entry is a luoshu number. This process is
illustrated in figure 5.13 using the fourth row of the natural square.
31 76 13
76 67 58 49 40 31 22 13 4 22 40 58
67 4 49
FIGURE 5.13
The resulting nine magic squares of order three are compiled into a
square where their position is indexed according to their luoshu num-
ber (circled in figure 5.14).
31 76 13 36 81 18 29 74 11
22 40 58 27 45 63 20 38 56
67 4 49 72 9 54 65 2 47
30 75 12 32 77 14 34 79 16
21 39 57 23 41 59 25 43 61
66 3 48 68 5 50 70 7 52
35 80 17 28 73 10 33 78 15
26 44 62 19 37 55 24 42 60
71 8 53 64 1 46 69 6 51
FIGURE 5.14
A magic square composed of magic squares, such as the one in figure

5.14, is called a composite magic square. Yang Hui’s composite magic
square of order nine has a magic constant of 369, that is, 41 × 9. If each
of the subsquares is replaced by their respective magic constant, a third-
order magic square appears that has the same magic constant as its par-
ent (figure 5.15a). Similarly, if each subsquare is replaced by its total
sum, a third-order magic square appears whose total sum is 3,321, the
same as its parent (figure 5.15b).
120 135 114 360 405 342
117 123 129 351 369 387
132 111 126 396 333 378
(a) (b)
FIGURE 5.15
The magic square shown in figure 5.14 gives rise to another magic
square of order nine with similarly interesting properties. A set of nine
magic squares of the third order can be constructed by choosing all
numbers that occupy the same relative position within their respective
subsquare, that is, first element, first row, and so on and then forming
each set of nine such numbers into a third-order magic square. In turn,
each of these nine resulting subsquares will be compiled into a large
square of order nine with the subsquare comprised of first element, first-
row elements becoming the first element, first-row for the intended
square, second element, first-row elements becoming the second ele-
ment, first row, and so on. The resulting composite square arrived at is
shown in figure 5.16.
31 36 29 76 81 74 13 18 11
30 32 34 75 77 79 12 14 16
35 28 33 80 73 78 17 10 15
22 27 20 40 45 38 58 63 56
21 23 25 39 41 43 57 59 61
26 19 24 44 37 42 62 55 60
67 72 65 4 9 2 49 54 47
66 68 70 3 5 7 48 50 52
71 64 69 8 1 6 53 46 51
FIGURE 5.16
Further, if the magic constant for each of these nine subsquares is com-
puted and these results are then ordered according to size, it will be
found that they correspond exactly with the value of the luoshu posi-
tion the subsquare occupies in the large square.11
Yang’s section on magic squares in the Xugu is followed by a sec-
tion on magic circles and magic circle configurations. These numerical
figures are ingeniously conceived and attest to the imagination and abil-
ity of their inventors; however, they do not reflect on the luoshu. Rather
they appear to be challenging extensions of the magic square concept.12
Later Work with Magic Number Arrangements

While some of the luoshu techniques were followed by succeeding
mathematicians, they were performed with little ritual or metaphysical
understanding, having become merely “a means to an end”—the con-
struction of a magic square.13 In 1593, Chen Dawei published a series
of fourteen diagrams on magic squares and circles.14 He repeated much
of Yang Hui’s work. A new dimension to magic configurations was
added by Fang Zhongtong (1633–1698) who worked with magic cubes
and spheres as well as magic squares. In the same century, Zhang Chao
(b. 1650) published China’s first magic square of order ten.15 Finally, in
the late nineteenth century, Bao Qishou, a gifted amateur mathemati-
cian, wrote a book on magic configurations including three-dimensional
magic number arrangements.16
6
The Magic Square
of Order Three
in Other Cultures
While most evidence would seem to substantiate Chinese claims

that they knew of and used the magic square of order three as
early as the first century C.E., these questions remain: Were the
ancient Chinese really the first to discover this mathematical con-
cept? Did other ancient peoples conceive of the idea of a magic
square? Let us examine the mystical number trends and practices
followed in other ancient societies.
Who Didn’t Know about Magic Squares?

Babylonia
The roots of much of Western numerology and astrology can be traced
back to the peoples of the ancient Tigris and Euphrates River basins, the
region which is popularly known in its historic context as Babylonia.
The Babylonians believed in “lucky” and “unlucky” numbers. Thirteen
was considered an unlucky number possibly because it came after
twelve, an integral factor of sixty, the base for the Babylonian number
system and, in itself, a poor factor within the system. Seven was a pow-
erful number, its influence apparent in the creation myth, Enuma Elish:
79
the seven winds; the seven spirits of the storm; the seven evil diseases;
and the seven divisions of the underworld contained by seven doors
bearing seven seals. This reverence for the number seven passed ini-
tially into Hebrew beliefs, a little later into those of Islam, and eventu-
ally into the designations of Christian arithmology.1 The Babylonians are
the first known people to assign numerical values to words, particularly
personal names. They then manipulated the numerical values to estab-
lish mystical relationships between people and/or objects. Dimensions
of temples and other important structures usually bore a symbolic sig-
nificance.2 This system of numerical encoding of words was known as
isopsephia. Later the Greeks and Romans used the system, Hebrew mys-
tics adopted it in Kabbala, and it emerged in medieval Europe under the
practices of the gematria system of numerology.3 Another mystical use
of numbers in old Babylonia was to establish a hierarchy for the pan-
theon of gods. Anu, the supreme lord, possessed the perfect number,
sixty; other gods were assigned numbers of a lesser order according to
their importance. In this scheme, the goddess Ishtar, lover and sharer of
power with Anu, was given the number fifteen and associated with the
planet Venus. The goddess of love and war, Ishtar, was often depicted
with eight rays emanating from her body. Since Ishtar plus her eight
powerful rays equals nine, and Ishtar embodies the number fifteen,
Frans Endres, in his work on the mystical use of numbers, speculates
that the Babylonians devised the luoshu; however, this conjecture lacks
further substantiation.4 In general, there is little evidence that the
Babylonians knew of or used magic squares, despite their great interest
in numerology and number manipulation.
Greece
Greek number mysticism centers around the beliefs and practices of
Pythagoras of Samos (ca. 540 B.C.E.) and his followers. The Pythagoreans
believed, “All is ruled by number”—that numerical relationships con-
trolled the harmonious functioning of the universe. Number and pro-
portion were the overriding factors in their philosophy. The number
one, the “Great Monad,” was not a number in itself but rather the cre-
ator of all numbers and all things. It served as the creator and also rep-
resented “reason.” While the Pythagoreans assigned specific meanings
to all numbers, they also grouped numbers into categories of special sig-
nificance. Odd numbers were considered male numbers, even numbers,
female. Major Greek deities were given an odd number, lesser deities an
even number. This association of odd numbers with the divine has lin-
The Magic Square of Order Three in Other Cultures 81
gered across cultures; for example, an Islamic saying declares, “God

loves the odd,” Falstaff advises, “There is divinity in odd numbers” in
Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. 5 The interactions of numbers
were also given meaning; for example, the number five, as the coming
together of the first female number, two, and the first male number,
three, symbolized marriage for the Pythagoreans. However, Greek
numerological manipulation of numbers, while quite broad and com-
plex, did not encompass the use of magic squares. The closest the
Pythagoreans came to arriving at a geo-arithmetic configuration that
approximated the luoshu in several symbolic respects was in their con-
cern with the tetractys or “holy fourness.”
The tetractys, a sacred symbol and the conceptual basis of the
Pythagorean oath, consisted of the union of the first four numbers,
namely, 1 + 2 + 3 + 4, graphically represented as a configuration of dots.
See figure 6.1.
FIGURE 6.1
Pythagorean cosmology conceived of four elements, the physical build-

ing blocks of the universe; they were Fire, Earth, Air, and Water with
numerical values of one, two, three, and four, respectively. The numer-
ical value of the universe was ten, the number of completion, because
the sum of the numbers of the four elements equaled 10: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4
= 10. As noted in a prayer attributed to the Pythagoreans:
Bless us, divine number, thou who generatest [sic]
gods and men! O holy, holy tetractys, thou that containest
the root and the source of the eternally flowing creation!
For the divine number begins with the profound, pure
unity until it comes to the holy four; then it begets the
mother of all, the all-comprising, the all-bounding, the
first born, the never-serving, the never-tiring holy ten, the
keyholder of all.6
Thus ten, as expressed in the Pythagorean form of a triangular number,

held special mystical significance for its beholder.7 The shape, an
equilateral triangle, indicated perfection and the ratios of its number

lines—2:1, 4:3, and 3:2—designated the harmonies on a musical scale
of an octave, a fourth, and a fifth, respectively. The tetractys was a
Greek expression of creation, symmetry, and harmony in the cosmos in
a manner similar to that perceived in the Chinese luoshu, but it was not
a magic square.
Chinese and Greek metaphysical theories and methodologies share
certain features: (a dualistic view of nature; a primal element theory—
in the Chinese case, five elements, and for the Greeks, four elements;
and a psychological reliance on a geo-arithmetic diagram to express
cosmic order). These similarities have led historians of mathematics to
speculate that ideas migrated from Greece to China (or vice-versa).8 The
issue, however, remains unresolved.
Egypt
Little is known about ancient Egyptian number lore.9 The Egyptians fol-
lowed many of the numerological practices of their neighbors—they
had “lucky” and “unlucky” numbers and participated in isopsephia.
Mathematical knowledge was usually limited to priests and scribes, and
mathematics was considered a mysterious entity in itself. The preface to
the mathematical Rhind papyrus promises that its text offers a
“Complete and thorough study of all things, insights into all that exists,
knowledge of all secrets. . .”.10 The three-four-five right triangle was
known in ancient Egypt and believed to be a symbol of “universal
nature.” The trinity of major gods was represented by the sides this tri-
angle: the base of length four symbolized Osiris; the remaining leg,
length three, stood for Isis, and the hypotenuse represented Horus, the
son of Osiris and Isis. No knowledge of magic squares is apparent in
existing Egyptian mathematical material.
Thus, among the major cultures that are usually credited with hav-
ing influenced the development of Western mathematics, no evidence
indicates a knowledge of or use of magic squares prior to the appear-
ance of the Chinese luoshu.
Who Else Knew about Magic Squares?

Well before the Christian Era, China had established trade contacts with
its neighbors and distant empires. Gradually, this intercourse expanded
to include political, cultural, and scientific exchanges. The Middle
Kingdom imported Buddhism from its neighbor, India. Buddhist and,
eventually, Islamic scholars took jobs in the Imperial bureaucracy.

Certainly, they brought new knowledge with them into China, and
when they left, they were enriched by knowledge of Chinese practices
and customs. How extensive this early exchange of information
between cultures was remains unclear but surely esoteric theories and
occult practices made appealing intellectual souvenirs to bring home
from China. Let us examine the history of magic squares in cultures
proximate to the Chinese.
India
Information on ancient Indian mathematics is fragmentary, and its con-
clusions are often contentious; however, there is sufficient evidence to
indicate that a tradition of using magic squares dates back to very early
times. Legend proposes that knowledge of magic squares was commu-
nicated from Lord Siva to a magician named Manibhadra. Magic squares
were viewed as magical devices capable of providing supernatural assis-
tance to their patrons. This view persists even today. The first docu-
mented mention of magic squares in India is found in Varahamihira’s
work on divination, Brhatsamhita (ca. 550 C.E.). In this text,
Varahamihira uses a number square of order four to prescribe combina-
tions and quantities of ingredients for perfume manufacture.11 The
square is comprised of the numbers 1 to 8, each employed twice within
the array, thus violating the strict definition of uniqueness among ele-
ments of a magic square. Still, the configuration is “magical” in that the
constant sum is 18 and that it is pan-diagonal, that is, the diagonals and
all possible “broken diagonals” also give the constant sum. See figure 6.2.
2 3 5 8
5 8 2 3
4 1 7 6
7 6 4 1
FIGURE 6.2
It is interesting that Varahamihira calls this square kacchaputa, “the

shell of a turtle”—does this refer to the mystical origin of the luoshu on
the shell of a tortoise? Another early work on magic squares bears a sim-
ilar title, Kaksaputa. This work, which also considers a fourth-order magic
square (magic constant 100), is attributed to the alchemist Nagarjuna.12
Cammann speculates that the Indians acquired their initial knowledge of
magic squares either directly or indirectly from China via merchants,
Buddhist missionaries, or by way of Tibetan or Muslim intermediaries;
however, decisive evidence for a conclusion on this issue is lacking.13
The first mention of a magic square of order three in India is also
clouded in legend. It is attributed to the divination efforts of a mysteri-
ous Garga who, in his writings Gargasamhita, recommends the use of
specific third-order magic squares to pacify the nine planets.14 See fig-
ure 6.3.
6 1 8 7 2 9 8 3 10
7 5 3 8 6 4 9 7 5
2 9 4 3 10 5 4 11 6
Sun Moon Mars
9 4 11 10 5 12 11 6 13
10 8 6 11 9 7 12 10 8
5 12 7 6 3 8 7 14 9
Mercury Jupiter Venus
12 7 14 13 8 15 14 9 16
13 11 9 14 12 10 15 13 11
8 15 10 9 16 11 10 17 12
Saturn Rahu Ketu

FIGURE 6.3
In this scheme, the magic square representing the Sun is the luoshu
rotated 180 degrees. The oldest version of Gargasamhita dates from
approximately 100 C.E.; however, its consideration of planets, nava-
graha, has been judged to have been written no earlier than 400 C.E.15
The first documented occurrence of a third-order magic square is found
in the medical thesis Saddhayoga (ca. 900 C.E.) where its author, Vrnda,
prescribed a magic square of order three to ease the difficulties of child
birth.16 It is to be employed as a yantra, a mystical diagram that attracts
certain powers, a talisman, while a specific mantra is recited. Vrnda’s
magic square is shown in figure 6.4 and could have been derived from
the luoshu.
16 6 8
2 10 18
12 14 4
FIGURE 6.4
Perhaps the most famous of the medieval Indian magic squares are
those of order four found engraved within Jaina temple complexes at
Dudhai, Jhansi District, and Khajuraho. Paleographical dating suggests
that these engravings date from the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. The
Khajuraho square has a magic constant of 34. A. H. Frost, a British mis-
sionary stationed in the nearby town of Nasik, made a study of the Jaina
square and published his findings for a British audience.17 Reverend
Frost termed the square “Nasik” and “pandiagonal,” a term he coined to
describe its particular property whereby all diagonals and broken diago-
nals add up to the same sum. Frost’s Nasik square is shown in figure 6.5.
7 12 1 14
2 13 8 11
16 3 10 5
9 6 15 4
FIGURE 6.5
It appears that the Jains held a special reverence for magic squares.
They incorporated magic squares in their religious practices and men-
tioned them in their hymns.18
The first Indian work to treat magic squares as mathematical entities
was Ganitasara (ca. 1315 C.E.) written by the Jaina scholar, Thakkukra
Pheru. He limited his considerations to the square of order four. A com-
plete and comprehensive study of magic squares appeared in 1356 C.E.
in a work entitled Ganitakaumudi. It was written by Narayana who
devoted one chapter, bhadra-ganita [Mathematics of Magic Squares], to
the subject.19
While much of the Indian work on magic squares seemed to center
on squares of order four, squares as large as order fourteen and other
magical configurations, such as “lotuses” and circles, were also devised.
In India the square of order three has served as a talisman for good for-
tune that was thought to ease childbirth, help win a lover, prevent a
heart attack, help establish cordial relations with a superior, ensure the
birth of a male heir, cure a dog bite, deflect the negative influence of
planets, among other things. The square itself usually served as a yantra
in a multifaceted ritual: one had to write the number configuration on a
designated type of material, often using a special substance; one had to
perform a mantra, special sound, or formalistic incantation; sometimes
one had to sprinkle water and execute prescribed physical movements.
For example, the magic square for freeing a man from prison is shown
in figure 6.6.
8 1 6
3 5 7
4 9 2
FIGURE 6.6
It is an inverted luoshu configuration. To be effective, it was to be

written on the ground 1008 times with a pen made from a kind of wood
called “Aagar.”20 For ease of childbirth, Vrnda’s magic square was to be
gazed upon by the prospective mother while she was submerged in a
bath of consecrated water. Even today, astrological counseling in India
might result in a petitioner constructing one of Garga’s magic squares
using the wing of a peacock as a pen, writing on Bhooj Patra with Ashat
Gand as ink—the Ashat having been mixed with Ganges River water.21
Many Indian magic squares bear Islamic numerals, which may speak to
their Islamic origins or to the influence of the mogul princes who sup-
ported the use of these talisman. For example, a square that is still used
to thwart the influence of a ghost is shown in figure 6.7.
6 7 2
= 1 5 9
8 3 4
FIGURE 6.7
Outside of their occult ritual uses, magic squares also seem to have
held a broader transcendental appeal to Indians. In the Ganitakaumudi,
Narayana refers to a particular magic square of order four on several
occasions. A derivation of this same square was discovered in the nine-
teenth century at a ruined temple complex in Gwaliar and was dated to
1483 C.E.22 Cammann determined that the popularity of these squares lay
in a pattern revealed by their numbers.23 If the numbers of the two
squares are taken in pairs following the natural progression: 1-2, 3-4,
. . . , a mesh of interlocking line segments results, as shown in figure 6.8.
1 8 13 12 16 9 4 5
14 11 2 7 3 6 15 10
4 5 16 9 13 12 1 8
15 10 3 6 2 7 14 11
Narayana’s square Gwalior square

FIGURE 6.8
These lines move parallel to each other and alternate direction as would
the threads in a weaving. Hindus conceived of the universe as a vast
fabric woven by their gods. The weaving of numbers in these magic
squares makes the squares themselves microcosms of the universe.
Hindus and Buddhists reinforced their belief in existence as a

continuous cycle of birth, death, and reincarnation by constructing
odd-order magic squares using a continuous process. It goes as
follows:
1. Construct a magic square grid (for illustrative purposes, we will

use a 3 × 3 grid). Call this grid the objective grid.
2. Surround the objective grid on all sides by other grids (auxiliary
grids) so that a mosaic of grids are formed.
3. Place a 1 in the upper center cell of the objective grid.
4. Move up one cell and one cell to the right and place a 2 in this
cell. Now since this entry is outside of the objective grid, it will
be projected back to occupy the same relative position in the
objective grid. (In the diagram below, circled entries are outside
the objective grid.)
5. Continue through the natural number sequence in this fashion,
moving one cell up and one cell to the right for each additional
entry. If the entry falls in the objective square that is its
final position, if not, it must be projected into the objective
square.
6. When a position arrived at is already occupied by a number,
the new entry will assume the position directly below its
predecessor.
7. Continue the process until the objective grid is filled. One
additional step will return us to the first entry, 1, closing the
cycle.
9 2 7
8 1 6 8
3 5 7 3
4 9 2
FIGURE 6.9
If one considers the natural world analogous to a magic square arrived

at by this continuous process, then one achieves a place in the natural
world by leaving it and then returning, a cycle of reincarnation.
Tibet
The Tibetan people living in the shadows of two major civilizations
adopted and adapted many of the theories of their neighbors. In partic-
ular, Tibetan astronomy/astrology is built upon four traditions: skar-rtsis,
“star calculation,” comes from the Kalacakra astronomy of India; dbyan-
schar is from the Indian svarodaya, “divination practices”; nag-rtsis,
“black calculation,” is based on Chinese metaphysical theories; and
finally, rgya-rtsis, “Chinese calculation,” concerns the Chinese Shixian
calendar.24 Nag-rtsis was introduced into Tibet from China in the seventh
century. It focused on astrological theories and practices involving
yinyang, wuxing, and bagua and the “nine palaces.” With these theories
came the use of the luoshu as an astrological and divination reference.
Little information is available about how Tibetan astrologers used the
luoshu; however, most likely it was used in fortune-telling and as an
occult charm. Traditional Tibetan artworks frequently contain graphic
almanacs in which the luoshu is prominently featured.25 See figure 6.10.
FIGURE 6.10
Japan
Early Japan borrowed cultural forms from its neighbor, China. Japanese
musical theories, early art motifs, personal dress, architectural design,
and city-planning principles as well as the Japanese system of written
characters were all adopted from the Chinese. Daoist and Buddhist mis-
sionaries and commercial adventurers visited the islands of Japan seek-
ing spiritual or personal gain and at the same time brought their theories
and doctrines to Japan. Buddhism from China was established as a reli-
gion in Japan by the sixth century. In the seventh century, Korean Daoist
priests brought astrological and calendrical texts with them into Japan. In
604, the Japanese officially adopted China’s Song calendar from the
period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. The metaphysical con-
cepts of yinyang and wuxing became prevalent in Japanese cosmologi-
cal thinking; however, no clear evidence indicates that the luoshu was
an early import of note. The first official mention of this magic square in
Japanese life was in the Heian period (709–1192) when, in the year 970,
Tamenori Minamoto published Kuchi-zusami, a text for the education of
young noblemen. In the twelfth chapter of this book, Minamoto presents
the luoshu accompanied by Zhen Luan’s anthropomorphic description
associating the square’s numbers with body parts. Although the author
does not elaborate on the luoshu’s significance or use at this time, later
seventeenth-century mathematical works refer to the early use of the
magic square in fortune-telling and divination practices.26
The study of magic squares as mathematical entities attracted
Japanese scholars’ interest during the Kan-ei period (1624–1643) when
Chen Dawei’s Suanfa tongzong [Systematic Treatise on Arithmetic]
(1592) reached Japan. While this book was mainly a practical mathe-
matics text stressing abacus calculation and reviewing the methods of
the standard Chinese reference the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical
Art, it also offered some mathematical challenges and puzzles including
information on various types of magic squares. Japanese mathemati-
cians seized on this information and began producing their own theo-
ries and books on magic squares. Most noticeable in this collection of
works is Kigu hosu (1697) in which its author, Yueki Ando (1624–1704),
gives methods for constructing squares of all orders three to thirty.27 For
the three-by-three luoshu square, Ando began with the natural square
of order three (see figure 6.11a), he then exchanged the entries: 1 with
6; 3 with 8; 9 with 4, and 2 with 7. This procedure gave him a square
with even-numbered entries in the corners (figure 6.11b). He then
rotated the set of corner numbers 90 degrees clockwise to arrive at the

luoshu configuration (figure 6.11c):
7 4 1 2 9 6 4 9 2
8 5 2 3 5 7 3 5 7
9 6 3 4 1 8 8 1 6
(a) (b) (c)

FIGURE 6.11
A later technique devised by Katahiro Takebe (1664–1739) uses an

interesting transformation approach to devise the magic square of order
three.28 See figure 6.12. Takebe visualizes the natural square of order
three as comprised of two cruciform subsets of numbers: one formed by
the two diagonals, the other by the vertical and horizontal elements—
the pivotal element for both remains the number 5. Takebe first rotates
the diagonal set 45 degrees counterclockwise (figure 6.12b), he then
rotates the remaining set of elements 180 degrees to arrive at the luoshu
configuration (figure 6.12c).
7 4 1 4 1 2 4 9 2
8 5 2 7 5 3 3 5 7
9 6 3 8 9 6 8 1 6
(a) (b) (c)

FIGURE 6.12
Both Ando’s and Takebe’s methods of constructing a magic square

of order three stress the significance of placing even numbers at the cor-
ners of the square. In fact, if this is not done, the construction of the
third-order magic square is impossible. Further, their techniques employ
discrete mathematical steps focused on parts of the number configura-
tion. Such discrete thinking seems to deviate from the continuous meth-
ods employed by other early manipulators—specifically, Indian and
Islamic thinkers—of the magic square of order three and is uniquely

Japanese.
Thus it appears that by the time the luoshu was introduced into Japan
by (most probably) Daoist emissaries, it had already lost much of its cos-
mological significance, and it remained primarily a device for occult pur-
poses. A seventeenth-century image of a Japanese luoshu diagram
associates it with palm-reading and reveals an interesting innovation in
the depiction of the central entry.29 See figure 6.13. In this illustration,
the collection of circular images representing 5 is presented as a square
formed by four circular images and a central image all connected by line
segments. The four outer circles point to the four major compass direc-
tions—this design seems to stress the importance of centrality.
FIGURE 6.13
Later Japanese innovators of magic squares pursued purely mathemati-

cal investigations of the number configurations.
The Islamic World

Many Semitic peoples, for example, Chaldeans, Persians, and Sabaeans,
had trading contacts with the Middle Kingdom long before the rise of
Islam in 622 C.E.; however, little evidence exists to document their
exchange of mathematical and scientific information with the Chinese or
the state of their indigenous knowledge. After the rise of Islam and the
establishment of stronger literary traditions, the picture becomes clearer.
Islamic scholars were great synthesizers, bringing together theories and
ideas from various cultures and producing new and often novel
approaches to existing concepts as well as developing new ones.
Islamic astrologers and mathematicians often blended Pythagorean mys-
ticism with number knowledge and concepts obtained from the orient.
The first recorded Islamic involvement with magic squares is attrib-
uted to Jabir ibn Hayyan, the Father of Islamic alchemy.30 Known in the
West as Geber, Jabir is an enigmatic figure who is believed to have flour-
ished within the period 875–975 and is credited with authoring over
three thousand publications. Most modern scholars believe that the
great majority of these writings, however, were actually written by
Jabir’s later followers and attributed, in true Pythagorean fashion, to
their master. In the Jabiran Kitab al-Manwazin al-Saghir [The Small
Book of Balances], a collection of one hundred forty-four treatises, one
finds reference to the magic square of order three, the luoshu. Many
Muslim scholars adopted the Greek concept of the world of material
creation based on four primary elements: Water, Fire, Earth, and Air.
Jabir, deeply affected by Pythagorean mysticism, uses this square to
deduce the ratios in which the elements combine to form all substances.
He attributes the magic square of order three and much of his pro-
claimed theory to Apollonius of Tyana (who lived during the first cen-
tury). This Cappadocian Pythagorean philosopher, mathematician, and
creator of talismans had a large following. Among the works attributed
to him was Sirr al-Khaliqa [The Secrets of Creation], which heavily influ-
enced Jabirian theories. Jabir associated the number 17 with harmony.31
The choice of 17 as a number of accord seems particularly strange;
mathematically speaking, 17 is undistinguished and historically, prior to
this period, it bore little significance—one possible connection is that
the philosopher Posidonius (135–151 B.C.E.) taught that the human soul
possessed seventeen faculties. Perhaps by projecting this characteristic
onto a “World Soul,” Jabir arrives at this number, which is also the sum
1 + 3 + 5 + 8, numbers contained in the lower left subsquare of the
luoshu that represent the Four Elements: 1-fire; 3-earth; 5-water, and 8-
air. Further, of the remaining numbers in the magic square, when those
bounded by a gnomon are summed, 4 + 9 + 2 + 7 + 6, the result is 28.32
Twenty-eight is the second perfect number in Pythagorean tradition,
and it is the number of seven planets, 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7. It also
enumerates the “mansions of the moon,” twenty-eight regions of the
heavens marking the moon’s monthly path that were used as reference
points by ancient astronomers and astrologers. See figure 6.14.
4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6
FIGURE 6.14
The mansions of the moon were also thought to be microcosmic

counterparts representing the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet.
These letters provided the vehicle for the Divine Word as given in the
Quran and for devout Muslims were considered a form of the Divine
Breath, the essence of all creation.33 This magic square, if comprised of
Arabic letters encoded to represent numbers rather then the numbers
themselves, became an object for communicating sacred belief and holy
passages from the Quran. In Islam, this system of isopsephia became
known as abjad, a meaningless word formed from the first four letters
of the Arabic alphabet. Abjad variants of magic squares, particularly the
square of order three, became powerful talismans among Muslims and
their neighbors.34
Jabirian theory associated the luoshu and its related numerology
with the practices of alchemy. According to this theory, all substances
possessed properties dependent on the Four Elements. These properties
existed in fixed ratios centered on the number 17 and if the ratios were
altered a transmutation of the substance could take place.35 Alchemists
believed that metals possessed two sets of such properties, “inner qual-
ities” and “outer qualities.” Thus an analysis in the Book of Balances
notes that lead contains 3 parts of coldness and 8 parts of dryness as
outer qualities and 1 part of heat and 5 parts of humidity as inner qual-
ities, whereas gold possesses 3 parts of heat and 8 parts of humidity as
outer qualities and 1 part of coldness and 5 parts of dryness as inner
qualities. Note that the sum of the parts in each case totals 17 parts.
Further, alchemists held that the proportion of these qualities could be
changed and, in theory, lead could be converted into gold. This princi-
ple became the basis of the fabled alchemistic quests for wealth by turn-
ing common metal into gold.
Jabir also proclaimed the abjad version of the luoshu a valuable aid
to childbirth, a belief similar to one held in India. The magic square of
order three and other magic squares adopted or devised by Muslims
became therapeutic devices when used to adorn plates, bowls, and cups
to whose surfaces they imparted their healing powers. In the later nine-
teenth century, porcelain factories in China still manufactured and
exported these “medicine plates.”36
The first published set of magic squares appeared in the encyclope-
dia Rasa’ il (ca. 989), a forty-eight volume series compiled by the
Ikhwan as-Safa, a Muslim sect, popularly known as the “Brethren of
Purity.”37 This sect, which was centered in Basra—a thriving seaport at
this time and a marketplace of foreign influences—believed in the puri-
fying power of knowledge. Ikhwanian writings and teachings repre-
sented a Gnostic effort to reconcile Hellenistic beliefs with the teachings
of the Quran. Pythagorean and Neoplatonic mystical concepts were
dominant in the Brethren’s rationales. They viewed geometric shapes as
personalities bearing special attributes. The triangle represented har-
mony. The square represented stability and promoted the Four Element
theory and thus a special status for the number 4 (reminiscent of the
Chinese cosmological reverence for the number five). Of this fourfold
division of Nature, the Ikhwans wrote:
God himself has made it such that the majority of the things
of Nature are grouped in four such as the four physical natures
which are hot, cold, dry and moist; the four elements which are
fire, air, water and earth; the four humours which are blood,
phlegm, yellow bile and black bile; the four seasons . . . , the
four cardinal directions . . . , the four winds . . . , the four directions
envisaged by their relation to the constellations; the four products
which are the metals, plants, animals and men.38
For the Ikhwans, as for the Pythagoreans, number appeared to be

the key for understanding the relationships upon which the physical
and spiritual world functioned. They developed their own system of
abjad for the numerical symbolism of letters and devised numerical
categories to clarify relationships. In particular, the Brethren divided all

beings and objects into nine states, since 9, the last digit in the decimal
numeration system, closes a cycle and symbolically brings an end to the
series of numbers. The categories are as follows:
1. Creator, who is one, simple, eternal, permanent.

2. Intellect, which is of two kinds: innate and acquired.
3. Soul, which has three species: vegetative, animal, and rational.
4. Matter, which is of four kinds: matter of artifacts, physical matter, uni-
versal matter, and original matter.
5. Nature, which is of five kinds: celestial nature and the four elemental
natures.
6. Body, which has six directions: above, below, front, back, left, and right.
7. The sphere [of the Universe], which has its seven planets.
8. The elements which possess eight qualities: four qualities combined two
by two:
Earth—cold and dry
Water—cold and wet
Air—warm and wet
Fire—warm and dry
9. Beings of the world, which are the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms,
each having three parts.39
The first four numbers in this series and the entities in the first four cat-
egories were, by the Pythagorean concept of tetractys, considered to be
pure, universal beings since, within their sum, they contained all num-
bers. The other beings are compound objects.
Evidence in the Rasa’il indicates the Ikhwan Brethren had knowl-
edge of magic squares up to and including order nine. The Arabic term
for a magic square is wafq al-a’dad, “the harmonious disposition of
numbers,” and the Brethren considered their magic squares “small mod-
els of a harmonious universe.” Their magic square of order three is pre-
sented as the luoshu rotated 90 degrees clockwise. Its construction is
described in terms of chess moves—“First, two knight’s leaps, then a
pawn step”—which reveals that, by this time, Islamic scholars had
experimented with the structures of magic squares and had devised
their own techniques for developing them. However, an examination of
the Rasa’il magic squares reveals no dominating technique for their con-
struction but rather an eclectic mix of methods. Perhaps the most inter-
esting and innovative square in this series is the one of order seven, a
concentric bordered magic square. Its author apparently took the mid-
dle numbers from the sequence 1 to 49, namely, 21 to 29, and arranged
them into a magic square of order three which he then used as a core
for further construction.40 Next, he chose the sequences 30 to 37 and 13
to 20 and paired elements of each to form complementary pairs whose
sum was 50. He distributed these as a border around the central core.
Finally, he employed the remaining numbers in twelve complementary
pairs to form the outer border. The resulting square was comprised of
a core with two concentric borders—a magic square within a magic
square within a magic square! See figure 6.15.
47 11 8 9 6 45 49
4 37 20 17 16 35 46
2 18 26 21 28 32 48
43 19 27 25 23 31 7
38 36 22 29 24 14 12
40 15 30 33 34 13 10
1 39 42 41 44 5 3
FIGURE 6.15
Subsequent Islamic scholars expanded this body of knowledge

about magic squares and their uses. The versatile scientist-philosopher
Thabit ibn Qurra (836–901) wrote on magic squares. Ibn Sina
(980–1037), an Isma’ili, known in the west as Avicenna and respected
for his medical knowledge, used magic squares. Al-Ghazali of Tus
(1058–1111), primarily known as a theologian, mentions them in his
work. Ibn al-Lubudi (b. 1210), a Syrian physician, astronomer, and math-
ematician, while considered a medical author, wrote an essay on magic
squares.41 Abu’l-Abbas al-Buni (d. 1225), a north African occultist, wrote
three books on the use of magic squares as talismans. His most com-
prehensive but cryptic writings on the subject are found in Shams al-
ma’arif al-Kubra in which he labels the luoshu “Izra’il,” “Angel of
Death.”42 Several anonymous Persian manuscripts from the thirteenth
century attest to the widespread interest in magic squares in the Islamic
world.43 An examination of this literature reveals two features worthy of
further note: Islamic scholars developed a continuous technique to gen-
erate odd-order squares, and they believed that magic squares were
truly magical devices, particularly useful in the mystical “sciences” of
medicine, alchemy, and astrology.
Early Islamic works indicate a facility with a diamond technique for
devising odd-order squares. In this procedure the numbers are written in
consecutive order in a series of right-slanting diagonal lines intersecting
the respective magic square grid. The numbers in each line reflect the
order of the square; thus, a third-order square will have three entries on
each diagonal line. In this process all numbers falling inside the grid
retain their position, those outside the boundaries of the grid are pro-
jected back within the opposite side of the grid. Examples of this process
are demonstrated for third- and fifth-order magic squares in figure 6.16.
4 2 4 9 2
7 5 3 3 5 7
8 6 8 1 6
6 2
11 7 3 11 24 7 20 3
16 12 8 4 4 12 25 8 16
21 17 13 9 5 17 5 13 21 9
22 18 14 10 10 18 1 14 22
23 19 15 23 6 19 2 15
24 20
25
FIGURE 6.16
Once established, this method provides a simple, easily remembered

algorithm for constructing odd-order squares. But by the thirteenth cen-
tury, Persian texts indicate that their authors had devised another
method, one that perhaps was more psychologically appealing. This
method began inside the square, proceeded in a continual fashion, and
ended at the point where it started, closing the cycle.
In an empty grid for an odd-order magic square, the author placed
the number 1 in the cell directly below the central cell. Then he con-
tinued downward and to the right, placing a 2 in the next available cell.
If the cell lies within the grid, the number retains its position; however,
if it falls outside the grid’s boundary then the number is projected into
the farthest empty cell within the row or column marked by the num-
ber from which the process continues. When a target cell is already
occupied, the enumeration breaks from its diagonal path, drops down
one cell directly below the previously placed number (a “break move”)
and begins again. This process is followed until the square is completed.
An example of this method is shown in figure 6.17 where circled entries
are situated as a result of a break move.
4 9 2
3 5 7 3
8 1 6 8
4 9 2
FIGURE 6.17
Conceptually, this system works as if the magic square were constructed

on a doubly curved surface which behaves both like a vertical cylin-
der—that is, the right side of the square curves to meet the left side—
and, a horizontal cylinder where the top curves to meet the bottom.
Geometrically speaking, such a surface does exist; it is the donut-shaped
“torus”; however, it is doubtful if the creators of this technique relied on
such a geometric insight.44
In Islamic tradition, magic squares were interesting not for their
mathematical properties but for their metaphysical potential as commu-
nicators of religious and occult messages. Scholars created many abjad

systems for encoding words and textual passages into numerical or let-
ter equivalents.45 The system used by Ibn Sina placed principal impor-
tance on the first nine letters of the Arabic alphabet because it was
believed these nine letters, known as the “Nine Letters of Adam,” were
the primary instruments through which God first communicated to
humans. These nine letters established a special hierarchy of relation-
ships among the realms of creation. All the other letters of Ibn Sina’s
system were formed by adding or multiplying together the numbers cor-
responding to these first nine levels or states of being. Here is Ibn Sina’s
code:
A = 1 = al-Bari’: Creator
B = 2 = al-’aql: Intellect
J = 3 = al-nafs: Soul
D = 4 = al-tabi’ab: Nature
H = 5 = al-Bari’ (Bi’l-idafah): Creator in relation to what is below
W = 6 = al’aql (bi’l-idafah): Intellect in relation to what is below it
Z = 7 = al-nafs (bi’l-idafah): Soul in relation to what is below it
H = 8 = al-tabi’ah (bi’l-idafah): Nature in relation to what is below it
T = 9 = al-hayula’: material world having no relation to anything below it
Y = 10 = 5 × 2 = al-ibda’: the plan of the Creator
K = 20 = 5 × 4 = al-takwin: Structure transmitted to the created realm
L = 30 = 5 × 6 = al-amr: the Divine Commandment
M = 40 = 5 × 8 = al-khalq: the created Universe
N = 50 = M + Y = the twofold aspect of wiyud (being)
S = 60 = M + K = the double relation to khalq and takwin
‘ayn = 70 = L + M = al-tartib: chain of being impressed upon the Universe
S = 90 = L + M + K = the triple relation to amr, khalq and takwin
Q = 100 = 2Y = S + Y = ishtimal al-jumlah fi’l-ibda’: The assembly of all
things in the plan of the Creator46
The abjad version of the luoshu talisman that Jabir discusses is shown
in figure 6.18.
Variations of this square have served Muslims as religious mandalas,
meditative devices, and occult talismans and amulets. The square’s
magic sum of 15, which for the Chinese represented “human being per-
fected,” has been culturally transformed in the Islamic context to reflect
the phrase “O man” or “O Perfect Man” referring to the Prophet
Muhammad. A configuration formed from the square’s central row and
column—a cross of the odd numbers—is considered a harbinger of bad
FIGURE 6.18
luck or evil, whereas a configuration of the four corner numbers—the

even numbers—is thought to be a powerful talisman for good luck. The
Arabic letters for the four corners, if read from right to left, form the
word BEDUH, the “word of power” as handed down by Adam.47 This
word itself, or its abbreviations—just the letter B or the numerical equiv-
alents 2, 4, 6, 8—are believed to be powerful talismans that protect trav-
elers, babies, and postal letters and packages in transit. In some Islamic
countries today, one finds packages with “2,” “4,” “6,” “8” written in their
corners or postal letters bearing an extraneous “B” written under the
address as added postal insurance. The BEDUH tradition is believed to
predate the Quran. Among its other attributes, the Islamic luoshu is
credited with insuring that one finds love; helping one secure a mate;
preventing childhood fears; curing headaches, stomach ailments, fevers,
and epilepsy; preventing theft, attacks by bandits, and poisonings; and
helping one find lost objects. These different applications may have
required writing the square on a specific surface: a part of the human
body, for example, the forehead, palms, or fingernails; using a specific
substance, such as blood, to draw the square, and going through a
physical ritual or performing an accompanying chant.
The magic square of order three was highly revered throughout the
lands of Islamic influence. In medieval times it was inscribed on small
coin-like amulets and widely distributed. A large collection of these
amulets can be viewed at the Indonesian National Museum in Jakarta
where the luoshu can also be found adorning antique prayer rugs and
sarongs. Travelers to Palembang on the southern coast of Sumatra in the
late nineteenth century still found these amulets being sold, engraved
on the face of a ring. At about the same time, young children in the
Rear
Front
FIGURE 6.19
Celebes were wearing large silver amulets suspended from their necks
and engraved with the magic square.48 See figure 6.19.
Walter Skeat, writing on the magic practices of the Malay peninsula
(now West Malaysia and Singapore), provides some details on just how
these amulets were constructed and used.49 In many cases, when a per-
son sought a specific favor through the use of an amulet, that amulet
was personalized with an encoded inscription of the person’s name.
Each letter of the name would be assigned a numerical value according
to the system used. To seduce a woman, the names of the woman and
her would-be seducer were required; if a married couple desired a child
both their names were necessary. By encoding the letters of the names,
the “key number” was arrived at, at which point it had 12 subtracted
from it and then the remainder was divided by 4; the result was placed
in an empty cell in the waiting magic square array. Usually this cell is
the central one in the luoshu configuration. Skeat describes the use of
a magic square talisman intended to secure wealth for its patron.50 This
talisman is shown in figure 6.20.
The patron’s name (in numbers) is written in the empty cells and his
or her desires are listed in the space between the squares. The charm is
FIGURE 6.20
then carried on the patron’s person. Its preparer must undertake ritual
ablutions as though he were attending prayers at a mosque. (The pre-
parer is specified as being male.) He must also clean and purify the sur-
face on which the charm is being written. He further prepares himself
by praying, reading the al-Fatihah, the first chapter of the Quran. Then
he recites fifteen repetitions of the “Throne verse,” verse 255 of chapter
2, and twenty-five repetitions of chapter 112. After this extensive prepa-
ration, he writes the charm. Some magic square charms were inexpen-
sively mass-produced as block prints on green paper, a color often
associated with Islam.
While generally referred to as magic square talismans or charms,
many of these number configurations were not magic squares in a true
mathematical sense. In the charm for wealth described above, the bor-
der rows and columns of the left square each add up to the sum of 14
as do the central number pairs from opposite sides; for the right square,
the pattern is the same but the constant sum is 19. Obviously the num-
bers 14 and 19 had significance within this mystical context. The use of
such “border squares” in securing desires and in fortune-telling was
widespread. Westermarck reported the use of such squares in Fez,
Morocco in the 1920s.51 He observed squares used for fortune-telling,
with the patron’s number inserted into the center cell. One such square
is shown in figure 6.21.
4 9 1
8 6
2 5 7
FIGURE 6.21
The Ilm al-asrar, “the science of secrets,” was well-known and prac-
ticed by the Fulani people of north Africa. Muhammad ibn Muhammad,
an eighteenth-century mathematician, astrologer, and mystic who lived in
Katsina (northern Nigeria) published a book on magic squares in 1732.
In his writing, Muhammad counsels his students of abjad, advising:
work in secret and privacy. The letters are in God’s safekeeping. God’s
power is in his names and his secrets, and if you enter his treasury
you are in God’s privacy, and you should not spread God’s secrets
indiscriminately.52
Noted for their acuity as merchants and breeders and traders of cat-
tle, the Fulani were also ardent believers and users of magic square
charms. They even incorporated magic squares into games in which the
challenge was to complete a magic square by placing stones or pieces
of dung in the empty cells of a grid drawn on the ground—the magic
sum would be specified. Two squares in popular use among the Fulani
and Islamic peoples in general are the magic square of order three
whose sum gives the number of Allah and the square of order four
whose magic constant is the number of the “Four Angels.”53 The numer-
ical equivalents of these squares are shown in figure 6.22.
23134 23137 23143 23127

21 26 19
23142 23128 23133 23138
20 22 24
23129 23145 23135 23132
25 18 23
23136 23131 23130 23144
Allah (66)
Four Angels (92541)
FIGURE 6.22
One of the most dramatic descriptions of the luoshu magic square in

the Islamic world comes from the early nineteenth-century traveler
Edward Lane.54 Lane, while visiting Cairo, saw a street magician put a
youth into a trance.55 The magician drew a version of the luoshu on the
young man’s right palm. See figure 6.23. He then placed a large drop of
black ink in its center. Required to gaze into the drop, the youth fell into
FIGURE 6.23
a deep trance and, by the power of his master’s suggestion, saw scenes
of buildings and people within this drop of ink. He vividly described his
visions to the amusement of the street audience.
Stylized calligraphic renderings of magic squares are visually, psy-
chologically, and esthetically appealing, so for a devout Muslim
beholder, their spiritual impact is greatly enhanced. A north African tal-
isman for wealth and good fortune is shown in figure 6.24(a).56 The
numbers enclosed in the artistic design correspond to the “Allah square”
of figure 6.22. Islamic mystical charms based on magic squares also rep-
resented many religious figures. The square illustrated in figure 6.24(b)
pays homage to Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, and the Prophet’s four
successors, the caliphs: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali.57
(a) (b)
FIGURE 6.24
While magic squares had many uses within the Islamic tradition,
astrology eventually became a major focus. Magic squares were associ-
ated with the planets and served as the basis for planetary amulets.
Much of Islamic astrological theory was adopted from Harranian beliefs.
Harran was a Syrian town on the upper Euphrates that served as a

repository of ancient Babylonian traditions well into the tenth century
of the Christian Era. Harranian theories associated the planets with spe-
cific colors, metals, geometric shapes, and numbers and had temples
and idols dedicated to each planet. Table 6.1 lists these relationships: 58
TABLE 6.1
Number of
Planet to which Metal of which Geometrical Steps to the
the Temple was the God’s image Associated Structure throne of
dedicated was made Colour of Temple each Idol
SATURN LEAD Black Hexagonal 9
JUPITER TIN Green Triangular

base: roof and
angles pointed 8
MARS IRON Red Oblong 7
SUN GOLD Yellow Square 6

(image hung
with PEARLS)
VENUS COPPER Blue Triangular

(with one side
longer than the
other two)
5
MERCURY An alloy of all Brown Hexagonal, with
the metals, (At the a Square inte-
including Wednesday rior
Kharsini service a Brown
(Chinese Iron). youth who was
The hollow a good scribe
interior was was slain, quar-
filled with tered, the quar-
MERCURY - ters separately
thus imparting burnt, and the
to the Image of ashes thrown in
the Spirit f the the face of the 4
Planetary deity image (circular)
MOON SILVER White Pentagonal 3

Muslims rejected the idolatrous aspects of the planetary theory but

did adopt other correlations, for example, a planet’s connection to a
specific metal. The Persian astrologer Abu Ma’shar (d. 886) mentions the
planets and their respective metals in his work. One of Islamic Spain’s
greatest scientists was al-Majriti, Abu-al-Qasim Maslamah ibn Ahmad al-
Faradi (d. 1007). Born in Madrid, al-Majriti, who may have served as a
court astrologer, wrote works on spherical geometry, astrology, and
commercial arithmetic.59 He had a large following of disciples, one of
whom, Ibn al-Samh (d. 1035), wrote a treatise, Book of the Plates of the
Seven Planets, now lost in its original Arabic but reproduced in the
Spanish work, Libros del Saber de Astrologia. Ibn al-Samh also associ-
ated each planet with a certain metal. Alfonso X, the King of Castile,
ordered the publication of a compendium of astrological and cosmo-
logical beliefs. The work, first written in Spanish and then translated into
Latin, was based mainly on the text, Ghajat al-Hakim [The Aim of the
Sage], attributed to al-Majriti. It appeared in 1256 under the Latin title
Picatrix and was widely distributed throughout Europe. The Picatrix
introduced Latin Europe to the mystical practices of Islamic astrology
including the use of planetary amulets involving magic squares; how-
ever, it lacked detailed explanations.60 About thirty years before, al-Buni
in North Africa had published a complete description of such amulets in
which Saturn was represented by a third-order magic square, the
luoshu; Jupiter, a fourth-order square; Mars, a fifth-order square; the
Sun, a sixth-order square; Venus, a seventh-order square; Mercury, an
eighth-order square; and the Moon, a ninth-order magic square. These
amulets were each to be made of a different metal as per the Harranian
tradition. Lead, the “father of all metals,” was to be the substance upon
which the luoshu was inscribed. By the fifteenth century, this knowl-
edge found its way into Latin Europe. A manuscript of this period, now
in the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow, contains the earliest known set of
magic squares in the Latin world.61 They are the seven planetary magic
squares of the Islamic tradition.
Magic Squares in Latin Europe

While the appearance of the Picatrix was a major influence on stimu-
lating a broader European interest in magic squares, other information
on the number configurations and their uses was also finding its way
into Latin Europe.62 Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra (1090–1167), alternately
known as Abenezra, was a Spanish-Jewish philosopher, biblical com-
mentator, astrologer, mathematician, and translator of Arabic works into

Hebrew. He resided and taught in Toledo but traveled widely, journey-
ing to North Africa, Italy, France, and even England.63 Abraham was a
Neoplatonist who believed strongly in astrology and has been credited
with writing over fifty works on the subject.64 His works included a
magic square of order three with its entries comprised of characters of
the Hebrew alphabet used to represent numbers. See figure 6.25.
FIGURE 6.25
Upon numerical interpretation, it turns out that this square is the

luoshu. This magic square was readily adopted into the existing Jewish
Kabbalistic tradition as a mystical symbol and found its way into Jewish
communities across Europe. The historical introduction of magic
squares into Europe has often been attributed to Manual Moschopoulos
(ca. 1300), a Greek grammarian who lived and taught in Constantinople.
Moschopoulos [the “little calf”] did write a treatise on magic squares but
it appears that it was little known during his time and only drew math-
ematical attention when it was rediscovered in the seventeenth century
by Philippe de la Hire who found it in the Royal Library in Paris.65 In
his studies of fourteenth-century European mathematics, mathematical
historian Kurt Vogel notes the existence of a puzzle-type problem based
on the structure of the luoshu.66 However, David Singmaster, in his
research of mathematical puzzles, has traced the problem back to the
twelfth century.67 It can be found in Annales Stadenses (ca. 1240) where
the version goes as follows:
There were three brothers at Cologne, who had nine casks of wine.
The first cask contained 1 bucket, the second 2, the third 3, the fourth
4, the fifth 5, the sixth 6, the seventh 7, the eighth 8, the ninth 9.
Divide this wine equally among these three without breaking any casks.
and the answer is provided:
To the oldest, I give the first [cask], fifth and ninth, and he has 15
buckets. To the middle one, I give the third, fourth and eighth,
and he likewise has 15. So to the youngest I gave the second,
sixth and seventh; and thus he also has 15, the wine is divided and
the casks are not broken.68
Singmaster notes that this is a variation of wine division problems as

found in Alcuin of York’s Propositiones ad acuendos juvenes (ca. 775).69
By at least as early as the twelfth century, the magic square of order
three was known and appreciated, in some sense, in Christian Europe.
However, it was the luoshu’s supposed occult or magic power (as
embodied in theories of planetary influences or amulet magic) as
opposed to its mathematical properties that made it widely popular.
Among the early Renaissance writers on applied arithmetic was the
Florentine reckoning master, Paolo Dagomari dell’Abaco (ca.
1281–1374). Dagomari was also known as an astronomer and astrologer.
In his Trattato d’Abbaco [Treatise on Computing], he published the
magic squares for the sun and the moon.70 About 150 years later, Luca
Paciolo (ca. 1445–1509), noted mathematics teacher and compiler, put
together a collection of eighty-one mathematical problems. The collec-
tion was compiled during the years 1496–1508 and entitled De viribus
quantitatis. Problem 72 in this series contains the seven planetary magic
squares. Paciolo considers the squares mathematical curiosities; he
merely mentions their astrological and magical significance without
exploring the subjects further. Knowledge of magic squares and their
association with the power of the planets was reaching a wider and
wider European audience. In 1514, the German artist Albrecht Dürer
(1471–1528) published an engraving, Melancholia I. The print depicted
the characteristics of melancholy, one of the temperaments associated
with the theory of the “four humors”—an excess of black bile, which
resulted in melancholy.71 See figure 6.26. Dürer’s scene contains many
symbols which reflect on the presence and influence of melancholy.
One of these symbols is a magic square of order four, the square of
Jupiter with its numbers rearranged so that the date 1514 is made promi-
nent in a lower central position. In astrology, the planet Saturn conveys
FIGURE 6.26
melancholy, and the planet Jupiter counteracts Saturn’s influence; there-

fore, the Jupiter magic square is intended to lessen the effects of melan-
choly.72 Dürer possessed a keen interest in mathematics and during the
years 1505 to 1507 he traveled widely in Italy studying the new tech-
niques of geometric perspective. In 1506 he visited Bologna where he
met with the mathematicians Scipione de Ferro (1465–1526) and Luca
Paciolo. Perhaps it was from this contact that he learned of magic
squares.73 Dürer’s square of order four was the same as the one con-
tained in the fifteenth-century Krakow manuscript.
But magic squares would make their greatest intellectual impact on
the European scene in the realm of the mystical and the occult. Magic
squares were readily appreciated for their intriguing mathematical prop-
erties by Jewish mystics of the Kabbala. The planetary squares were
transcribed into Hebrew characters and revered for their magical power
as talismans. See table 6.2 for the conversion values of Hebrew charac-
ters. 74 One of the tasks the Jewish mystics set for themselves was to
seek out the names of God and, in particular, to find the Shem
Hameforash, “Ineffable Name,” which would ensure its knower supreme
power. The one name acknowledged by all Jews for their God was
YHWH [Jehovah] but it was so sacred, that for the devoutly religious Jew,
it was unspeakable.75 The Tetragrammation, YHWH, was given in cir-
cumlocutional forms one of which was the luoshu magic square since
YH was the shortened form of YHWH and it possessed the numerical
value 15. Further the value of the expanded Tetragrammation: YWD; HA;
TABLE 6.2
4 9 2
3 5 7 =
8 1 6
FIGURE 6.27
WAW; HA, designated a numerical value of 45, the total of the luoshu
entries. See figure 6.27. Kabbalists also associated the divine name with
the four elements of medieval European cosmological belief: where Y,
yod = Fire; H, he = Water; W, vau = Air, and the second H, he = Earth.
See figure 6.28 for the magic squares of the four elements. The square
for Fire is the luoshu. Squares for the remaining three elements are per-
mutations of the luoshu.
Among the Kabbalist’s number configurations, the one that is most
reminiscent, in a functional sense, to the Chinese cosmological inter-
pretation of the luoshu is the Aiq Beker, the “Kabbala of the Nine
Chambers.” This is a nine-cell square configuration where each cell
contains three Hebrew letters. The Kabbala of the Nine Chambers is
not a magic square in the mathematical sense but was considered
quite magical. This square is comprised of the twenty-two characters
of the Hebrew alphabet and five alternate or final forms for five of the
characters.76 These letters or characters are divided into three cate-
gories each containing nine letters. The first nine, associated with the
numbers 1 to 9, represent the divisions of the world as ruled by nine
orders of angels. The second group of nine, numbers 10 to 90, repre-
sent the things that are in the nine circles of heaven. The final set of
nine consisted of the last four letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the
final forms for K, M, N, P, and Tz. Each represents, respectively: the
numbers 100 to 400 and the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water;
the numbers 500 to 900 and the five unions of bodies of the Kabbalah
tradition.77 Figure 6.29 presents a translated Kabbala of the Nine
Chambers.
Within the configuration, the letters of each chamber or cell were
linked in an occult manner and could be interchanged as could their
numerical values. This Kabbalic method allowing permutations was
called Temurah. Each chamber held a special mathematical and occult
6 1 8
7 5 3
2 9 4
Water
4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6
Fire
6 7 2
1 5 9
8 3 4
Earth
2 7 6
9 5 1
4 3 8
Air
FIGURE 6.28
significance and the chambers themselves gave rise to a symbolic code

of nine characters, one associated with each chamber. These characters,
shown in figure 6.30, served as vehicles for the conveying of mystic
messages.
FIGURE 6.29
FIGURE 6.30
While the practices of Kabbala were known in Europe from very

early times, the expulsion of Spain’s Jews in 1492 resulted in a great
influx of Kabbalic lore into the Latin kingdoms. Christian mystics, meta-
physicians, and astrologers were widely attracted to this new mysterious
knowledge. Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522), a German humanist known
by the name of Capnion, became the first non-Jew to publish a work on
the Kabbala. His De arte cabalistica appeared in 1517. The work con-
sidered Kabbalic theories and numerology. Reuchlin’s concern with the
mystical properties of numbers led to his being described as “Pythagoras
reborn.” He knew of and worked with magic squares.
The man who was to formalize the theory of planetary magic
squares within the occult community of Europe was Henricus Cornelius
Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1536). Agrippa was a German scholar
and mystic, a practitioner of “white magic” who would eventually serve
as the model for Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. In 1531,
Agrippa published De occulta philosophia, a manual of occult beliefs
and practices.78 The twelfth chapter of the second book of this work is
entitled “Of the tables of the planets, their virtues, forms, and what
divine names, intelligences, and spirits are set over them” and contains
the seven planetary magic squares (tables) in both numerical and
4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6
The table of Saturn in In Hebrew notes

his Compass
The Seals of Characters
Of Saturn
Of the Intelligence of Saturn Of the Spirit of Saturn
FIGURE 6.31
Kabbalistic form together with various symbols associated with the plan-
ets. The luoshu appears as the magic square for Saturn; its seal can be
recognized as the yubu.79 See figure 6.31.
Accompanying text describes its talismanic powers:
They say that this table [magic square] being with a fortunate Saturn
engraven on a plate of lead, doth help to bring forth, or birth, and to
make a man safe, and powerful, and to cause success of petitions with
princes, and powers: but if it be done with an unfortunate Saturn, that it
hinders buildings, plantings, and the like, and casts a man from honors,
and dignities, and causes discords, and quarrelings, and disperses an
army.80
A preliminary version of Occulta completed in 1511 did not include

material on magic squares. Agrippa resided in Italy during from 1511 to
1518, and it was probably there that he came into contact with
Kabbalistic circles and acquired information on the planetary squares
that were then added to the later edition of his work. His work became
one of the most widely distributed books of the sixteenth century and
since its appearance, De occulta philosophia by Corneluis Agrippa has
remained the paramount reference on occult beliefs associating the
luoshu with the planet Saturn.
In 1539, Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576), Italian mathematician and
acknowledged astrologer, published Practica arithmetice et mensurandi
singularis in which he gave the seven planetary magic squares as
shown in figure 6.32. Cardano, however, reversed the order of the
squares, which suggests that he arrived at the information independ-
ently of Agrippa.81 Finally in 1567, a third work associating magic
squares with the planets appeared. It was entitled Archidoxa Magica
and is attributed to Paracelsus [Theophrastus Bombastus von
Hohenhiem] (1493–1541) who, during his lifetime, was widely recog-
nized as a physician, astrologer, theologian, and mystical thinker. The
seventh book of this treatise describes magic square talisman for each
of the planets. Paracelsus’s ordering of the seven planets agreed with
that given by Agrippa. This book also attracted a large following.
Under the influence of these writings, many practitioners of astrol-
ogy were now drawn into the use of magic squares and magic square
talismans. Mystical experimenters such as Francesco Giorgi (1466–1540)
and the British Neoplatonist John Dee (1527–1608), scientific advisor to
the Elizabethan court, and Dee’s colleague Robert Fludd (1574–1637)
actively pursued this new numerological dimension in astrology
The occult influence of the luoshu was most obvious in its guise as
a talisman, inscribed on lead and worn on one’s person to deter the
effects of the plague.
A Mathematical Interest in Magic Squares

By the dawn of the sixteenth century, the occult attraction of magic
squares was strong in Europe, and their appeal as mathematical entities
was beginning to grow as well. Mathematicians began to consider them
as problems in mathematical arrangement and examined their workings.
The German Rechenmeister Adam Riese (ca. 1489–1559) demonstrated
the use of the Persian continuous method to construct odd-order magic
FIGURE 6.32
squares in the 1522 edition of his Rechnung auff der Linien und Federn.
Also in Germany Michael Stifel (1486–1567) experimented with
bordered squares, publishing some of his findings in his Arithmetica
integra (1544). Such squares are still known in Germany today as Stifel
squares [Stifelsche Quadrate].
Unaware of German developments with magic squares, French
mathematicians were undertaking their own investigations. Claude-
Gaspar Bachet de Meziriac (1581–1638), while studying the formation of
Agrippa’s odd-order magic squares, stumbled upon the “diamond tech-
nique” of construction originally employed by the Chinese. Bachet pub-
lished his method in a collection of mathematical problems, Problemes
plaisants et delectables (1624). The method was hailed as a new and
exciting discovery and has since borne the name of Bachet de Meziriac.
But many realized that this technique was slow and inefficient. In 1688,
a returning diplomatic envoy to the Court of Siam, Simon de la Loubère,
amused himself on shipboard by constructing magic squares. He used
Bachet’s diamond technique and attracted the attention of a fellow pas-
senger, a French physician by the name of Vincent who was returning
from a visit to Surat on the coast of India. At Surat, Vincent had learned
the Hindu continuous method of constructing magic squares that he
now taught to his delighted traveling companion. In 1691, Simon de la
Loubère published an account of his travels including a chapter that
introduced the Hindu technique for constructing magic squares.82 This
new method was readily adopted in Europe.
La Loubère’s book, Du Royaume de Siam, in essence a travel
adventure, became very popular, and while it informed its readers of
the exotic ways of the Orient, it also introduced them to magic
squares. One reader, the Abbé Poignard, Grand Canon of Brussels,
became an enthusiastic student of magic squares and embarked on an
extensive investigation of their properties. Abbé Poignard published
his findings in Traité des Quarrés sublimes (1704). This text was
reviewed for the Royal Academy of Sciences by Philippe de la Hire
(1640–1718) and inspired him to become involved with magic squares.
Hire published a method of creating new squares from two given
squares. His theory appeared in the Mémoires of the Royal Academy
in 1705. It attracted further interest in the mathematics of magic
squares and resulted in Joseph Sauveur publishing “Construction
générale des quarrés magiques” in the Mémoires of 1710. In a letter to
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz dated 19 November 1712, Pierre Varignon,
one of France’s leading mathematicians and an academician, noted
that he had just spent two months examining the second edition of
Poignard’s Traité. From all this activity, the new method, an alternate
to Bachet’s technique for construction magic squares emerged—it was
called the “Method of La Hire” and to this day the name has stuck.
Somehow the contributions of Sauveur, Poignard, La Loubère, and the

original Indian inventors of the method were ignored.
Bernard Frénicle de Bessy (1605–1675), an accomplished amateur
mathematician and number theorist, worked with doubly-even magic
squares. A year after his death, Frénicle’s book on magic squares, Traité
des Triangles Rectangles en nombres, appeared. Frénicle calculated that
there existed exactly 880 magic squares of order four and published a
compilation of them.83 In 1750 d’Ons-le-Bray contributed a memoir to
the Royal Academy on the construction of higher order magic squares
devised using Islamic techniques. He prefaced his findings by com-
menting on the computation of magic squares as a diversion for staving
off boredom. The American statesman and natural scientist, Benjamin
Franklin, constructed magic squares during the years 1736 and 1737
while serving as a clerk in the Pennsylvania Assembly. He found work-
ing with the squares reduced the tedium of his job. In January 1750,
Franklin corresponded with a British friend, a James Logan, on the sub-
ject of magic squares.84 Later when visiting England in 1769, Logan gave
Benjamin Franklin a copy of a work by Frénicle and told him about the
remarkable French contributions to the subject. He also learned that
English mathematicians had done little in this field. It would take the
discoveries and enthusiasm of A. H. Frost to arouse British interest in
the topic.85
By the nineteenth century, the magic square that had dominated
early Chinese cosmological thinking, found its way into alchemy and
astrology, and served as a centerpiece for medieval occult numerology
had been reduced in status to a mathematical curiosity, a mere intellec-
tual diversion.
7
Luoshu
Miscellanea
Mathematicians continue to make fascinating mathematical dis-

coveries concerning magic squares, thus indicating that the
luoshu may still possess some unrevealed secrets. Many interesting
puzzles have been created that rely on the magic square of order
three. In addition, the luoshu and related magic squares have
formed the basis for musical compositions, intriguing visual pat-
terns, and taiji movements.
Some Mathematical Considerations

Under the basic definition of a magic square (a square number array in
which the sum of each row, column, and diagonal is the same), a one-
celled square could exist, in theory. Of course, any square consisting of
one number would be a magic square, but a trivial and uninteresting
one. Richard Webster in his book Talisman Magic notes that medieval
Christians employed a one-celled magic square as a symbol for God,
while a magic square of order two, being impossible, they associated
with the devil.1 We can easily demonstrate that a magic square of order
two is impossible. Assume that such a square exists. Let its elements be
represented by the letters a, b, c, d, where each letter represents a dif-
ferent numerical value. Thus the square is of the form:
121
a b
c d
FIGURE 7.1
Let the magic sum for each row, column, and diagonal be k. So a + b
= k, a + c = k, and so on. Solving just two of the possible six linear equa-
tions, simultaneously, we find:
a+b=k
– (a + c = k)
b–c=0⇒b=c
This indicates that two numerical values are the same and that contra-
dicts our definition of a magic square.
The smallest magic square of mathematical substance appears to be
the square of order three. Early mathematical enthusiasts would also
have come to this conclusion because they constructed natural squares
using the counting numbers. Theon of Smyrna (ca. 130), a Neo-
Pythagorean, has, at times, been credited with devising the first magic
square in his work on arithmetic and astronomy known by its Latin
name, Expositio; however, an examination of Theon’s square reveals it
is merely a natural square.2 See figure 7.2.
Let us examine the structure of a third-order magic square. Again,
we will represent the numerical elements of the square by nine letters
of the alphabet, a through i. See figure 7.3.
1 4 7 a b c
2 5 8 d e f
3 6 9 g h i
FIGURE 7.2 FIGURE 7.3
Assume the sum of all the numbers in the square is m, then the magic
constant for the square, k, will be m/3. Now consider the sum of the
two diagonal and middle column numbers:
Luoshu Miscellanea 123
(a + e + i) + (g + e + c) + (b + e + h) = k + k + k = 3k = m
so (a + e + i) + (g + e + c) + (b + e + h) = m
rewriting the left side of this equation, we find:
(a + b + c) + 3e + (i + g + h) = m
since (a + b + c) = (i + g + h) = k
m/3 + 3e + m/3 = m ⇒ 3e = m/3
or e = m/9, e is the average value for the sequence and 3e = k.
We have just shown that for the third-order magic square, three
times the center number gives the magic constant. The principle can be
generalized for any associative odd-order magic square.
Consider now the sum of the two diagonals’ elements, (a + e + i) +
(g + e + c) = 2k, rewriting the left side of the equation, we arrive at (a
+ i) + 2e + (g + c) = 2k. Since e = k/3, we have (a + i) = (g + c) = 4k/3
= 4e but (a + i) = (g + c) so (a + i) = 2e and (g + c) = 2e.
Let a = e – p and g = e – q where p and q represent numbers of dif-
ferent values. Under this substitution, we have
(e – p + i) = 2e ⇒ i = e + p
(e – q + c) = 2e ⇒ c = e + q
Substituting these values back into the original magic square configura-
tion, we have
e–p b e+q
d e f
e–q b e+p
FIGURE 7.4
Since this square is magic, the sum of the elements in the first column
must equal the magic constant k, so:
(e – p) + d + (e – q) = 3e ⇒ d – q – p = e
or d = (e + p + q).
By similar reasoning and computation, we can arrive at values for the
remaining unknowns:
b = (e + p – q )
f = (e – p – q )
h = (e – p + q)
Thus, a third-order magic square can be constructed using three num-
bers e, p, q where p ≠ q.3
e–p e+p–q e+q
e+p+q e e–p–q
e–q e–p+q e+p
FIGURE 7.5
The structure of this square readily reveals two properties of a third-

order magic square: the value of the central entry is embedded in all
other entries—a property that impressed the Chinese users of the
luoshu—and the sum of the border entries, if taken diagonally pairwise,
will equal twice the central entry, then the square is associated.
To construct a third-order normal magic square, that is, a magic square
composed of the consecutive numbers 1 through 9: First, figure the magic
sum. Since 1 + 2 + 3 + . . . + 8 + 9 = 45, and 45 divided by 3 (the order
of square) equals 15, then the magic sum is 15. The central entry is 5
because 45 divided by 9 equals 5. After putting a 5 in the central cell, the
remaining numbers can be filled in, starting with 1. From experience with
a normal square, a seemingly natural position for 1 would be a corner
cell. See figure 7.6. If this is done, a 9 must be placed in the opposing
* 1
5 *
FIGURE 7.6
corner. When this happens, it prevents the numbers 8, 7, and 6 from

occupying cells in the same row or column as 9 and dictates that the three
numbers must occupy two possible cells (marked by an asterisk in figure
7.6), an impossible situation. Thus, 1 cannot occupy a corner cell, and
when placed in a central row or column, its companion entry in the diag-
onally opposite cell must be 9. See figure 7.7.
FIGURE 7.7
At this point it becomes clear that the other numbers in 9’s row must be
4 and 2. Putting the remaining numbers in the available cells results in
the luoshu. This process reveals that the luoshu is truly unique.
The first method derived above will yield the luoshu when the values
for p and q are selected from the number sets {1, 3} and {–1, –3}, respec-
tively. The eight possible number combinations will result in the eight
equivalent forms of the luoshu with p = 1, q = –3 supplying the standard
form. The numerical entries form three arithmetical progressions:
(1) e – p – q , e–p , e–p+q
(2) e – q , e , e+q
(3) e + p – q , e+p , e+p+q
Within each progression, successive terms differ by the constant q; cor-
responding terms across progressions differ by the constant p. Adding
the same amount to each element of a magic square, or multiplying
each by the same constant, will result in another magic square—the pro-
gressive structure is preserved and other third-order magic squares
result. Thus, it is possible to construct an infinite number of augmented
third-order magic squares.
There are still other magic sums that can be derived from the luoshu,
for example, the sum of the squares of the numbers in the first row
equals the sum of the squares for the numbers in the third row. A sim-
ilar relationship exists for the numbers in the first column and those in
the third. In the 1970 edition of the Mathematical Gazette, R. Holmes of
London discovered still another magic property.4 If the digits of the
rows, columns or diagonals, including broken diagonals, are treated as

three-digit numbers, these numbers squared and added together, and
the process repeated with the digits of the individual three-place num-
bers reversed, the same result will be obtained. See figure 7.8.
4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6
rows: (4922 + 3572 + 8162) = (2942 + 7532 + 6182)

columns: (4382 + 9512 + 2762) = (8342 + 1592 + 6722)
diagonals: (4562 + 9782 + 2312) = (6542 + 8792 + 1322)
(2582 + 7142 + 9362) = (8522 + 4172 + 6392)
FIGURE 7.8
Further, these identities still hold when the middle digit or any two cor-
responding digits of the six addends are deleted.
In 1975, Hwa Suk Hahn of Carrollton, Georgia found that the sum
of row products equaled the sum of column products in the luoshu:
[(4 x 9 x 2) + (3 x 5 x 7) + (8 x 1 x 6)] = [(4 x 3 x 8) + (9 x 5 x 1) + (2 x 7 x 6)]
This property holds for all third-order magic squares. Hahn termed
magic squares with this property “balanced squares.”5 More recently,
Martin Gardner, wondering if under certain conditions this property
could also be extended to include the product-sum of the diagonals,
sought out the mathematical assistance of a number theorist friend, John
Robertson.6 Indeed, Robertson found such squares and proved that an
infinite number of them existed. Three such “Robertson squares” are
shown in figure 7.9 with their magic product-sums given.
33 2 43 41 4 57 67 2 81
36 26 16 50 34 18 64 50 36
9 50 19 11 64 27 19 98 33
2 6364 5 8956 1 8 7500

FIGURE 7.9
Further, John Robertson found a principle upon which such squares

can be constructed. Choose three numbers: x, y, and z, whose squares
form an arithmetic progression. Then using the analytic formula forms
for a third-order magic square as given above: let e = 2y, p = x and q =
z. For the squares shown in figure 7.9, these values are respectively: 26,
7, 17; 34, 7, 23; and 50, 17, 31. Robertson also found that any set of
Pythagorean triples, that is, numbers, a, b, and c, that satisfy the
Pythagorean relationship a2 + b2 = c2, gives rise to a “Robertson
square.”7 A unique feature of the luoshu is that the product-sums of its
rows and columns equals its magic constant squared, thus, 152 = 225.
Many problem-solvers who have come into contact with magic
squares and who have knowledge of higher mathematics are often
struck by their physical similarity to matrices. A matrix (the singular
form of matrices) is a rectangular array of numbers that represent cer-
tain mathematical relationships possible within a mathematical structure
called a vector space. Some matrices are square configurations of num-
bers just like magic squares. Matrices, as members of vector space, sat-
isfy certain specific conditions: first, there are two operations defined on
them, an “addition process” and a “multiplication process”: second,
these operations must possess certain properties that define a vector
space.8 Treating two luoshu-derived magic squares as matrices, let us
add them. The addition is performed by taking the sums of all corre-
sponding cells of the squares: that is, the two upper righthand corner
entries are added together; the two upper middle entries are added
together, and so on as shown in figure 7.10.
8 18 4 6 21 18 14 39 22
6 10 14 + 27 15 3 = 33 25 17
16 2 12 12 9 24 28 11 36
FIGURE 7.10
The result is another magic square. This is impressive—the magic

square property is preserved under the operation of matrix addition.
However, a little further experimentation reveals a problem with our
blossoming theory: such additions will produce squares with repeated
numbers, violating one of the defining conditions imposed in our dis-
cussion of magic squares, namely, that no elements of the square may
be repeated. By eliminating this stipulation and defining a magic square

as a square array of numbers where the sum of each row, column, and
diagonal is the same, magic squares form a vector space.9 It seems that
the mathematical community at large has adopted this definition of a
magic square.10
Combining luoshu magic squares under the operation of matrix mul-
tiplication yields interesting results.11 A luoshu square multiplied by a
luoshu square produces a semi-magic square with repeating elements
whose magic constant is 225, or 152.12 If this resulting square is again
multiplied by the luoshu square, so that in essence we have the luoshu
cubed or raised to the same power as its order, the product found is a
“true” magic square whose magic constant is 3,375 or (15)3. This square
is shown in figure 7.11.
1149 1029 1197
1173 1125 1077
1053 1221 1101
FIGURE 7.11
If magic squares are investigated as elements of a vector space, a wide

horizon of research opportunities and problem challenges emerge.13
Luoshu Puzzles
Once the magic square of order three entered the domain of mathe-
matical interest, it became the basis for mathematical problems and puz-
zles. A common way to use the luoshu magic square as a basis for
creating a puzzle is to challenge someone to arrange the numbers 1
through 9 into a square so that all rows, columns, and diagonals add up
to the same sum, that is, form the luoshu. A variation of this puzzle is
found in the medieval monks’ problem where three monks (brothers)
must each draw a quantity of wine. The monks each have three con-
tainers they can fill and they obtain their wine from the contents of nine
containers, which hold 1 to 9 measures of wine respectively. The ques-
tion posed is, How might this task be accomplished so that all the
monks end up with the same amount of wine? Each will have fifteen
measures of wine, drawing in quantities prescribed by the rows,
columns, or diagonal numbers of the luoshu.14
Puzzle books still challenge readers with situations such as:
Given the square of numbers:
4 3 2
7 1 9
6 5 8
can you arrange the nine digits in the square so that in all possible eight
directions [diagonals included], the difference between one of the digits
and the sum of the remaining two will always be the same? In the given
square, it will be found that all the rows and columns give the difference 3,
(thus (4 +2 ) – 3, (1 + 9) – 7, (6 + 5) – 8 etc.) but the two diagonals are
wrong because 8 – (4 + 1) and 6 – (1 + 2) is not allowed: the sum of the
two must not be taken from the single digit, but the single digit from the
sum. How many solutions are there?15
It is found that the luoshu and its variations supply the required solu-
tions. A particularly interesting problem involving magic squares of
order three appeared in the problem section of the 1947 issue of the
American Mathematical Monthly. It goes as follows:
The court mathematician once received his salary for a year’s service all
at one time, and all in silver “dollars,” which he proceeded to arrange in
nine unequal piles, making a magic square. The king looked, and admired,
but complained that there was not a single prime number in any of the
piles. “If I had but nine coins more,” said the mathematician, “I could add
one coin to each pile and make a magic square with every number prime.”
They investigated and found that this was indeed true. The king was about
to give him nine more dollars, when the court jester said “Wait!” Then the
jester subtracted one coin from each pile instead; and they found in this case
also a magic square with every element a prime number. The jester kept
the nine “dollars.” How much salary must the mathematician have been
receiving?16
Mathematicians are a creative and curious bunch who often like to

push a concept to its limits with considerations of “What if . . . ? and
“Suppose . . . ?” Such considerations, when applied to the luoshu and
the more general conept of the magic square of order three have
resulted in a wide and varied array of mathematical creations. Ann-Lee

Wang, writing in the 1995 issue of Mathematics in School, describes the
concept of hollow magic squares.17 The theory is prefaced by an old,
possibly apocryphal, Chinese legend of a commander defending a
square walled city with only a handful of soldiers. As Wang relates: “The
commander devised a plan wherein the soldiers were deployed at inter-
vals on the wall in various patterns. The spies of the enemy force
observed that although the number of soldiers at any particular spot on
the wall kept changing, the total number along any wall remained the
same.”18 The enemy commander believed that his opponent was using
magic against him and he withdrew—the city was saved. This defensive
strategy was based on devising a “hollow magic square,” that is, a
square number configuration forming a border where the rows and
columns have the same sum. Using the numbers 1 to 8, six third-order
hollow magic squares are possible. Squares with magic constants 12 and
13 are shown in figure 7.12.
6 5 1 5 2 6
4 8 7 3
2 7 3 1 8 4
FIGURE 7.12
An antimagic square of order n is a square comprised of the positive

integers 1–n2 such that no two rows, columns, or diagonals have the
same sum. It appears that the mathematical puzzle master Sam Lloyd
was the first to consider such squares in the late nineteenth century.19
An antimagic square of order three is given in figure 7.13.
1 2 3
8 9 4
7 6 5
FIGURE 7.13
In 1951, Dewey Duncan extended this concept a step further by

defining a heterosquare as an antimagic square in which the sum of all
broken diagonals also differed. It has been proven that no het-
erosquares of order three exist.20
The most straightforward magic square challenge is to specify that
certain numbers be used or specific magic sums obtained. Several such
squares are shown in figure 7.14:
(a) comprised of odd integers
(b) comprised of even integers
(c) comprised of primes
(d) comprised of consecutive composite numbers
(e) comprised of consecutive primes.21
15 1 11 8 18 4 101 5 71
5 9 13 6 10 14 29 59 89
7 17 3 16 2 12 47 113 17
(a) (b) (c)
117 116 121

1 480 028 201 1 480 028 129 1 480 028 183
122 118 114
115 120 119
(d)
1 480 028 153 1 480 028 171 1 480 028 189
1 480 028 159 1 480 028 213 1 480 028 141
(e)
FIGURE 7.14
In 1987, Martin Gardner offered a prize of $100 to anyone who could

construct a third-order magic square using consecutive prime numbers.
Harry Nelson of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, assisted by a Cray
computer, arrived at a solution square given in figure 7.14(e). In 1996,
Gardner renewed the same offer but this time it was for the construction
of a third-order magic square in which all nine numbers were distinct
squares.22 The resolution of this problem rests with finding a solution for
a particular elliptic curve of the form y2 = x3 – n2x, a similar problem to
that of Fermat’s Last Theorem.23 To date, no one has claimed this prize.
An intriguing third-order magic square is the palindromic square of the
“Beast.” Each number in the square gives the same value read forward or
backwards and the magic constant is 666, the number of the Beast in the
medieval system of gematria. This square is shown in figure 7.15.24
232 313 121
111 222 333
323 131 212
FIGURE 7.15
Historically, the magical property of a magic square arises from the

concept of a constant sum obtained by adding the numbers in the rows,
columns, and diagonals. It results from the use of addition but magic
squares can also be defined based on the operations of subtraction, mul-
tiplication, and division. Figure 7.16 provides examples of: (a) a multipli-
cation magic square whose product along any row, column, or main
diagonal is 216 and (b) a division magic square where if the extreme num-
bers of a row, column, or diagonal are multiplied together and the result-
ing product divided by the middle number of the line, the constant 6 will
appear.25
12 1 18 3 1 2
9 6 4 9 6 4
2 36 3 18 36 12
(a) (b)
FIGURE 7.16
A magic square is a two-dimensional configuration. It lies in the

plane of its construction. Mathematically speaking, a natural extension
of a magic square would be a three-dimensional analogue, a magic
cube.26 Figure 7.17 shows a magic cube where the three numbers com-
prising rows, columns, or diagonal lines which pass through the cube
and contain the central entry, 14, will produce the magic constant 42.
(a)
(b)
(c)
1 17 24 23 3 16 18 22 2
15 19 8 7 14 21 20 9 13
26 6 10 12 25 5 4 11 27
(a) (b) (c)

FIGURE 7.17
Note that the number squares that form the individual layers of the
cube are not magic squares in themselves. One of the most unusual
descendants of the luoshu is the alphamagic square discovered by Lee
Sallows in 1985.27 Sallows is a British engineer and recreational mathe-
matics enthusiast employed by the University of Nijmegen in the
Netherlands. The concept of an alphamagic square is best explained
through the use of an illustration. Figure 7.18 shows two magic squares.
5 22 18 4 9 8
28 15 2 11 7 3
12 8 25 6 5 10
(a) (b)
FIGURE 7.18
If one takes the English language number word for each entry shown
in the square at the left, counts the number of letters in that word and
places that number in the corresponding empty cell of a square of the
same dimension, the square at the right results. For example, 5 is the
entry in the left upper corner cell of the left square; the word “five” con-
tains 4 letters; thus, the number 4 is placed in the upper lefthand cor-
ner cell of the right square. The square on the right is the alphamagic
image of its companion on the left. Sallows has produced such alpham-
agic squares using a variety of modern languages.28
Another Time, Another Place,

Another Legend
In 1887 in England, a privately published book entitled The Origin of
Tree Worship describe Druidical practices of the Celtic and Germanic
yew cult in pre-Christian Europe. The book relied on medieval source
material, long believed to have been lost. Only six copies of the work
were printed, one of which eventually found its way into the British
Museum, but by 1888 that volume had been misplaced. The remaining
five books have also disappeared. Included in the Celtic lore in the
book is the story of King Mi’s pilgrimage to a sacred grove of trees in
Eohdalir, Valley of the Yew, where he performed a sacred ceremony
that involved carving a runic charm on the trunk of the hallowed Li, old-
est of the standing yews.
In 1985, The Origin of Tree Worship reappeared in the holdings of
the British Museum. Runic script is an ancient angular alphabetic script,
consisting of characters called runes and employed by mostly
Scandinavian tribes to inscribe magico-ritualistic messages. Sallows, an
amateur runologist, was permitted to view the find. He translated it as
a series of number words and noted that the number of runes per line,
twenty-two, corresponded exactly to the number of letters required to
render the line into English. Sallows also noted that the indicated num-
bers formed a magic square, which he christened the Li shu in honor of
the hallowed Li but also reflecting on the luoshu. Fascinated with his
rune-letter correspondence, he formed a square of numbers based on
the number of letters in the number words; the result of this effort was
the alphamagic square shown in figure 7.18(b). The runic charm and its
translation are given in figure 7.19.29
5 22 18
28 15 2
12 8 25
FIGURE 7.19
Mr. Browne’s Illustrious Magic Square

In an early twentieth-century edition of The Monist, an article appeared
entitled “Magics and Pythagorean Numbers” by Mr. C. A. Browne, Jr. Mr.
Browne was versed in neo-Pythagorean number lore and an astute cre-
ator of magic squares. The article later found its way into the book,
Magic Squares and Cubes, first published in 1917.30
In the article, Browne examines the origins of certain significant
Pythagorean numbers, particularly the number 729. In Plato’s
Republic, 729 represents the difference between a “kingly man” and a
tyrant as well as the “number of the state.” Building upon his knowl-
edge of ancient literature and numerology, Brown evolves an admit-
tedly fanciful theory that supplied answers and produced an
interesting magic square. According to Brown, the proportions of the
Pythagorean Tetractys were embedded into many old number
schemes. Plutarch assigned numbers to the planets using such a
scheme: 729, (36), represented the Sun; 243, (35), Venus; 81, (34),
Mercury; 27, (33), the Moon; 9, (32), Earth; and 3, (31), Antichathon, an
imaginary anti-Earth. Plato, in his Timaeus, combined the proportions
into one series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27. In Pythagorean thinking, the num-
ber 27 dominates Plato’s series because it is the sum of its predeces-
sors: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 9 + 8 = 27. Browne notes the significance of the
number 27, particularly its association with the Moon—the Moon com-
pletes its elliptical orbit about the Earth in 27 days. Further, 729 = 27
× 27, twenty-seven squared. Buttressed by this knowledge, he seeks to
unravel his number mysteries by the use of a 27 × 27 normal magic
square comprised of the numbers 1 to 729. The square he devised is
shown in figure 7.20. Its method of construction appears to be unique
for its time.
FIGURE 7.20
Browne supplied no indication of his methods. Paul Carus, editor of

the Monist, and himself a magic square investigator, analyzed the array
and noted that the square was composite and that its construction could
have been derived from the luoshu by a repeated use of the “Knight’s
movement” technique. But no further unraveling of the technique took
place. Indeed, the luoshu can be viewed as the building block for this
mysterious square. As previously discussed (see page 16), the luoshu
7 4 1
8 5 2
9 6 3
FIGURE 7.21
can be constructed by a rearrangement of the numbers of a natural

square of order three. See figure 7.21. This rearrangement or permuta-
tion of the numbers is given by the yubu algorithm (see page 50),
where 1 goes to 6, 2 goes to 1, etc. Mathematically, this permutation can
be symbolized by µ, where
⎛1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9⎞
µ = ⎜6 1 8 7 5 3 2 9 4⎟.
⎝ ⎠
Let the lattice of cells shown in figure 7.21 also designate a partition
of the square, a dividing up, Pk, which operates upon any array of num-
bers of order 3k such that it divides the configuration into subarrays of
order 3k–1. Further, let partition Pk sequence the subarrays as indicated
in figure 7.21; that is, the first subarray occupies cell 1 at the upper right,
the second subarray occupies cell 2 directly below, and so on until the
ninth subarray occupies cell 9. Then using the two operations of parti-
tion Pk and permutation µ alternately, any natural number square of
order 3n, N(3n), can be transformed into a magic square of order 3n,
M(3n). Formula (1) summarizes this technique:
( [
M(3 k ) = μPk N(3 k ) ]) k
, (1)
where k = n, n – 1, …, 1 since partition Pk operates on the largest num-

ber square first.
Let us construct a ninth-order magic square by using this yubu technique.
Begin with a natural number square of order nine where a Chinese lex-
ographical ordering is employed. Apply formula (1). First, P2 partitions
the square as shown in figure 7.22, and then µ operates on the parti-
tioned sets of numbers, mapping them into different positions.
73 64 55 46 37 28 19 10 1
74 65 56 47 38 29 20 11 2
75 66 57 48 39 30 21 12 3
76 67 58 49 40 31 22 13 4
77 68 59 50 41 32 23 14 5
78 69 60 51 42 33 24 15 6
79 70 61 52 43 34 25 16 7
80 71 62 53 44 35 26 17 8
81 72 63 54 45 36 27 18 9
FIGURE 7.22
For simplicity, consider only the mapping of the subarrays or sets of

numbers that lie on the diagonal extending from the upper right to the
lower left: the set in cell 1 moves to cell 6, the set in cell 5 remains in
place, and the set in cell 9 moves to cell 4. See figure 7.23.
79 70 61
80 71 62
81 72 63
49 40 31
50 41 32
51 42 33
19 10 1
20 11 2
21 12 3
FIGURE 7.23
Now P1 operates on the set of numbers in each cell, followed again by
µ, the yubu ordering. The final result of applying formula (1) to the
diagonal elements of our original square is shown in figure 7.24.
70 81 62
63 71 79
80 61 72
40 51 32
33 41 49
50 31 42
10 21 2
3 11 9
20 1 12
FIGURE 7.24
Finally, when this transformation is completed on the whole square,

N(32) → M(32), the ninth-order magic square shown in figure 7.25 is
obtained. Marie Baldys, a mathematical games enthusiast in Harrisburg,
PA, programmed this algorithm on her computer and applied it to N(33),
obtaining Browne’s magic square. She also successfully constructed
M(34) and M(35), a magic square of order 243!
This square was developed by applying the yubu technique at two
independent levels or stages: first, it was used to form the three-by-
three magic squares and second, to order those magic squares to form
37 48 29 70 81 62 13 24 5
30 38 46 63 71 79 6 14 22
47 28 39 80 61 72 23 4 15
16 27 8 40 51 32 64 75 56
9 17 25 33 41 49 57 65 73
26 7 18 50 31 42 74 55 66
67 78 59 10 21 2 43 54 35
60 68 76 3 11 19 36 44 52
77 58 69 20 1 12 53 34 45
FIGURE 7.25
larger nine-by-nine magic square. If we began with a 27 × 27 natural

number square, partitioned it into nine different nine-by-nine number
squares, converted each one of those by yubu iteration into a magic
square, and then applied the yubu technique again to order the result-
ing nine magic squares, we arrive at Browne’s square as shown in fig-
ure 7.20. This square is the result of a three-stage process based on the
yubu movement.
In his quest to solve the number mysteries, Browne had somehow
to arrive at the specific numbers, certainly at least the kingly number
729, and had to meet the ancient conditions regarding the numbers. A
hint as to those conditions is related in a conversation from the Republic
between Socrates and fellow philosopher Glaucon:
Socrates: And if a person tells the measure of the interval which separates
the king from the tyrant in truth of pleasure, he will find him, when
the multiplication is completed, living 729 times more pleasantly, and
the tyrant more painfully by this same interval.
Glaucon: What a wonderful calculation.
Socrates: Yet a true calculation and a number which closely concerns
human life, if human life is concerned with days and nights and
months and years.31
Thus, in the calculations from which the number 729 emerges there
must be a chronological connection with days, months, and years.
Incredibly, such a connection can be found in the large magic square:

the central number is 365 (the number of days in a year); the most cen-
tral three-by-three magic square has a magic sum of 1,095 (the number
of days in three years); next, the central nine-by-nine magic square pos-
sesses the magic constant 3,285 (the number of days in nine years); and
finally, the magic constant for the whole square is 9,855 (the number
of days in 27 years). Viewed as a nested set of magic squares, the
magic constants of the respective subsquares form a geometric progres-
sion: 1, 3, 9, 27. Delighted with his find, Browne shaded alternate cells
in his square to emphasize the yearly connection: 365 white cells
corresponded to days and 364 dark cells corresponded to nights. With
some further justifications, Browne concluded that the magic constant
for his unusual square, 9,855, was the elusive “number of the State.”
Charles W. Trigg, an avid problem solver and student of magic
squares, also constructed a 27 × 27 magic square by building upon the
luoshu. Trigg took the luoshu and augmented it repeatedly by adding
nine to all entries. He then combined the resultant nine third-order
magic squares into a composite ninth-order square; 134, 217, 728 such
squares were possible. These ninth-order squares could in turn be
manipulated and then combined to form a composite twenty-seventh-
order square. Trigg calculated that (89)2 or 18, 014, 398, 509, 481, 984
such squares are possible. All of these squares are comprised of the first
729 integers and possess the magic constant 9,855.32
Feel the Rhythm

The symmetries of the luoshu and the patterns of its numbers have
attracted attention from the earliest times. Daoist priests, in a dance of
melodic shuffling, still trace out the path of yubu in some of their cere-
monies.33 In the West, since the time of Agrippa, magicians have also
evoked the yubu’s path as a source of empowerment. These are two
cases of the rhythms embodied in the luoshu being incorporated in rit-
ualistic movements: for Daoist priests, it takes the form of a dance, for
Western seekers of magic, it is a path to be traced out. The rhythms of
the luoshu have been used in other ways.
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is one of Great Britian’s most gifted avant-
garde composers. Sir Peter blends seemingly incongruous elements into
dramatic and harmonious masterpieces. One of these elements has been
magic squares, or rather, the patterns Davies perceived in the workings
of the squares. While his exact technique remains elusive, some associ-
ation between specific works and particular magic squares has been
documented.34 In Davies’s composition Ave Maris Stella (1975), an
instrumental sextet to be played without a conductor, Davies took a tra-
ditional Ave Maris Stella plainsong form and “projected” it through the
Magic Square of the Moon. This square is of order nine but by the tech-
nique of repeatedly adding together the digits for the number in each
cell until the resulting square consists of only single digits from 1 to 9,
a repeating pattern is discerned and lends itself to a system for govern-
ing durations throughout the piece. It is not clear if Davies has ever
actually used the luoshu itself as a basis for one of his compositions but,
in the realm of music, he has formulated a method that could be
adapted to the rhythms of the magic square of order three.
As noted by Daoist priests, the yubu path denotes a rhythmic path
through the luoshu. Claude Bragdon, a prominent architect and noted
occultist during the first half of the twentieth century, built upon luoshu
rhythms to produce interesting visual ornamental designs.35 Four of his
designs are presented in figure 7.26.36 In his work, Bragdon referred to
the paths within magic squares as “magic lines.” In figure 7.27, he has
used the yubu magic line to construct an appealing frieze pattern.37
Bragdon experienced and communicated the beauty and the rhythms he
saw in magic squares, viewing them as “a window opening into the
world of the wondrous.”38
FIGURE 7.26
Modern mathematics teachers have also appreciated the rhythms of

the luoshu as an example of mathematical patterns and symmetries.
They devised this simple exercise. They ask students to trace out the
yubu circuit as if a rectangular grid were imposed on the luoshu.39 In
this way, students must associate each number with a definite point in
space. After students complete the path and have the initial square of
FIGURE 7.27
the luoshu partitioned into convex regions, they must color in the regions
using the minimum number of colors necessary to distinguish adjacent
regions—for the luoshu, two colors will suffice. Two variations on the result-
ing design are possible depending on whether there is a line drawn between
the initial 1 and the final 9. Both variations are shown in figure 7.28.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 7.28
If one then treats the completed square like a tile and combines it with
three variations of itself—created by rotation or reflection—to form a
larger square, a pleasing mosaic effect is achieved that can be repeated
to tile the complete plane. See figure 7.29, where two such patterns are
developed that employ the basic design given in figure 7.28(b).
(a) (b)
FIGURE 7.29
Artists have also recognized and explored the visual patterns embed-
ded in the luoshu. In her 1979 aquatic-on-linen creation Das Lo-shu und
seine Spiegelungen, the German expressionist Rune Mields depicts the
magic square’s numbers as networks of lines.40 Browne attempted to
impose a meaningful pattern on his magic square by alternating the
shadings of its cells. While the resulting “checkerboard” effect he
achieved satisfied his chronology-based theories, its visual impact was
limited. Various coding schemes have been employed on magic squares
to reveal a pattern within their numerical entries, which is then con-
verted by the use of color or the insertion of shapes into a visual pat-
tern.41 Perhaps the easiest such scheme is the one Browne employed,
where two colors, black and white, are alternated. For example, even-
numbered cells are colored black, odd numbers white. If such a coding
is applied to the luoshu, a yinyang tension emerges, and a cross
appears with its arms pointing in the four cardinal directions. Such a
symbol was meaningful to the Chinese, as the cruciform configuration
with its center included represents “the five directions” and, indirectly,
“Earth.” If four such luoshu images are joined to form a larger tile, a
strong central square is obvious (China?), surrounded by twelve black
squares that could represent the months of a year. The whole image is
reminiscent of the Mintang. See figure 7.30.
FIGURE 7.30
Leaving such speculative interpretations, let us extend this pattern-
exploring scheme to larger magic squares by first reducing each cell
entry to a single number from 1 to 9 by adding the digits of multi-digit
numbers together, repeating the process as required until a single digit
is obtained. Now this number, odd or even, can be colored accordingly.
If this is done to the ninth-order square shown in figure 7.25, the pat-
tern shown in figure 7.31 appears.
FIGURE 7.31
Applying the same technique to the ninth-order Chinese squares

derived in Chapter 5 (i.e. figures 5.17, 5.16), different patterns appear.
Two such patterns are shown in figure 7.32.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 7.32
Now, exploring Mr. Browne’s magic square by this same method, the
numerical coding that reduces each cell entry to a one-digit number
reveals several patterns. When this is done, the square becomes a com-
posite square of nine identical nine-by-nine squares. One of these sub-
squares is shown in figure 7.33. The nine-by-nine square is itself a
composite square formed with nine three-by-three number squares,
each displaying a set of permutations on three consecutive numbers
within the natural sequence 1, 2, 3 . . ., 9. If we look at the ordering of
these three-by-three squares within the complex of Browne’s whole
square, several cyclic patterns emerge: left to right; top to bottom; and
diagonally from the upper right to the lower left. If these cycles are
viewed as continuous, the magic square looks like the surface of a torus.
Using a two-color shading scheme with black covering even-number
1 3 2 7 2 9 4 6 5
3 2 1 9 8 7 6 5 4
2 1 3 5 4 6 5 4 6
7 9 8 4 6 5 1 3 2
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
8 7 9 5 4 6 2 1 3
4 6 5 1 3 2 7 9 8
6 5 4 3 2 1 9 8 7
5 4 6 2 1 3 8 7 9
FIGURE 7.33
cells and white covering odd-number cells, Browne’s magic square

reveals its visual rhythms (see figure 7.34).
Beholders of the luoshu and related magic squares have perceived
many things in them, not the least of which are intriguing visual patterns
and spatial relationships.
Taijiquan, the Luoshu, and Immortality

As early as the fourth century B.C.E., Chinese shamans, in pursuit of
material immortality, were manipulating substances and concocting
potions deemed to prolong life. Alchemy in China arose from these
early efforts to find “elixirs of immortality.” Daoism absorbed this quest
and refocused it on duplicating the processes of nature which resisted
corruption and death. For example, gold is impervious to decay; there-
fore, in the theory of a Daoist alchemist, if gold was consumed as an
ingredient of an elixir, it was thought to assist its recipient in achieving
longevity. Daoist sages who could produce elixirs of immortality were
accorded the honorary title of hsien, “immortal.”
Zhang Sanfeng (ca. 1314–1417) was one such honorary immortal.
A Daoist monk, he was widely recognized for his ability as an
FIGURE 7.34
alchemist. Legend relates that one morning Zhang was awakened by

the sounds of a struggle beneath his window. Investigating, he found
a crane locked in deadly combat with a snake. Noting the combatants’
series of thrusts and parries, the monk envisioned a method of phys-
ical exercise and self-conditioning based on a balanced alternation of
applying force and yielding, attacking and evading—analogous to the
concept of yinyang. He further developed his theory by observing the
bodily dynamics of other wild creatures and the movements of nature
as expressed in the flowing of water, the blowing of wind, the bend-
ing of trees and grass, and the passage of clouds across the sky.
Zhang choreographed these natural movements into a regimen of
sparring exercises, taijiquan [Supreme Ultimate Boxing], commonly
referred to as taiji (or t’ai chi). Taiji movements, performed in a state
of meditation and coordinated with breathing, are flowing, rhythmi-
cal, cyclical, and sequential. They have been described as “swimming
in air” and a “ritual dance of meditation.” Through this series of exer-
cises, an individual focuses the flow of qi within his or her body and
balances yinyang forces to achieve an inner harmony and state of
well-being. Zhang Sanfeng believed that the attainment of this inter-
nal equilibrium resulted in perfect health and thus the achievement of
longevity.
Taiji sparring movements, when performed barehanded against an

opponent, or with a lance or sword, are a form of martial arts. As taiji
techniques and practices evolved, they absorbed other Daoist mystical
beliefs including those involving the luoshu. Luoshu dynamics provided
patterns for coordination and emulation. Systems of steps, fistic forms,
and methods of bodily motion were derived from luoshu theories. Many
taiji masters felt that employing the luoshu as a training guide led to the
very threshold of immortality. Master Sun Lutang (1860–1933) taught his
students that:
Through the practice of taijiquan, the yang is nourished and brought

forth. Through the practice of taiji lance, the yin essence is aroused and
enfolds. Through the union of the yang with yin, the five forces of water,
wood, earth, fire, and gold come into being and merge within and
throughout the body and lance. Through the Luo-shu, one embarks to be
inscribed upon the Register of the Immortals.42
In the 1930s a brief thesis on taijiquan was published in Shanghai.

It described the secret nature of luoshu applications as revered by the
Chen clan, practitioners of their own form of taiji, and several other
important schools of the discipline:
The Luo-shu, according to many Chen family elders, is composed of both

an inner and outer form, both halves embracing a myriad of meanings.
The inner, in relation to the human physique, refers to the inner move-
ment and location of qi in movement. The outer refers to a number of
specific areas, some of which are: standing practice—in preparation for
movement; combat—areas to strike and guard; and weapons—areas to
focus one’s attack for maiming and overcoming the opponent using lance,
sword, knife, and so forth . . .
The text’s author, Chen Weiming further noted:
These methods are especially taught by some of the elder teachers of the
Chen taiji boxing style, Yang Luchan’s original version of the Yang family
art, and the Sun Lutang school. My master, Yang Chengfu, said that Yang
Luchan learned both the inner and outer Luo-shu applications and thus
was able to attain supreme boxing skills. He passed on this knowledge to
his sons, but it was Yang Jianhou who most ardently practiced his boxing
according to his ever-deepening understanding of the Luo-shu though it
was Yang Banhou, in his later years, who began teaching these guarded
methods outside the Yang family circle.43
While luoshu techniques were reserved as secret training for special

students, some fragments of information are available. A solo boxing
posture is demonstrated in figure 7.35(a) where the alignment of the
numbers 8, 5, 2 is stressed, the right-diagonal of the luoshu. This illus-
tration seems to demonstrate the taiji principle that all movements are
“initiated from the legs, controlled by the waist, and shaped by the
hands and fingers.”44 In the posture depicted, the anchoring foot is yang
(8) which combines with the balance and control of the waist, yin (5)
which, in turn, unites with the thrust of the hand, yang, (2), to achieve
fulfillment in 15. A paired-lance encounter demonstrated in figure
7.35(b) is less obvious in its luoshu interpretation; however, a parry and
pivot at the center 5 allows the left combatant to swing the point of his
lance backwards and upwards, achieving a 9, 5, 1 alignment before
thrusting at the throat of his opponent in an 8, 5, 2 movement.
In “saber and sword” practice, the blades’ angles reflect on the
luoshu arrangement. See figure 7.35 (c). In an instance of personal
combat, when two individuals touch, it is believed that the luoshu
unites between them and governs the contest. Changes in the luoshu
path to victory depend on the proponents’ postures, yielding moves,
and the direction of force at specific points. See figure 7.35 (d). A suc-
cessful yielding or advancing movement results in attaining the luoshu
sum of 15.
The luoshu has influenced every aspect of both the Sun and Chen
styles of taijiquan.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
FIGURE 7.35
So m e Fin a l Th o u g h ts 151
8
Some Final Thoughts
While some questions concerning the luoshu have been resolved,

many mysteries still remain. In particular, three issues still linger.
Why did the magic square gain such metaphysical prominence in
China rather than the West? What happened to the luoshu as a
visible symbol of harmony and cosmic balance? What is the ulti-
mate significance of the luoshu?
So far, we have traced the path of the luoshu from the banks of the Luo
river, through the chambers of the Mingtang ritual hall, to the shuffling
dance steps of Daoist priests and the star configuration of the Great
Bear. The luoshu’s association with the theories of yinyang and wuxing
emerged and its perceived status as a harbinger of human destiny
became clearer. Later, Islamic cultures adopted the magic square and
incorporated it into broader astrological theories. Before long, it was
firmly enthroned in the Islamic world as an amulet and talisman which
could affect the fortunes of its patrons. It is with this reputation that the
luoshu arrived in Europe in approximately the twelfth century.
The luoshu has captured and held the imagination of many peoples
in many forms and contexts. I hope that you have arrived at this point
with a better appreciation of the luoshu’s mathematical significance, its
relevance as a focus of Chinese cosmological and metaphysical theories,
its capacity as a repository for occult beliefs, and its power as a symbol
of cultural expression.
151
Why Did the Magic Square Originate and

Flourish in China Rather Than in the West?
With strong Western traditions of number mysticism established by the
Pythagoreans and their followers, why is it that the magic square first
appeared in China, where mathematics was deemed a minor activity
unworthy of scholarly pursuit?
Attempts to assert early European origins and conceptions of the
magic square—for example, as a product of neo-Pythagorean experi-
mentation by such individuals as Apollonius of Tyana, Theordorus of
Asine, or Theon of Smyrna—falter under historical scrutiny.1 One of the
most interesting claims for European knowledge of the magic square
focuses on the “SATOR square” of early Christian Rome.2 Found
scrawled on walls as a form of graffiti, the square is composed of let-
ters which, in themselves, form five Latin words: sator, arepo, tenet,
opera, and rotas.3 The square is a two-dimensional palindrome: whether
read from left to right, top to bottom, or from right to left, bottom to
top, the same message is conveyed. See figure 8.1.
S A T O R
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S
FIGURE 8.1
However, unlike a numerical square, the diagonals do not convey a

meaning. Several messages have been assigned to this square. Some
scholars have maintained that it conveyed statements of encouragement
to a persecuted Christian community. The central configuration formed
by the word tenet [to hold fast], forms a cross and if the letters com-
prising the square are rearranged, a Pater Noster [Our Father] cruciform
anagram appears whose bounding letters A (α, alpha) and O (Ω,
omega) proclaim the reign of Christ.4 See figure 8.2.
Later, during the European Middle Ages, this same square of letters
was considered a charm for inducing dancing among its viewers, detect-
ing witches, and preventing disease.5 Although the SATOR square is an
intriguing device, it is not a magic square.
S A T O R A
A R E P O P
T E N E T A
O P E R A T
R O T A S E
R
A|PATERNOSTER |O
O
S
T
E
R
O
FIGURE 8.2
As we have seen in chapter 6, the similarities between Pythagorean

and early Chinese beliefs are striking.6 Both peoples engaged in a
philosophic search for the prerequisites of cosmic harmony and the
importance of music as a conveyor of harmony. For the Pythagoreans,
“all was number” and they rigidly structured their philosophical and
metaphysical systems around this concept. Chinese metaphysical and
philosophical theories are marked by a flexibility, a fluidity, whereby
one concept flows into another.
The luoshu did not come into being in toto; rather, it evolved in sev-
eral stages. First, it appears, that, at a very early date, the geometric
square as a symbol of the earth was incorporated into ritual structures
and ceremonies. During the Warring States period, a tendency to divide
special objects and categories into nine parts prevailed in philosophi-
cal thinking. The Earth-square was then divided into nine equal parts.
This construction supplied a grid of nine cells, of which one occupied
the strategic central position. Thus, the nine-celled square now became
a symbol of a corporate unity dominated by a central presence. Its geo-
metric symmetry served as a model for political and societal associa-
tions. When the magic square of order three was discovered, it was
readily adopted into the awaiting grid of cells. Now geometric harmony
was reinforced and strengthened by a numerical harmony emphasizing
the importance of the numbers nine and five, which were already held
in special reverence by the Chinese. The cycles of yinyang and wux-
ing were envisioned in the number patterns of the luoshu. The luoshu
became a dynamic device, a mandala, which receptive viewers asso-
ciated with various mystical theories. For early Chinese scholars, and
eventually Daoist priests, the luoshu became a cosmogram capturing
and projecting a world view based on balance and harmony. Thus, the
luoshu evolved within Chinese society both as a concept and as a
device and served as a repository for metaphysical beliefs.
In the Pythagorean world, there was no single concept as meta-
physically comprehensive as the luoshu. The Pythagoreans held to the
theory of crystalline spheres as a model for the universe; they associated
five polyhedrons (the Platonic Solids) with the elements and the uni-
verse and employed the tetractys as their cosmogram. In the
Pythagorean system of beliefs, the role of the tetractys most closely par-
allels that of the luoshu. But the tetractys was limited in its scope; it did
not evolve or adapt to new theories. When Agrippa of Nettesheim pre-
sented his compendium of occult beliefs to a European audience in the
sixteenth century, his depiction of the tetractys differed little from the
one given by the Pythagoreans two thousand years earlier. Perhaps it
was a reverence for the Master Pythagoras that caused the tetractys, as
his personal creation, to be fixed in time. Thus, the luoshu presents a
dynamic represention of metaphysical processes, quite different from
Pythagorean depictions of cosmic harmony.
This different, dynamic way of looking at things was probably a fac-
tor in the development of the numerical magic square of order three.
Cammann and Needham postulate that it was the early Chinese ability
to express any number using only nine symbols that led them to a the-
ory of magic squares.7 This would certainly be a factor in perceiving and
manipulating numerical patterns, but another aspect of early Chinese
computation may also have contributed to the development of magic
squares. Mathematical computation in ancient China was performed
with a set of “counting rods.” Users arranged these rods on a flat sur-
face and moved them horizontally and vertically within the bounds of a
rectangular or square matrix of available rod spaces.8 This method of
working within a square may have been a contributing factor in the
Chinese discovery of magic squares.
What Happened to the Luoshu as a Visible

Symbol of Harmony?
The luoshu became an adaptable cosmological device manipulated to
conform to popular metaphysical and philosophical theories. Its num-
ber sequence, traced out, gave rise to the yubu ceremonies of Daoist rit-
ual and when this path of progression to celestial and earthly harmony
was graphically depicted, it became both a symbol associated with the
luoshu and a talisman of good fortune itself. See figure 8.3. 9
FIGURE 8.3
As previously discussed, the hetu diagram evolved from the luoshu.

It was felt that the hetu presented a more cogent scheme for demon-
strating the interactions of wuxing theory. In its numerical span the hetu
differs from the luoshu in that it includes the number ten. Both the num-
bers five and ten represent Earth. In a yinyang context, the number ten
is superfluous; numbers evolve or move towards their yinyang comple-
ment—the number added to which makes ten, so, 1 goes to 9, 3 goes
to 7, and so on. Now, if this policy is followed and the yin numbers and
the yang numbers within the hetu are partitioned from each other, a spi-
ral configuration of lines is formed and the circle containing the hetu is
divided into two complementary regions. If these regions are given
opposite colorings, say white and black, the figure that emerges is the
taijitu, the traditional, recognized symbol of yinyang interaction. This
symbolic evolution is illustrated in figure 8.4.
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
FIGURE 8.4
Scholars can trace the emergence of the taijitu as a motif and symbol
of cosmological harmony to about the tenth century. Thus, it seems
highly likely that the luoshu finally evolved into the visually more
appealing circular symbol of change and harmony, the taijitu, which
remains with us today.
What is the Ultimate Significance

of the Luoshu?
So what is the lasting significance of the luoshu? Certainly it has served
many different functions. James Legge, one of the first Western scholars
to delve into Chinese classical lore, dismissed it as an “arithmetical puz-
zle” and the “reductio ad absurdum of Lo writing.”10 Marcel Granet, an
anthropologist with a more sympathetic view of Chinese mysticism,
urges a deeper study of the beliefs and practices surrounding the num-
ber square as a means of understanding early Chinese society.11 Outside
of its Chinese context, the magic square has still remained an object of
controversy and fascination. Hermann Schubert, writing on mathemati-
cal recreations in the early twentieth century, noted that magic squares
have “led many a man to believe in mysticism.” He advised that there
was “nothing magical about them” and then went on to describe them
as examples of a “symphonic harmony in mathematics.”12 Martin
Gardner, the current “Dean of Mathematical Problem Solvers,” considers
the luoshu “one of the most elegant patterns in the history of combina-
torial number theory.”13 While these contrasting opinions are diverse
and based on different perspectives and realms of experience, they all
share one feature: they reflect Western expectations. The true value of
the luoshu can only be appreciated in the context of ancient China.
How did it serve Chinese society?
In the preceding discussions of the uses of the luoshu, two words
frequently surfaced: “cosmogram” and “mandala.” A cosmogram is a
map or diagram of the “universe”—an illustration of a particular peo-
ples’ world view. A mandala is a ritual geometrical diagram with sym-
bolic significance for the viewer. Some examples of mandalas are the
Hindu meditation aid referred to as the sriyantra, the Buddhist “Wheel
of the Universe,” and the Aztec “Great Calendar Stone.”14 A very pow-
erful and influential cosmic mandala for the people of Mesoamerica was
a cross-like configuration that divided the world into five regions, one
for each major direction. See figure 8.5. Each direction had a name, a
color, and other attributes associated with it.15 The central region, the
“navel of the Earth,” was believed to be the domain of the fire deity.
For the Chinese, the luoshu served in the capacity of both a cosmo-
gram and a mandala.
As a map of the universe, its properties were relevant to the time of
its conception. Heaven and Earth were different: Earth, represented by
a square, was finite and rigidly bounded by four principal directions;
Heaven circumscribed Earth as a circle and, as such, was not bounded
by directions but extended in all directions. Both Heaven and Earth
revolved around a great central axis. Motion and cyclic change were
integral parts of the Chinese world picture. The universe was a vast
organic entity in a state of constant flux. Yinyang and wuxing theories
were formulated to explain the cycles of change and made consistent
with the workings of the luoshu. Nor was the Earth, as envisioned by
Chinese cosmic thinkers, a uniform entity. It possessed features—
provinces, mountains, rivers, and so on—that affected the lives of the
Chinese people. The luoshu with its nine cells accommodated these fea-
FIGURE 8.5
tures, primarily by expressing concepts of centrality and control. Thus,

within the realm of the luoshu, the central cell—representing the
Chinese people, China, the Middle Kingdom, or the Emperor—served as
a unifying link with the peripheral regions that represented lesser beings
or institutions. A hierarchy of control and political domination was
inherent in the luoshu structure. The tendency toward psychocentrality
was not unique to the Chinese; an Earth-centered universe held the
attention of Western philosophers and theologians for two millennia. In
the Topographia Christiana of Cosmos of Alexandria (ca. +548), the
sacred city of Jerusalem dominated the center of a rectangular Earth.
Interestingly, the phrase “the four corners of the Earth” is still a common
expression in English.
Early scientific expression often took the form of interpretive num-
ber statements. Theories were modeled by the interaction of numbers
and their properties. The luoshu display of the numbers 1 through 9 is

such an articulation. Symmetry of sums, yinyang balance, the paths of
the wuxing cycles, and the constancy of the magic sum were all numer-
ically evident and relevant to the “believing” observer. In ancient soci-
eties, numbers provided an empowering means to reach beyond human
experience, as noted by Granet:
It is by means of numbers that one finds a suitable way to represent the

logical sectors and concrete categories that make up the universe. . . .
In choosing for them one or another disposition which permit them to
demonstrate their interplay, one believes he has succeeded in rendering
the universe at once intelligible and manageable.16
While to the modern, scientifically trained mind, the theories of

yinyang and wuxing may seem like so much metaphysical claptrap,
they must be viewed from the perspective of their times. The dualistic
binary encoding of the yinyang and the bagua differ little in their con-
ception and use from the processes of a modern electronic computer
where information is transformed into binary messages, stored, and
eventually acted upon. Wuxing theory with its inclusive categories and
system of correlational reckonings foreshadowed the popular European
doctrine of Four Elements and Humours by a thousand years. Examples
of Four Elements correlations are given in table 8.1.
Well into the seventeenth century, Four Elements theories clouded
European perceptions of terrestrial phenomena and human behavior.
Johann Kepler (1571–1630), in his quest for a more rational system of
planetary motion, was plagued by the legacy of the Pythagorean crystal
sphere theory. For many years, and with great frustration, he attempted
TABLE 8.1
Element Physical Season Color Direction Humour Human

State Trait
air gas Spring yellow east sanguine intellect

fire agent of Summer orange south choleric anger
change
earth solid Autumn green north melancholic patience
water liquid Winter blue west Phlegmatic sensitivity
to fix his observational findings to a system of celestial circles.17

Eventually, he abandoned this effort and began to use mathematics to
calculate elliptical orbits for the planets. Thus, even in fairly recent
European experience, mystical thinking and scientific outcomes were
frequently intertwined.
The Chinese theories that were embodied in the luoshu were based
on observations of nature, the formation of hypotheses, the establish-
ment of premises, and a system of deductive reasoning. Indeed for
Chinese scholars of the early Han period, chains of inductive reasoning
flowed easily from yinyang and wuxing speculations. Causal relation-
ships were limited to preordained cycles of change. What keeps these
theories from being recognized as “scientific” in the Western sense is a
lack of experimentation and an intrusion by the observers into the
processes being observed. Modern science, boldly challenging the fates
that shape human existence, only became commonplace in Europe after
the establishment of the “Scientific Method” attributed to Galileo Galilei
(1564–1643). In light of this perspective (bias?), yinyang and wuxing are
deemed proto-scientific theories and the luoshu as a symbolic and oper-
ative repository for these theories, a proto-scientific device.
In a more human and less analytical sense, the luoshu served a
broader purpose in early Chinese society as a visual statement of cos-
mic and personal harmony, a symbol of order. The shape, the configu-
ration of numbers, and their position relative to each other served as a
way to contemplate our place in the universe. This function of the
luoshu was often embedded in art motifs, the design of game boards,
cosmic mirrors, and fortune-telling instruments. As a stimulus for philo-
sophical and metaphysical speculation, the luoshu also served as a man-
dala.
But perhaps its most dominant characteristic was its capacity to
absorb and symbolize the major cosmological theories of early China.
While these theories were apparently appended to the square over a
period of several hundred years, they found accord within the awaiting
matrix. Whether this synthesis was by design or coincidence may never
be known; however, the status of the luoshu as a symbol of Chinese
cosmological thought cannot be denied. This feature, along with its his-
torical preeminence as the first magic square as well as the philosophi-
cal and psychological reverence accorded to it by so many peoples of
the world, make the luoshu a truly magical entity, the most magic of all
magic squares.18
Epilogue
Deep Background: How Magic Squares

Fit into the Big Picture
Since earliest times, we human beings have sought to find consistency
in our environment. Whether it was learning to recognize the paths
taken by the wandering sky-god planets1 or discovering the pre-
dictability of the seasons or the process of night following day, the
“sameness,” regularity, and knowledge of what could be expected pro-
vided comfort to our human ancestors in an otherwise uncertain and
hostile world. A calendar could then control and dictate activities—some
degree of order was established. To a large extent, existence and sur-
vival became contingent upon such predictions and orientations. Within
social groups, individuals emerged who recognize the unfolding pat-
terns around them, partially understood their consequences, and
advised their society accordingly.2 The fact that some early world-
observers were in a position to acquire knowledge about future events
and the skills to use certain tools and measuring devices was one fac-
tor that contributed to their emergence as a respected priestly or ruling
class.
Ancient priests or shamans surrounded themselves with institutions,
rituals, and artifacts that directly related to the natural phenomena they
deemed important. In particular, cosmic events—the movement of the
moon and observable planets, the appearance of a comet—were care-
fully scrutinized, interpreted within the context of existing cosmological
beliefs, and acted upon. The tools used for observing and measuring
natural phenomena became part of the ritual paraphernalia and
161
162 Epilogue
acquired a mystical aura of their own. For example, ancient observers

discovered that they could use a staff placed vertically in the ground to
gauge the changing length of a shadow caused by the sun and thus also
the changing position of the sun relative to the Earth. They then figured
out that they could use the same staff (or “gnomon”) to determine the
time of the winter solstice. Eventually people came to treat the staff itself
as a sacred instrument for insuring the lengthening of the days.3
Similarly, a configuration of rocks that permitted the monitoring of
celestial alignments might have become an aid for keeping track of the
heavenly gods who traveled the night sky. Primordial monuments that
served such functions include Stonehenge, on the plains of Salisbury in
England, and the ingenious Sun Dagger construction of the Anasazi
people, former cliff dwellers of the Chaco Canyon of the Southwestern
United States.4 An examination of other such devices and monuments
from the ancient world can provide valuable insights into the prescien-
tific thinking,5 beliefs, and methodologies of our ancestors.
Within this great quest to understand and control the world around
them, early peoples used certain concepts that reflected desired expec-
tations and behavior. Principal among these concepts was that of har-
mony—individuals and society as a whole needed to be in harmony
with the cosmos and the cosmos needed to be in harmony with them.
People could experience harmony in several ways: (a) through a feel-
ing of inner peace, a state of easiness marked by a lack of anxiety, or
(b) through visual or aural perceptions that convey symmetry and bal-
ance and contribute to a sense of beauty. The ancient Greeks associ-
ated harmony with the “music of the spheres,” the imagined whirling
of the planets (moon and sun included) in their circular orbits about
the Earth.6 Most traditional peoples of recent times live lives depend-
ent on harmonious coexistence with nature. Often their concepts of
harmony are reflected in music, dance, and visual art forms.
Certain preferred geometric shapes and designs have emerged that
reflect a group’s concept of harmony. For example, the Osage people,
native to the plains of North America, set up their camps in a circle. For
them, the camp-circle was also a reflection of the cosmos at large: the
half of the tribe residing in the northern side of the circle represented
Heaven while the half living in the southern section symbolized Earth.
Heaven and Earth were unified within the circle of the camp. It is easy
to understand why the circle might be associated with the concept of
harmony. A circle has no beginning or end; it repeats itself continually
in a perfect cycle—always changing but always the same; the circle is
Epilogue 163
evenly spaced around its center, providing a paramount example of

balance. Philosophers and mystics in many cultures believed that the
circle held psychological and metaphysical significance.7 But in still
other cultures, the geometric shape that best epitomized harmony was
a square encompassing the “four corners of the Earth,” an equilateral
triangle depicting the Christian Trinity, or a three-dimensional figure
such as a sphere.8
In addition to supplying geometric forms that can be symbolically
associated with harmony, mathematics can assist people in organizing
the world into an understandable system in other ways. For instance,
early peoples used number to order their environment. Number, when
recognized as a property of an object or objects, conveys a certain per-
manence. For we who live on Earth, there is one moon and one sun—
we see them today and would expect to see each one tomorrow.
Because we can count limbs and digits, we have the expectation that
every person we see will have two arms and five fingers on each hand,
barring injury. Quantification enabled people to sort objects into real or
imagined categories and relate the categories to one another in a linear
or hierarchical relationship.
Numbers, as powerful descriptors, often took on a mystical signifi-
cance and ritual meaning.9 Certainly the quantifier “one” as a conveyor
of uniqueness distinguished an individual object, whether that individ-
ual was a person, an animal, or an inanimate object. The number one,
as the first counting number, occupies a certain position of impor-
tance—the other numbers in the system depend on it for their existence;
thus, in many societies, the number one takes on a certain ritual mean-
ing, one of importance or leadership.10 Similarly, the number two rep-
resents an “otherness” which can be associated with opposition, a
challenge, or an inadequacy—in some modern Western societies, “being
number two” indicates being inferior. Thus, numbers take on meanings
that extend beyond their enumerative capacity.
The concept of “lucky” and “unlucky” numbers remains with us
today, although its origins can be traced back thousands of years.11
Much of the number lore evident in Western civilization evolved from
the Pythagorean traditions of ancient Greece. The cult followers of the
philosopher Pythagoras of Samos (ca. 585–ca. 500 B.C.E.) proclaimed “all
is number” and developed a complex numerology centered on human
existence and activity. One Pythagorean set of number relationships is
as follows: two is the female number, three is the male number; the sum
or “coming together” of two and three is five, thus five is the number
164 Epilogue
for marriage, and the product of two and three is six which became the
number of procreation.
Similarly, the English expression “square deal” refers to a transaction
based on fairness, an equal distribution of the items or services in ques-
tion. This phrase evolved from the Pythagorean association of the num-
ber four with the concept of justice. Because four is the first number
composed of equals coming together, namely, 2 × 2, we would describe
it as the first square number. Vestiges of ancient number theories and
beliefs are omnipresent even today.
In modern times, the search for harmony has resulted in an exciting
new field of mathematical endeavor, chaos theory. Mathematicians
working in this branch of applied mathematics are attempting to unravel
the mystery of chaos (chaos being a state of disorder or uncertainty)
with the aid of computer simulations and astute mathematical modeling
techniques.
Following the luoshu’s path has provided a revealing glimpse of the
human capacity to contrive meaningful, far-reaching, yet often flawed
“scientific theories” within a limited realm of comprehension where
facts, beliefs, and superstitions all become intertwined. Ultimately the
luoshu, in its geometrical and numerical conception, marks an effort in
the ongoing search for harmony.
Notes
Prologue
1. Simon de la Loubère, A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam

by Monsieur de la Loubère, Envoy-Extraordinary from the French King to the
King of Siam in the years 1687 and 1688, trans. A. P. Gent (London: Horne
Saunders & Bennet, 1693; from the French edition, Paris, 1691; reprinted John
Villieis, ed., Bangkok: White Lotus, 1986).
2. The book’s reference number was D899.64C148. It was an English edi-
tion of 1693. An inquiry in recent years indicates the book has disappeared from
the library’s holdings.
3. This study was published: Frank Swetz, Mathematics Education in
China: Its Growth and Development (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974).
4. Schuyler Cammann: “The Evolution of Magic Squares in China,”
American Oriental Society Journal 80 (1960): 116–24; “The Magic Square of
Three in Old Chinese Philosophy and Religion,” History of Religions 1 (1961):
37–80; “Old Chinese Magic Squares,” Sinologica 7 (1962): 14–53; “Islamic and
Indian Magic Squares, Part I ,” History of Religions (Feb. 1969): 181–209; “Islamic
and Indian Magic Squares, Part II” (May 1969): 271–99.
5. Marcel Granet, La Pensée chinoise (Paris: La Renaissance du Livre, 1934).
6. See note 4 in the prologue for a list of magic squares articles by Schuyler
Cammann.
7. Ho Peng Yoke, “Magic Squares in East and West,” Papers on Far Eastern
History 8 (1973): 115–41.
8. Lars Berglund, The Secret of Luo Shu: Numerology in Chinese Art and
Architecture (Lund: Lund University, 1990).
165
166 Notes to Pages 1–7
Chapter 1: The Journey Begins
1. Noël Golvers, The Astronomia Europaea of Ferdinand Verbiest S. J. (Dillingen,

1687), Monumenta Serica Monograph Series (Nettelal: Steyler Verlag, 1993).
2. In general, Chinese names and terms will be transliterated using the
Pinyin system of romanization. For much of the twentieth century the Wade-
Giles system was employed for rendering Chinese into English. In referring to
proper names and titles and certain concepts that have become well known by
their Wade-Giles spellings the older system will be used.
3. See Lillian Too, Feng Shui (Kuala Lumpur: Konsep Books, 1993).
4. The quote is from Black Elk, a Sioux chief, lamenting in the nineteenth
century on the prospects of reservation life:
You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and
that is because the Power of the World always works in a circle,
and everything tries to be round. . . . But the Waischus [white men]
have put us in square boxes. Our power is gone and we are dying,
for the power is not with us anymore.
See John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska
Press, 1972), 198–99.
5. Dr. Golvers is attached to the Ferdinand Verbiest Foundation, Leuven.
6. Noël Golvers also referred me to Plate 213 in the contribution by
Howard L. Goodman, “Paper Obelisks: East Asia in the Vatican Vaults,” Rome
Reborn: The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture, ed. Anthony Grafton
(Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1993), 251–93.
7. Personal inspection of the papers convinced Dr. Golvers that they were
not written by Verbiest.
8. Granet also theorized upon this relationship. See La Pensée Chinoise
(Paris: Renaissance du livre, 1934).
9. The Jesuit incursion into China is a fascinating episode in the history of
cultural interaction. Some of this story is told in: David Mungello, Curious Land:
Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner
Verlag, 1985) and Jonathan Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (New
York: Viking Penguin, 1984).
10. The growth of Leibniz’s interest in China is best described in Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz, Writings on China, trans. Daniel J. Cook and Henry Rosemont
(Chicago: Open Court, 1994).
11. See Golvers, The Astronomia Europaea of Ferdinand Verbiest, for a dis-
cussion of Verbiest’s work in China.
12. Claudia von Collani, P. Joachim Bouvet S. J. Sein Leben und sein Werk,
Monumenta Serica Monograph Series x vii (Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1985)
13. Leibniz discussed his binary system with correspondents as early as
1679 but formally made his announcement to the scientific community at large
in 1703 in “Explication de l’arithmétique binaire,” Memoires de l’Académie
Notes to Pages 7–12 167
Royale (1703), 85–89. See Anton Glaser, History of Binary and Other
Nondecimal Numeration (Southampton, PA: Tomash, 1981).
14. Leibniz, Writings on China, 73.
15. See David Mungello, Leibniz and Confucianism: The Search for Accord
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1977).
16. The author thanks Christian Boyer (www.multimagie.com) for
clarification of this event.
Chapter 2: The Chinese Origins of the Luoshu
1. The “Three Cultural Heroes” are Fuxi, also considered to be the patron
of animals; Shen Nung, inventor of agriculture, commerce and herbal medicine;
and Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor, inventor of writing and weapons. These
heroes were believed to flourish in the third millennium B.C.E. See discussion of
Fuxi, Shen, and Yao in Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1, ed. William de Bary
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 197–98.
2. Yao the Virtuous Emperor abdicated in favor of the wise commoner
Shun; Yu the Great was the tamer of floods. Archaeologists have identified the
Xia “Dynasty” with a late stage of neolithic Longshan culture.
3. Yijing has no specific author. Like many ancient Chinese classics it organ-
ically grew out of change itself, as a collective tradition of many anonymous
shaman. The tradition author of the Yijing is Fuxi or Confucius. The book con-
tains the basic theory of bagua and the sixty-four hexagrams and the yin-yang
deviation scheme.
4. Water, its functions and uses, figure prominently in early Chinese myths
and beliefs. For a discussion of water associations, see Evelyn Lip, Chinese
Geomancy (Singapore: Time Books International, 1979), 10.
5. Winds blow from Russia across the dusty plateaus of central north-west
China carrying off the yellow loess topsoil. The Yellow River and the Yellow Sea
owe their color to this dust. In turn, to Yellow River gives life to the agricultural
lands of north China. Yellow was the traditional color associated with ancient
China.
6. See Karl A. Wittfogel, “Die Theorie der orientalischen Gesellschaft,”
Zeitschrift fur Sozialforschung 7 (1938): 90, and Oriental Despotism (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1957). While many contemporary anthropologists
do not favor Wittfogel’s theories, I find them particularly suited for Chinese soci-
ety. To better understand the importance of the image of water in ancient
Chinese thought, see Sarah Allan, The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue
(Albany: SUNY Press, 1997).
7. There were three major schools of cosmological thought in ancient
China: The gaitian (hemispherical dome) school; the huntian (celestial sphere)
school and the xuanye (infinite empty space) school. The gaitian theory holds
that the heavens are like an open umbrella over an inverted bowl-like earth—
that is the analogy of the tortoise shell. Huntian followers believe the heavens
are a sphere, like an egg, and the earth sits within this sphere like a yoke.
Xuanye belivers consider the earth a “gram of rice” in an infinite empty space.
See discussion Ho Peng Yoke, Li, Qi and Shu: An Introduction to Science and
Civilization in China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1985), 126–30.
8. See S. Cammann, “The TLV Pattern on Cosmic Mirrors of the Han
Dynasty,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 68 (1948): 159–67, and Sarah
Allan, The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art and Cosmos in Early China (Albany:
SUNY Press, 1991).
9. Qin Shihuangdi, emperor from 221 to 210 B.C.E. unified China, started
work on the Great Wall and initiated social and political reforms. A despotic
ruler, Qin ordered a “burning of the books” to eliminate possible threatening
political theories from becoming popular.
10. Confucianism and Daoism became the prevailing ethical/religious doc-
trines of Chinese society. Mohism, based on the teachings of the philsopher Mo
Tzu (470-391 B.C.E.), eventually lost its influence. Buddhism was imported into
China in about the first century and has retained a spiritual influence.
11. One of the great quests of Daoist alchemists was the seeking of an elixir
of life.
12. The founders of Daoism are usually considered to be Laozi and Zhuang
Zi. Zhuang is known to be an historical personage; however, Laozi’s actual exis-
tence is debatable.
13. See discussion of this issue in Schuyler Cammann, “The Magic Square of
Three in Old Chinese Philosophy and Religion,” History of Religions 1 (1961):
37–80, 44.
14. William E. Soothill gives a fascinating study of the institutions of the
Mingtang in The Hall of Light: A Study of Early Chinese Kingship (New York:
Philosophical Library, 1952).
15. This description was used by many later commentators on the “Nine
Halls” diagram. Its analogy is better understood when methods for construction
the Nine Halls/luoshu diagram are considered. See note below.
16. Zheng’s representation of the luoshu’s numbers by knots in a cord was
intended to associate the configuration with more ancient times, a common literary
device used by commentators on old works to increase their apparent age and thus
importance in the eyes of a Chinese reader. The Yijing notes that “in Early Antiquity,
knotted cords were used to govern with. . . .” For a discussion on the use of these
knotted cords in China, see Jean-Claude Martzloff, A History of Chinese Mathematics
(New York: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 1997), 180. A similar type of knotted
cord for keeping track of computations, called a quipu, was used by the Incas of
Peru. For more on the subject, see Lind Mae Diana, “The Peruvian Quipu,”
Mathematics Teacher 60 (Oct. 1967): 623–28; reprinted in From Five Fingers to
Infinity, ed. Frank Swetz (Chicago: Open Court, 1994), 80–85.
17. Ho Peng Yoke, “Chinese Magic Squares: Mathematics, Myth and

Philosophy,” Kertas-kertas Persidangan Antarabangsa Pengajian Tionghoa
[Collected Papers of the International Conference on Chinese Studies ] (Kuala
Lumpur: November 20–21, 1993), 346–72.
18. The complete work is translated and commented upon by Lam Lay
Yong, A Critical Study of the Yang Hui Suan Fa: A Thirteenth-Century Chinese
Mathematical Treatise (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1977).
19. Ibid., 295.
Chapter 3: Yinyang, Wuxing, and Key Numbers
1. For example, in Singapore and Hong Kong, people do not want the number
4 to appear in the number on their cars’ license plate. Popular Chinese numerology
and its beliefs are discussed in Evelyn Lip, Chinese Numbers: Significance, Symbolism
and Traditions (Singapore: Times Books International, 1992).
2. This phenomena is discussed by Derk Bodde, “Types of Chinese Categorical
Thinking,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 59 (1939): 201–21.
3. This theory is more fully discussed and developed in Lam Lay Yong and
Ang Tian Se, Fleeting Footsteps: Tracing the Conception of Arithmetic and
Algebra in Ancient China (Singapore: World Scientific, 1992).
4. Zero, as a numerative symbol was not employed in China until the time
of the Tang Dynasty (618–906). On counting board operations, an empty space
was left to mark a state of “nothingness” for the decimal position.
5. In a decimal-based numeration system, the numerals 1 to 9 count the
units, tens, hundreds, and so on up; thus 153 is 1 hundred, 5 tens, and 3 units.
“Ten,” “hundred,” and “thousand” are names of the decimal groupings.
6. Passages from the Yugong chapter of the Book of History, translated in
Ming-chong Hwang, “Ming-tang: Cosmology, Political Order and Monuments in
Early China,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Department of East Asian
Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1996), 426.
7. For a fuller discussion of the psychology and mechanics of finger count-
ing see Georges Ifrah, From One to Zero: A Universal History of Numbers (New
York: Viking Penguin, 1985).
8. In representing a number, the numerals shown in Figure 3.1 are used to
represent coefficients of 102n–2 n = 1, 2, . . . . A variation of them:
is used for coefficients of 102n–1 n = 1, 2, . . . . Thus in this system, 4716 would

be represented as
9. See J. M. Pullan, The History of the Abacus (New York: Frederick A.

Praeger), 1969.
10. Ho, Li, Qi, and Shu, 21.
11. See discussion of Zou Yan’s work in Fung Yu-lan, History of Chinese
Philosophy, vol. 1, trans. Derk Bodde (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1955), 161–62.
12. Another association for “nineness” and mathematics is the title of the
most influential of all Chinese mathematical classics, Jiuzhang suanshu [The
Nine Chapters of the Mathematical Art] (ca. 100 B.C.E.) which summarizes all of
mathematics under nine topics (types of applied mathematics). For more infor-
mation on early mathematics teaching and learning in China, see Frank Swetz,
Mathematics Education in China: Its Growth and Development (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press,1974).
13. The Chinese name for China, Zhongguo, means “Middle Kingdom” or
“Central States” throughout history they have considered it, at least psychologi-
cally, at the center of the universe—between Heaven and the “barbarians.” In
their conception of the Earth as a great square, they envisioned it surrounded
by “Four Seas” which were not oceans but rather regions populated by uncivi-
lized barbarians. The East contained nine kinds of Yi barbarian; the West, seven
kinds of Rong barbarian; the North eight kinds of Di barbarian and the South
six kinds of Man barbarian. When the Chinese first came in contact with
Western nations, such an attitude, one of ethnocentric superiority did not win
them friends.
14. For a discussion of various map orientations see B. L. Gordon, “Sacred
Directions, Orientation, and the Top of the Map,” History of Religions 10 (1971):
211–27. While the Chinese utilized directional orientations based on five princi-
pal directions, other traditional people employed even more directions. For
example, the Hopi people of Southwest North America had six major directions:
four horizontal directions and the zenith and the nadir. Discussions of traditional
classification systems are given in Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966).
15. See discussion by Weihang Chen, “Yinyang,” Encyclopedia of the History
of Science, Technology and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, ed. Helaine Selin
(Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers), 1045–46.
16. Translated in W. Theodore de Bary, Wing-tsit Chan, and Burton Watson,
Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press,
1970), 192–93.
17. Passages in the Daodejing [Writings of Lao Zi] provides a more exten-
sive list of contrasts:
Yang Yin
1. Heaven Earth
2. Spring Autumn
3. Summer Winter
4. Day Night
5. Big states Small states
6. Important states Insignificant states
7. Action Inaction
8. Stretching Contracting
9. Ruler Minister
10. Above Below
11. Man Woman
12. Father Child
13. Elder brother Younger brother
14. Older Younger
15. Noble Base
16. Getting on in the world Being stuck in one’s position
17. Taking a wife, begetting a child Having a funeral
18. Controlling others Being controlled by others
19. Guest Host
20. Soldiers Laborers
21. Speech Silence
22. Giving Receiving
18. As quoted from a passage from the lost book Classic of the Nine Halls.
See Schuyler Cammann, “The Magic Square of Three in Old Chinese Philosophy
and Religion,” History of Religions 1 (1961): 37–80.
19. See Ang Tian Se, “Five Phases (Wuxing),” Encyclopaedia of the History
of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, ed. Helaine
Selin (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers), 332–33.
20. The popular theory held in Europe up through the time of the
Renaissance was that all matter was comprised of four elements: earth, air, fire,
and water. This theory is attributed to Empedocles of Acragas (ca. 490–435
B.C.E.), a Pythagorean.
21. Traditional Chinese music was pentatonic in nature. Its five tones were
said to represent the emperor, the minister, the people, the affairs of state and
material objects. Using the Western musical stave, equivalent notes would be C,
D, E, G, A.
22. A modern observer of Chinese life may wonder why rice is not included
in this list.
It must be remembered that rice is a principal grain in southern China and
that early Chinese civilization developed mainly in northern China where millet
and wheat still remain the most popular grains.
23. Zou’s theory noted that:
Each of the Five Virtues [wuxing] is followed by one it cannot conquer.

The dynasty of Shun was ruled by the virtue of Earth, the Xia dynasty by
the virtue of Wood, the Shang dynasty by the virtue of Metal and the
Zhou dynasty by the virtue of Fire.
Further in the text, he indicates that the rule of Zhou will be terminated by
Heaven acting through water. Thus the cycle for the decline of dynasties is:
water–fire–metal–wood–earth.
24. Ho, Li, Qi and Shu, 20.
25. For information on the swastika in Chinese thought see P. J.
Loewenstein, “Swastika and Yin-Yang,” China Society Occasional Papers
(London: China Society, 1942). The symbol’s use extends back to ancient times
in China and can be traced to Sumeria (3000 B.C.E.). In the Chinese context, the
symbol served as a general superlative with a spectrum of meaning centered
around power, energy, and migration—all of which find appropriate interpreta-
tions in the luoshu context. For further information on the swastika motif in
early Chinese art and architecture, see Lars Berglund, The Secret of the Luo Shu,
281–82. The swastika as a special symbol in other cultures is discussed in J.C.
Cooper, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols (London: Thomas
and Hudson, 1978), 164–66.
26. Passages from Chunqiu fanlu (ca. 135 B.C.E.) as given in Ho, Li, Qi and
Shu, 18.
27. For further discussion of the hetu, see Michael Saso, “What is the Ho-
t’u?” History of Religions 17 (1978): 399–416.
Chapter 4: The Luoshu in Cosmic Ritual
1. Yang forces were believed to flow from south to north. For a compre-
hensive description to the temple complex see Nagel’s Encyclopedia-Guide:
China (Geneva: Nagel Publishers, 1984), 540–46.
2. After 1911, the emperor no longer performed ceremonies at the Temple
of Heaven. On October 12, 1912, the Republican government declared Chinese
National Day and opened the temple to the public and a minister performed a
sacrifice to the “Supreme Lord” on behalf of the president. On the 1914 winter
solstice, president Yuan Shi kai, who hoped to restore the empire, prayed at the
temple.
3. Zou also theorized that the “Middle Kingdom” itself occupied one-ninth
of the Red Continent, which was one-ninth the land mass of the world. Thus,
the world could be divided into eighty-one subdivisions. See p. 23 above.
4. See, for example: Henri Maspero, “Le Ming-Thang et la Crise Religieuse
Chinoise avant les Han,” Mélanges Chinois et Bouddhiques 9 (1951): 1–71;
William E. Soothill, The Hall of Light: A Study of Early Chinese Kingship (New
York: Philosophical Library, 1952); Hwang Ming-Chong, “Ming-tang: Cosmology,

Political Order and Monuments in Early China,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation
(Harvard University, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilization,
1996).
Cosmically significant elements can be found in the structures: temples,
palaces, and monuments of many ancient societies. It is interesting to note that
in the Vedic tradition of Hinduism, temple construction is based on a square,
the symbol of the Earth. This square, known as Vastu-Purusha-mandala, is then
subdivided into a series of smaller squares, which in turn lend themselves to the
structural design of the temple. One of the basic schemes of subdivision is into
a square of nine cells, of which the central one, being most sacred, is reserved
for Brahma and represents the center of the world. The eight peripheral sub-
squares designate the cardinal regions of the Earth. The similarity to the luoshu
scheme is striking. For more information on ritual architecture see Titus
Burckhardt, Sacred Art in East and West: Principles and Methods (Pates Manor,
U.K.: Perennial Books Ltd., 1967).
5. See Hwang, “Ming-tang,” 27. Excavations at Xi’an have revealed the
foundations of the Mingtang built by the Han Emperor Wang Mang. See also
Wang Zhongshu, Han Civilization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 39.
6. For example, Dadai liji [Record of Rites by Dai the Elder] (ca. 100 B.C.E.).
7. As given in a later commentary of Dadai liji. Translated in John B.
Henderson, The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1984), 78.
8. A reconstruction of Wang Mang’s Mingtang is given in Wang Shiren, Kao
Gu (1963), figure 20.
9. As given in Soothill, The Hall of Light, 34. The square in figure 4.2 has
been rotated 180 degrees from Soothill’s illustration in order to conform to the
traditional Chinese practice of placing the south at the top of a map.
10. As translated and given in Soothill, The Hall of Light, 30.
11. Ibid., 33.
12. Ibid., 37.
13. Ibid., 39.
14. Ibid., 40.
15. Chinese musical instruments are divided into eight classes depending
on the material of their construction. These eight groups of instruments were
correlated with the bagua. The instrument for the transition of spring to sum-
mer was the “wooden fish,” a type of flute. Emperors possessed an imperial
pitch pipe. It was a task of court musicians and astrologers, upon the
emperor’s request, to recalculate the proper length of this pipe to ensure that
the emperor would be in harmony with the universe. See the discussion of
Chinese music in Rita Aero, Things Chinese (Garden City, NY: Doubleday &
Company, 1980).
16. A detailed discussion of this ceremony is given in Hwang, “Mingtang,”

403–73.
17. Ibid., 444.
18. As given in Hwang, “Mingtang,” 47–48.
19. Heaven was divided into nine regions: the center, the Lathe Heaven; the
Eastern, Blue Heaven; northeast, the Changing Heaven; north, the Black
Heaven; northwest, the Dark Heaven; west, the Luminous Heaven; southwest,
the Vermilion Heaven; south, the Burning Heaven; and southeast, the Yang
Heaven. Further, both Heaven and Earth were thought to possess nine levels
each. The bottom Earth-level was the land of the dead.
20. In 9 C.E., Emperor Wang attempted to organize a land-holding system
based on the ancient “well-field” scheme of nine units. His reforms also
included the nationalization of all land, abolition of private land-holding, and
the prohibition of the sale of land or slaves. The attempts at reform failed.
Emperor Wang built his own Mingtang in what is today Xi’an.
21. We recognize these stars as the Big Dipper. The old star manual
Xingjing indicated Beidou originally consisted of nine stars—two of which
faded over time. See discussion in Ho Peng Yoke, “Chinese Magic Squares:
Mathematics, Myth and Philosophy,” Kertas-kertas Persidangan Antarabangsa
Pengajian Tionghoa, International Conference on Chinese Studies (Kuala
Lumpur: November 20-21, 1993), 346–71.
22. Ho, “Chinese Magic Squares,” 366. There exists a variety of Daoist ritual
movements/dances, bugang, “walking the guideline,” of which the yubu com-
prises one set. In turn, there are several forms of yubu. In the discussion, we
are concerned with the yubu movements associated with the luoshu. For
detailed information on the subject, see Poul Andersen, “The Practice of
Bugang,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 5 (1989-90): 15–53.
23. The procedure for choosing rods is described in detail in “I-Ching,”
Encyclopedia of the Unexplained: Magic, Occultism and Parapsychology, ed.
Richard Cavendish (New York: McGraw Hill, 1974), 122–25.
24. The hexagrams are tabulated and interpreted in Ho, Li Qi and Shu,
36–41. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) learned of the existence of the
hexagrams from Jesuit missionaries in China. He had developed a binary arith-
metic and noted the resemblance between the hexagrams and his binary nota-
tion. Leibniz attached a religious significance to his findings, pointing out, “All
combinations arise from unity and nothing, which is like saying that God cre-
ated everything from nothing.” Believing that this theory, so like that accepted
by the Chinese, would help convert the Emperor to Christianity, he conveyed it
the Jesuits. Of course, this plan failed.
25. The Yijing was popularized in the West through the translations of
James Legge, The Texts of Confucianism, Part II, The ‘Yi King’ (Oxford, 1899)
and Richard Wilhelm, ‘I Ging’; Das Buch der Wandlungen (Jena: Diederichs,
1924). It captured the imagination of many people from occultists such as

Aleister Crowley to respected scientists, for example, C. G. Jung, founder of ana-
lytic psychology. For more information on the Chinese uses of the Yijing, see
W. A. Sherrill and W. K. Chu, An Anthology of I-Ching (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1977); some scientific theories of the Yijing are present in Z. D.
Sung, The Symbols of Yi King; or, The Symbols of the Chinese Logic of Changes
(New York: Paragon Book Reprint Corp., 1969; reprint of 1934 Shanghai edi-
tion); Yijng combinations are considered by Martin Gardner, “The Combinatorial
Basis of the ‘I Ching’; or, The Chinese Book of Divination and Wisdom,”
Scientific American 230 (1974): 108–13 and F. Van der Blij, “Combinatorial
Aspects of the Hexagrams in the Chinese Book of Changes,” Scripta
Mathematica 28 (1965): 37–49.
26. Wilhelm, ‘I Ging’, 504.
27. A discussion of these two cycles is given in Eva Wong, Feng-shui: The
Ancient Wisdom of Harmonious Living for Modern Times (Boston: Shambhala,
1996), 54–56.
28. Many factors affected the diviner’s response, such as the personality
and status of the client and the political realities of the situation. Often the
response was vague and cryptically phrased. An excerpt from Zuo zhuan
[Master Zuo’s Enlargement of the Spring and Autumn Annals] (ca. 400–250
B.C.E.) relates the advice rendered by an astrologer to Prince Ligong on the
future of his son:
The Prince asked him to tell the future of the boy by divination.
He obtained the hexagram guan followed by the hexagram pi
and said, “The interpretation is that guan represents the glory
of the state and is auspicious for the guest of the Prince. Isn’t
this a sign that the boy will take over the state of Chen? If this
is not so then he will possess another state. If this omen is not
fulfilled by one of his descendants. The light extends to a far
distance and will be reflected by someone else. Kun
represents the earth; sun represents wind; qian
represents heaven (From the hexagram guan to the
hexagram pi we notice that the trigram sun
in the former has changed to the trigram qian ; that
is) wind has become heaven, and being above the earth, this
signifies mountain. (Thus the boy) will have all the treasures
of the mountains and he will be shone upon by the light of heaven. . .
29. They are: the Guardian, the Scholar, Great Gate, the Warrior, Left
Guardian, Craving Wolf, Destroyer of Armies, Right Guardian and Prosperity.
30. In looking at a drawing of the yubu path, the concept of clockwise and
counterclockwise is difficult to discern. However, subjected to a graph-theoretic
interpretation where yubu indicates the mapping τ on the set of luoshu ele-
ments under the condition τ (1) = 9, a cyclic permutation in a clockwise direc-
tion is revealed. This mapping can be obtained by repeatedly adding 1 to each
element of the luoshu, again following the condition that 9 + 1 = 1. For the
counterclockwise cycle, a reverse yubu path is taken where 1 is repeatedly sub-
tracted from the luoshu numbers with the condition that 1 – 1 = 9.
31. Information on the Chinese practices of fengshui reached Western audi-
ences through the writing of the nineteenth-century missionary E. J. Eitel, Feng
Shui or the Rudiments of Natural Science in China (Bristol: Pentacle Books,
1979; reprint of 1873 Turbner edition). He justified its description as the “science
of wind and water” by noting, “it is a thing like wind which you cannot com-
prehend, and like water which you cannot grasp” (p. 3) and believed it was
“natural science without experimentation.” Eitel’s definition of fengshui was not
original and apparently came from Chinese sources. Further information on the
historical background and theory of fengshui can be found in Wong, Feng-shui,
13–61 and Steven J. Bennett, “Patterns of the Sky and Earth: A Chinese Science
of Applied Cosmology,” Chinese Science 3 (1978): 1–26.
32. The Chinese calendar accommodates cycles of time and the perceived
metaphysical changes that accompany the cycles. There are four basic cycles: a
sexagenary cycle of sixty years; the three eras with sixty years an era; nine
cycles of twenty years per cycle and twenty-four seasonal markers, two mark-
ers for each month. A listing of seasonal markers is given in Wong, Feng-shui,
50. Further interpretations of seasonal changes can be found in Richard J. Smith,
Chinese Almanacs (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press, 1992).
33. Instructions for constructing a geomantic chart can be found in Lillian
Too, Chinese Numerology in Feng Shui (Kuala Lumpur: Konsep Books, 1994)
and Wong, Feng-shui, 61–62.
34. The geomantic chart is superimposed upon a house plan with correct
directional alignments and luoshu cell correspondences established for the
rooms or parts of the house. Accumulations of negative forces in corners are to
be particularly avoided. A diviner will recommend remedies such as, for exam-
ple, placing a mirror to reflect forces in a particular location, as needed. See
Evelyn Lip, Feng Shui: Environments of Power: A Study of Chinese Architecture
(London: Academic Editions, 1995).
35. Yearly and monthly influences are discussed in Wong, Feng-shui,
217–22.
36. Numerological values as given by Too, Chinese Numerology, 136–53.
37. In such a situation, the fortune-teller will consider the personal dimen-
sions and modify the predictions accordingly.
38. The “Nine Caldrons” or “Nine Tripods,” as they were also called, repre-
sented the Nine Provinces of Ancient China with which the luoshu was some-
times associated. The caldron illustration is from Daozang [Daoist Patrology]
(00945). Other illustrations are reproduced from Lars Berglund, The Secret of Luo
Shu: Numerology in Chinese Art and Architecture (Lund: Lund University, 1990),
190, 166.
39. Magic diagrams are from Daozang.
40. For a more complete discussion of cosmic mirrors, see Schuyler
Cammann, “The TLV Patterns on Cosmic Mirrors of the Han Dynasty,” Journal
of the American Oriental Society 68 (1948):159–67; Cammann, “Types of
Symbols in Chinese Art,” Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association
(1953): 195–231.
41. A cosmic mirror from Wang’s time bears the very commercial sounding
inscription:
The Xin (dynasty) has excellent copper, it comes from Tanyang;

Refined and worked with silver and tin, it is clear and bright.
The Shang-fang [state workshops] have made (this) mirror, (which)
is completely without flaw; To the left of the Dragon and to the
right of the Tiger avert misfortune; The Vermilion Bird and the
Dark Warrior [i.e. the tortoise] are in accord with yin and yang.
May your sons and grandsons be complete in number and dwell
in the center; May you long preserve your two parents in happiness
and good fortune. May your longevity be like that of metal and
stone; May your lot be that of a prince.
Quoted in John S. Major, “The Five Phases, Magic Squares, and Schematic
Cosmography,” Explorations in Early Chinese Cosmology, ed. Henry Rosemont
(Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984). Special issue of Journal of the American
Academy of Religious Studies, vol. 50, 133–66.
42. Further discussion on this theory is given in Berglund, The Secret of the
Luo Shu, 294–391.
43. See Arthur F. Wright, “The Cosmology of the Chinese City,” The City in
Late Imperial China, ed. G. William Skinner (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1977), 33–75.
44. As given in Laurence G. Liu, Chinese Architecture (New York: Rizzoli,
1989), 33.
45. He Junshou, “Mingdai Beijing cheng jianzhu” [The Mathematical Base
for Urban Planning of Beijing City in the Ming Dynasty], Guang Ming Ri Bao
(August 1986). The chi, the Chinese foot, was equivalent to approximately 24.12
cm, a zhang = 10 chi and the li, the Chinese mile, spanned 1500 chi.
46. For a more detailed discussion of the architecture and numerology of
the Forbidden City, see Evelyn Lip, Feng Shui Environments of Power.
Chapter 5: Chinese Variations
1. A detailed study has been made of this work: Lam Lay Yong, A Critical
Study of the Yang Hui Suan Fa: A Thirteenth-Century Chinese Mathematical
Treatise (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1977).
2. See the discussion in chapter 2 above.
3. Schuyler Cammann, “The Magic Square of Three in Old Chinese
Philosophy and Religion,” History of Religions 1 (1961): 37–80.
4. Ibid., 55.
5. At a later period, in a different context, Daoists did seem to consider
several variants of the luoshu in their ceremonies and as magic charms. See the
discussion of “the steps of Yu” in chapter 4.
6. From earliest times, China had commercial and scientific contacts with
peoples outside its borders. The Indians knew of magic squares and associated
them with divination as early as 550. In the world of Islam, the Ikhwan as-Safa
or “Brothers of Purity” published their encyclopedia Rasa’il in 989. It contained
a section on magic squares. Most authorities believe that Yang Hui’s examples
were Chinese-derived.
7. In his introduction, Yang notes that he is merely passing on information
he and his friends obtained from old books in their libraries. Further, he refers
to squares as yin that are clearly yang in nature according to the tradition of
yinyang. For a more complete discussion of this matter see Schuyler Cammann,
“Old Chinese Magic Squares,” Sinologica 7 (1962): 14–53.
8. His order ten square was not a true magic square—the sum of its diag-
onal elements did not equal the magic constant. For a full discussion on all of
Yang’s magic squares see Lam, A Critical Study, 293–311.
9. Cammann, “Old Chinese Magic Squares,” 26–28.
10. A particular form of numerology popular in medieval Europe was gema-
tria where every letter of a word would be associated with a number and the
sum of such numbers for a word or a name was given a meaning. In Christian
number mysticism, 666 was the number of the “Beast of Revelation,” the devil
or the Antichrist, and was associated with one’s enemies or theological oppo-
nents. The process of doing this was called “Beasting.” An example of how
Pope Leo X was “Beasted” is related in Howard Eves, An Introduction to the
History of Mathematics (Philadelphia: Saunders Publishing, 1990), 270.
11. That is, 15, as the smallest constant, occupies the 1’s position and so
on until 231, as the largest magic constant, occupies the 9’s position. This fea-
ture also held for the previous square, see figure 5.15(a).
12. For a discussion of Yang’s magic circles see: Lam, A Critical Study,
311–18, and Frank Swetz, “If the Squares Don’t Get You—The Circles Will,”
Mathematics Teacher 73 (1980): 67–72.
13. The luoshu, itself, remained prominent as a talisman and a basis for div-
ination and geomancy ceremonies. For a survey of Chinese work with magic
squares see, Ho Peng Yoke, “Magic Squares in China,” in Selin, Encyclopaedia

of the History of Science, 528–29.
14. Suanfa tongzong [Systematic Treatise on Arithmetic] gives a collection
on magic squares with theoretical justifications.
15.
60 5 96 70 82 19 30 97 4 42
66 43 1 74 11 90 54 89 69 8
46 18 56 29 87 68 21 34 62 84
32 75 100 74 63 14 53 27 77 17
22 61 38 39 52 51 57 15 91 79
31 95 13 64 50 49 67 86 10 40
83 35 44 45 2 36 71 24 72 93
16 99 59 23 33 85 9 28 55 98
73 26 6 94 88 12 65 80 58 3
76 48 92 20 37 81 78 25 7 41
16. Binaishanfang ji [Collection of Writings in the Binai Mountain Studies].
Chapter 6: The Magic Square in Other Cultures

1. For example, the Hebrew Old Testament relates the destruction of the
walls of Jericho—“For seven days, seven priests with seven trumpets invested
Jericho, and on the seventh day they encompassed the city seven times.” The
number seven also appears in many contexts in Christian theology, including:
the seven deadly sins; the seven virtues, the seven spirits of God, seven joys of
the Virgin Mary, seven devils cast out of Magdalen.
2. The Tower of Babel was supposed to have been built in seven levels: one
for each known planet. When King Sargon II (722–705 B.C.E.) constructed his
palace at Khorsabad, he created an identity with its wall of defense by making
the length of the wall 16,283 cubits, the number of his name.
3. Kabbala [Cabala, Qabalah], “the received or traditional law,” was a sys-
tem of mystical teaching of Judaism which became popular in Europe in the
twelfth century but which had its roots in ancient Babylonia. The teaching and
practices of Kabbala were based on the belief that God created all things by pro-
nouncing their names—words had a divine meaning and each of the twenty-
two letters of the Hebrew alphabet were divine instruments. This theory was
first expounded in the Sepher Yetzirah [Book of Creation] (ca. 3rd to 6th cen-
turies C.E.) and expanded in the thirteenth century Sepher Zohar [Book of
Splendor]. The task of the Kabbalist was to discover the hidden meaning in
words. Gematria was a branch of Kabbala that encoded words with numbers;
the hidden meanings of the numbers then reflected back on the words. Christian
mystics also accepted these practices; one “theological activity” of note was to
interpret the letters of an individual name so that their numerical value became
666, the number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation. For further information
on these mystical number practices see Stuart Holroyd, Magic Words and
Numbers (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1976).
4. Annmarie Schimmel, The Mystery of Numbers (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993), p. 215. Private consultation with independent historians
and researchers in the field of ancient Babylonian mathematics supports the
claim that magic squares were unknown in Babylonia.
5. Act V, Scene 1, line 2.
6. As quoted in Tobias Dantzig, Number: the Language of Science (New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1954), 41.
7. The Pythagoreans developed a system of figurative numbers in which
configurations of dots were confined to a geometric form such as a square or a
triangle. The number of dots was always “square” (4, 9, 16, . . .); or “triangular”
(3, 6, 10, . . .). The tetractys is a triangular number. For a more extensive analy-
sis of the tetractys concept, see H. E. Stapleton, “Ancient and Modern Aspects
of Pythagoreanism,” Osiris 13 (1958): 12–53, especially 32–35.
8. The mathematical historian David Eugene Smith (1860–1944) noted
Pythagoras’s distinctly oriental ideas. See his History of Mathematics (New York:
Dover Publications, 1958; reprint of 1925 edition).
9. Primary texts concerning Egyptian mathematics are scarce. See Frank
Swetz, From Five Fingers to Infinity: A Journey through the History of
Mathematics (Chicago: Open Court, 1994), 133.
10. The Rhind papyrus consists of a collection of eighty-five mathematical
problems compiled by a scribe, Ahmes, in 1650 B.C.E. It was acquired by the
Scottish antiquarian A. Henry Rhind in 1958 and, upon his death, ceded to the
British museum.
11. Takao Hayashi, “Magic Squares in Indian Mathematics,” Encyclopedia of
the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, ed.
Helaine Selin (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997), 529–36.
12. Bibhutibhusan Datta and Awadhesh Narayan Singh, “Magic Squares in
India,” Indian Journal of Science 27 (1992): 51–120.
13. Schuyler Cammann, “Islamic and Indian Magic Squares, Part II,” History
of Religions 8 (1969): 271–99.
14. These squares are given in Takanori Kusuba, “Combinatories and Magic
Squares in India: A Study of Narayana Pandita’s Ganitakaumudi,” chaps. 13–14.
Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, Brown University, 1993, p. 169. The
ancient Indians conceived of nine planets: the “Seven Luminaries” or Heavenly
Wanders plus two imaginary invisible planets, Rahu and Ketu. These nine magic
squares of order three can be obtained from the luoshu by rotations and aug-
mentations, namely by adding the same constant to all entries in a given magic
square.
15. Hayashi, “Magic Squares in Indian Mathematics,” 169.
16. See Arion Rosu, “Etudes ayurvediques III Les carrés magiques dans la
médecine indienne,” Studies on Indian Medical History, G. Jan Meulenbeld and
Dominik Wujastyk (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1987), 103–12.
17. For a review of Frost’s work see “Indian Magic Squares,” in Edward
Falkener, Games Ancient and Oriental and How to Play Them (New York:
Dover Publications, 1961; reprint of Longmans, Green edition, 1892).
18. See Hiralal R. Kapadia, “A Note on Jaina Hymns and Magic Squares,”
Indian Historical Quarterly 10 (1934): 140–53.
19. See Kusuba, “Combinatorics and Magic Squares in India.”
20. Aagar is a type of wood found in India. These directions are provided
in L. R. Chawdhri, Practicals of Yantras (New Delhi: Sagar Publications, 1984),
35.
21. Ibid., 47.
22. Captain Shortreede, “On an Ancient Indian Magic Square, Cut in a
Temple at Gwalior,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 11 (1842): 292.
23. Cammann, “Islamic and Indian Magic Squares, Part II,” 275.
24. See Yukeo Ohashi, “Astronomy in Tibet,” in Selin, Encyclopaedia of the
History of Science, 136–39. The Shixian calendar was the last luni-solar calendar
devised in China.
25. The almanacs feature the luoshu as the centerpiece which is usually sur-
rounded by the twelve animals the Chinese use to designate each year in
their twelve year cycle: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, mon-
key, bird, dog and boar. This configuration is depicted on the undershell of a
ferocious looking tortoise. Figure 6.9 is a design on a silver amulet as shown in
Antoinnette K. Gordon, Tibetan Religious Art (New York: Paragon, 1963), 89.
26. For example, Kigu hosu (1697) by Yueki Ando.
27. See “Magic Square in Japanese Mathematics” by Yoshimasa Michiwaki in
Selin, Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, 538–40.
28. Ibid., 538.
29. Shochu shinan (1669). I am grateful to Yoshimasa Michiwaki, President
of Maebashi Institute of Technology, Maebashi, Japan for sending me these
materials.
30. See William Ahrens, “Studien über der magischen Quadrate der Araber,”
Der Islam 7 (1917): 186–249. This article still remains the most comprehensive
text on magic squares in Islamic written in a Western language.
31. Jabirian numerology is discussed by: H. E. Stapleton, “The Antiquity of
Alchemy,” Ambix 5 (1953): 1–43; Syed Nomanul Haq, Names, Natures and
Things: The Alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan and his Kitab al-Ahjar (Boston: Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 1994).
32. See H. E. Stapleton, “The Gnomon,” Ambix 6 (1957): 1–9.
33. As discussed in Seyyed Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic
Cosmological Doctrines (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993).
34. See Georges Ifrah, From One to Zero: A Universal History of Numbers
(New York: Penguin Books, 1985), chap. 20: “Arabic Numeral Letters.”
35. The connection between magic squares and alchemy is discussed in
Vladimir Karpenko: “Between Magic and Science: Numerical Magic Squares,”
Ambix 40 (November, 1993): 121–28; “Two Thousand Years of Numerical Magic
Squares,” Endeavor 18 (1994): 147–53. I thank Jacques Sesiano for calling my
attention to these articles.
36. For more details see, Cheng Te-k’un, “Some Chinese Islamic Magic
Square Porcelain,” Wen wu hui k’an 1 (1972): 146–60.
37. See Schuyler Cammann, “Islamic and Indian Magic Squares, Part I,”
History of Religions 8 (1969): 181–209.
38. Nasr, An Introduction to Cosmological Doctrines, p. 50. For a more
detailed discussion of Ikhwanian beliefs see Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Science and
Civilization in Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), 152–57.
39. As given in B. Carra de Vaux, Les Penseurs de l’Islam, vol. 4 (Paris:
Geuthner, 1923), 109–10.
40. As described by Cammann, “Islamic and Indian Magic Squares, Part I,”
194.
41. See John Stroyls, “Survey of the Arab Contributions to the Theory of
Numbers,” Proceedings of the First International Symposium for the History of
Arabic Sciences, vol. 2, Paper in European Languages (Aleppo: Institute for the
History of Arabic Sciences, April 5-12, 1976), 168–79.
42. Stapleton, “Antiquity,” p. 11.
43. For example, the Persian manuscript from 1212, Princeton University
Library, Garrett Collection No. 1057; British Museum MS (Add. 7713), dates at
1211.
44. The torus only became an entity of mathematical interest in seven-
teenth-century Europe.
45. See Ifrah, From One to Zero.
46. Nasr, Science and Civilization in Islam, p. 210.
47. I would like to thank Mohammad Bagheri, Director, Encyclopedia
Islamica Foundation, Tehran, for sending information on “Beduh” and my col-
leagues, Ali Behagi and Rafik Culpan, for their assistance in translating Farsi and
Turkish language materials.
48. Photos of such children are given in W. Ahrens and Alfred Maass, Etwas
von magischen Quadraten in Sumatra und Celebes (Berlin, 1916).
49. Walter Skeat, Malay Magic (New York: Dover Publications, 1967).
50. Ibid., 138.
51. Edward Westermarck, Ritual and Belief in Morocco, vol. 1 (London:
Macmillan Co., 1926), 145.
52. As quoted in Claudia Zaslavsky, Africa Counts: Number and Pattern in
African Culture (Boston: Prindle, Weber & Schmidt 1973), 139.
53. The “Four Angels” are most probably: the archangels, Gabriel and
Michael; Izra’il, the Angel of Death, and Malik, the gatekeeper of hell. The
Quran only mentions six angels by name; the remaining two are Harut and
Marut who are known for prompting demons to cause mischief.
54. Edward Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern
Egyptians (London, 1836).
55. Incident related in Ahrens, “Studien über der magischen Quadrate der
Araber,” 224.
56. Illustration given in Ifrah, From One to Zero, 309.
57. This square is given in Abd Al-Fattah Al-Sayyid Al-Tukhi, Kitab Sihr Al-
Kuhhan, Fi Hudur Al-Jann [The Secrets of Magicians in their Intercourse with
Spirits], date and place of origin unknown. The book was purchased in Egypt
in 1988, see Berglund, The Secret of the Luo Shu, 52–55.
58. Table given in Stapleton, “Antiquity,” 24.
59. See Emilia Calvo, “Al-Majriti,” in Selin, Encyclopaedia of the History of
Sciences, 547.
60. See Menso Folkerts, “Zur Frühgeschichte der magischen Quadrate in
Westeuropa,” Sudhoffs Archiv 4 (1981): 313–38.
61. Jagiellonian Library, MS 753.
62. Folkerts, “Zur Frühgeschichte der magischen Quadrate in Westeuropa,”
discusses early codices and manuscripts that contain information on magic
squares.
63. A survey of Abraham ben Meir Ezra’s life and works can be found in
Raphael Levy, The Astrological Works of Abraham ibn Ezra, vol. III (Baltimore,
MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1927).
64. The nature of his astrological considerations is revealed in Raphael Levy
and Francisco Cantera, The Beginning of Wisdom: An Astrological Treatise by
Abraham ibn Ezra, vol. XIV (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1939).
65. M. de la Hire’s translation of Moschopoulos’s work was never published.
In 1886, Paul Tannery rendered it into French as “Le traite de Manuel
Moschopoulos sur les carres magiques,” later translated and published in English:
John Calvin McCoy, “Manuel Moschopoulos’s Treatise on Magic Squares,”
Scripta Mathematica 8 (1941): 15–26.
66. Kurt Vogel, Die Practica des Algorismus Ratisbonensis (Munich: C. H.

Beck, 1954).
67. David Singmaster, “Fair Division of the First kn Integers into k Parts,”
prepublication draft received through private correspondence.
68. Ibid.
69. Problems 12 and 51 in the collection. See David Singmaster and John
Hadley, “Problems to Sharpen the Young,” The Mathematical Gazette (March,
1992): 102–26.
70. Folkert, “Zur Frühgeschichte der magischen Quadrate in Westeuropa,”
321.
71. The topic and effects of melancholy was the subject of much medieval
speculation and artistic and literary attention. See Raymond Kilbansky, Erwin
Panofsky and Fritz Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of
Natural Philosophy, Religion and Art (New York: Basic Books, 1964).
72. Much analysis has been devoted to the symbolic significance of the
items depicted in Dürer’s Melancholia I. See, for example, Edwin Panofsky,
Albrecht Dürer (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1943). The prevailing
explanation for the presence of the magic square of order five is that it was to
counter Jupiter’s malevant power; however, Cammann believes it is merely to
represent mathematics among the other sciences depicted (Cammann, “Islamic
and Indian Magic Squares,” 292).
73. Scipione del Ferro, Professor of Mathematics at the University of
Bologna, is perhaps best known for his contributions to the solution of the cubic
equation. See discussion in Victor J. Katz, A History of Mathematics (New York:
Harper Collins, 1993), 328–30.
74. The contents of this table are adapted from Donald Tyson, Three Books
of Occult Philosophy written by Henry Cornelius Agrippa (St. Paul, MN:
Llewellyn Publications, 1995), Appendix VII, “Practical Kabbalah,” 763.
75. See discussion in T. Schrire, Hebrew Amulets: Their Decipherment and
Interpretation (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), chap. 17, “Construction
of the Shemoth,” 91–97.
76. Tyson, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, 766–69.
77. Schrire, Hebrew Amulets, 403–5.
78. Tyson, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, translation by James Freake.
79. In occult practice, “seals” were symbols that represented the object of
attention or some of its special properties. In his collection of magic squares,
Agrippa usually presents three seals for each planet: the seal of the planet; the
seal of its “intelligence”; and the seal of its “spirit.”
80. Tyson, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, 318.
81. Other users of this system also reversed the order. See the discussion on
this matter in Folkert, “Zur Frühgeschichte der magischen Quadrate in
Westeuropa,” 315.
82. Du Royaume de Siam by Simon de la Loubère was published in French

in Paris (1691) and Amsterdam (1713) and appeared in English translation in
1693. Europeans at this time were fascinated with accounts concerning the civ-
ilizations of the East. It was this book that originally aroused my interest in the
luoshu.
83. The question, “How many magic squares of order four were possible?,”
plagued the Arabs. In the period from 1837 to 1838, Violle published a three-
volume study of magic squares, Traite complet des Carres Magiques. In it, he
noted that there existed 549,504 different numerical arrangements for a fifth-
order magic square.
84. Franklin’s work with magic squares is referred to in William B. Willcox,
ed., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972).
In vol. 15, pp. 171–72, a letter of July 2, 1768 from Franklin to John Winthrop
notes that the British are puzzled about magic squares but they have not “asked
to see my methods.” In Franklin’s correspondence are several references to
magic squares. A detailed account of Franklin’s involvement with magic squares
is given in Paul Pasles, Benjamin Franklin’s Numbers (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2008).
85. In particular Frost wrote a pioneering article on magic squares for
Encyclopaedia Britannica (1882) which was used in later editions. This article
introduced the English-speaking world to the mystery and fascination of magic
squares.
Chapter 7: Luoshu Miscellanea
1. Richard Webster, Talisman Magic: Yantra Squares for Tantric Divination (St.
Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1995), preface. James Ward, in his article, “Vector
Spaces of Magic Squares,” Mathematics Magazine 53 (March 1980): 108–11, also
mentions this by quoting Hutton’s Mathematical Recreations (1844):
According to this idea a square of one cell filled up with unity, was the
symbol of the Deity, on account of the unity and immutability of God; for
they remarked that this square was, by its nature, unique and immutable,
the product of our unity by itself being always unity. The square of the
root two was the symbol of imperfect matter, both on account of the four
elements and the impossibility of arranging this square magically . . .
2. Gino Loria, Le Scienze esatte nell’Antica Grecia (Milan, 1914), 795, sug-
gested that Theon’s square was a magic square and this belief was held by later
authors. For example, James Moran, The Wonders of Magic Squares (New York:
Random House, 1982), 5.
3. This proof is given in William H. Benson and Oswald Jacoby, New
Recreations with Magic Squares (New York: Dover Publications, 1976), 104–107.
In order to ensure distinct elements in each cell of the square, p and q must be
chosen with care when (e – 4) is divisible by 3. The author thanks Yvan Saint-
Pierre, University of Montreal, for pointing this out.
4. R. Holmes, “The Magic Magic Square,” The Mathematical Gazette
(December 1970): 376.
5. Hwa Suk Hahn, “Another Property of Magic Squares,” The Fibonacci
Quarterly 73 (1975): 205–8. I would like to thank Martin Gardner for calling my
attention to this article.
6. For further details on such squares, see Martin Gardner. “Some New
Discoveries About 3 × 3 Magic Squares,” Math Horizons (February 1998): 11–13.
7. Ibid.
8. For a clearer concept of “vector space,” I recommend consulting a book
on linear algebra, for example: Gilbert Strang, Linear Algebra and its
Applications (New York: Academic Press, 1976).
9. See Martin Cohen and John Bernard, “From Magic Squares to Vector
Spaces,” Mathematics Teacher (January 1982): 76–77, 64; C. Small, “Magic
Squares over Fields,” American Mathematical Monthly 95 (1988): 621–25; A. van
den Essen, “Magic Squares and Linear Algebra,” American Mathematical
Monthly 97 (1990): 60–62; and Ward, “Vector Spaces of Magic Squares.”
10. Scholars disagree on the exact definition of a magic square. M. M.
Postinikov, writing in the Soviet Mathematical Encyclopaedia, vol. 6 (Kluwer,
1990) 72, defines a magic square as an “n × n array of integers from 1 up to n2
. . .”; Sherman Stein, in Mathematics: The Man-Made Universe (San Francisco:
W. H. Freeman, 1963, p. 167), specifies “an arrangement of n2 natural numbers
from 1 to n2. . .”; Howard Eves, in An Introduction to the History of mathe-
matics, 6th edition (Philadelphia: Saunders College Publishing), says all author-
ities agree on the magic sum property. In general, the squares we have defined
and which Eves speaks of are frequently referred to as “classical” magic
squares.
11. Matrix multiplication on two three-by-three matrices is performed as
follows:
a11, a12, a13 b11, b12, b13 a11 b11 + a12 b21 + a13 b31, a11 b12 +a12 b22 + a13 b32, a11 b13 + a12 b23 + a13 b33
a21, a22, a23 b21, b22, b23 = a21 b11 + a22 b21 + a23 b31, a21 b12 + a22 b22 + a23 b32, a21 b13 + a22 b23 + a23 b33
a31, a32, a33 b31, b32, b33 a31 b11 + a32 b21 + a33 b31, a31 b12 + a32 b22 + a33 b32, a31 b13 + a32 b23 + a33 b33
12. A semi-magic square is a square in which one or both of the main diag-
onals do not total to the magic sum. See Emanuel Emanouilidis, “Powers of
Magic Squares,” Journal of Recreational Mathematics 29 (1998): 176–77.
13. For example: C. W. Trigg, “Magic Square as a Determinant,” problem
response E813, American Mathematical Monthly 56 (January 1949): 33–37; A. C.
Thompson, “Odd Magic Powers,” American Mathematical Monthly 101 (April
1994): 339–42; David Rose, “Magic Square and Matrices,” The Mathematical
Gazette (February 1973): 36–39; John Robertson, “Magic Squares of Squares,”
Mathematics Magazine 69 (October 1996): 289–93.
14. As related in Menso Folkerts, “Zur Frühgeschichte der magischen
Quadrate in Westeuropa,” Südhoffs Archiv 65 (1981): 313–38.
15. Henry Ernest Dudeney, 536 Puzzles & Curious Problems (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1967), 386, problem 142.
16. This is problem 545 submitted by G. W. Walker. The problem was
solved by C. W. Trigg, “The Mathematician and the Jester, ” American
Mathematical Monthly 55 (September 1948): 429–30.
17. Ann-Lee Wang, “Hollow Magic Squares,” Mathematics in School (March
1995): 23–25; also see, Betty Lyon, “Using Magic Borders to Generate Magic
Squares,” Mathematics Teacher (March 1984): 223–26.
18. Wang, “Hollow Magic Squares,” 23.
19. Martin Gardner, The Numerology of Dr. Matrix (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1967), 89. Loyd published his in 1928.
20. The concept of a heterosquare was first proposed by Dewey Duncan in
the “Problems and Solutions” section of Mathematics Magazine (January 1951)
where the question of a heterosquare of order three was raised. Solutions for
this question were given by Charles Pinzka, “Heterosquares,” problem 84,
Mathematics Magazine (September/October 1965): 250–52 and by Charles W.
Trigg, “Comment on Problem 84,” Mathematics Magazine (September/October
1971): 236–37.
21. As given in Martin Gardner, “The Magic of 3 × 3,” Quantum 6
(January/February 1996): 24–28.
22. Ibid., p. 25.
23. See Robertson, “Magic Squares of Squares.” A discussion of Fermat’s Last
Theorem is given in Charles Vanden Eynden, “Fermat’s Last Theorem” and Frank
J. Swetz, “Epilogue: Fermat’s Last Theorem” in From Five Fingers to Infinity: A
Journey through the History of Mathematics, ed. Frank J. Swetz (Chicago: Open
Court, 1994), 747–50, 751–52, respectively.
24. Given in Underwood Dudley, Numerology, or, What Pythagoras
Wrought (Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America, 1997), 68.
25. Gardner, Numerology, 49.
26. For a more complete discussion of magic cubes, see William Symes
Andrews, Magic Squares and Cubes (New York: Dover Publications, 1960;
reprint of Open Court edition, 1917).
27. See Lee C. F. Sallows, “Alphamagic Squares: Adventures with Turtle
Shell and Yew between the Lowlands of Logology,” Abacus (Fall 1986): 28–45,
and (Winter 1987): 20–29, 43.
28. Ibid., 41, 43, 44–45.
29. Ibid., 31.
30. Andrews, Magic Squares and Cubes, 146–58.

31. As quoted in Andrews, ibid., 148–49.
32. Communicated to the author in private correspondence.
33. Michael R. Saso, in his Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal
(Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 1972), describes a yubu
dance for the Chiao festival of cosmic renewal, p. 71.
34. David Roberts, “Peter Maxwell Davies: Ave Maris Stella,” Contact 19
(1978): 26–31.
35. Claude Bragdon, The Frozen Fountain Being: Essays on Architecture
and the Art of Design in Space (New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1970;
reprint of 1924 edition).
36. Ibid., 44, 76.
37. Ibid., 76.
38. Ibid., 83.
39. A general technique was suggested in Margaret J. Kenney, “An Art-Full
Application Using Magic Squares,” Mathematics Teacher 75 (January 1982):
83–89; it was used with the luoshu by Roger Enge, “Reader Reflections: Magic-
Square Designs,” Mathematics Teacher 77 (November 1984): 596.
40. Mields's work can be seen in Dietmar Guderian, Mathematik in der
Kunst der letzten dreißig Jahre. Von der magischen Zahl über das endlose
Band zum Computerprogramm (Paris: Galerie Lahumiere, 1990), p. 117.
41. For an example of one such scheme, the “Harper mapping,” see
Clifford Pickover, The Zen of Magic Squares, Circles, and Stars (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2002), 262–267.
42. As translated and quoted in Bradford Tyrey and Marcus Brinkman,
“The Luo-shu as Taiji Boxing’s Secret Inner-Sanctum Training Method,”
Journal of Asian Martial Arts 5 (1996): 75–79.
43. Ibid., 77–78.
44. Bow-Sim Mark, Simplified Tai-Chi Chuan (Boston: Chinese Wushu
Research Institute, 1982), 22.
Chapter 8: Some Final Thoughts
1. In “Aspects of Pythagorism” and “Antiquity of Alchemy,” H. E. Stapleton

credits Apollonius of Tyana and Theodorus of Asine with the creation of magic
squares, but does not explain his reasons. For a discussion of Theon of
Smyrna’s contributions b to magic squares, see p. 122 above.
2. This historical aspect of magic squares has been thoroughly researched
and documented by Jerome Carcopino, “Le Christianisme secret du ‘carré mag-
ique’,” Museum helveticum 5 (1948): 16–59.
3. While each of the words, with the exception of arepo, which is a proper
name, have a meaning within a Latin context—rotas, “wheels”; opera, “labor”
or “work”; tenet, “to hold”; and sator, “sower of seeds”—in the context of the
square, they make no sense.
4. Carcopino, “Le Christianisme,” 33, 35. In Revelation I: 8, St. John has
Christ proclaiming, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the
end.” Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.
Revelations was written in Greek for a Greek audience where the symbolism
would be obvious.
5. A discussion of the occult uses of the SATOR square is given in Stuart
Holroyd, Magic, Words and Numbers (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1976),
80–81.
6. Berglund, The Secret of Luo Shu, has devoted a section of his work to
“Similarities between Chinese and Greek numerology,” 48–50.
7. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 5: Chemistry
and Chemical Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980),
463.
8. For a fuller discussion of early Chinese counting board practices, see
Lam and Ang, Fleeting Footsteps.
9. This symbol evolved into the Seal of Saturn, as given in figure 6.30
above.
10. James Legge, The I-Ching (New York: Dover Publications, 1963;
reprint of 1899 edition), 18.
11. Granet, La Pensée chinoise.
12. Hermann Schubert, Mathematical Essays and Recreations (Chicago:
Open Court Publishing Co., 1903), 39, 41.
13. Martin Gardner, Penrose Tiles to Trapdoor Ciphers (New York: W. H.
Freeman, 1989), 296.
14. The mathematical and philosophical significance of the sriyantra is
discussed in George Gheverghese Joseph, The Crest of the Peacock (London:
I. B. Tauris, 1991), 238–41. The mandala as a visual stimulus to contemplation
is also considered in Robert Lawlor, Sacred Geometry (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1982).
15. The east, “Place of the Dawn,” had the color yellow and was thought
to be “fertile and good”; the north, “Region of the Underworld,” had the color
red and was “barren” and “bad”; west, the “Region of Women,” was blue-green
and was considered “unfavorable” and humid; the south was the “Region of
Thorns” and bore the color white.
16. Granet, “Les Nombres,” La Pensée chinoise, 173–74.
17. Kepler’s intellectual and scientific ordeal is examined in Arthur
Koestler, The Sleepwalkers (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1963), part 4.
18. Benjamin Franklin, in describing one of the magic squares he created,
noted that it is “the most magical of any magic square made by any magician”;
quoted in Pieter van Delft and Jack Botermans, Creative Puzzles of the World
(New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1978), 86.
Epilogue
1. Cuneiform texts from the Seleucid period of Babylonia history note five
celestial bodies, identified by the naked eye as moving through the night sky
along an identifiable path. We recognize these bodies as the planets Jupiter,
Venus, Mercury, Saturn, and Mars. Adding the sun and the moon, we arrive at
the “seven heavenly wanderers” believed by some ancient peoples to be gods.
Based on their periods of sidereal rotation, the Greeks ordered the “wanderers”
as follows: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn, with each
serving as a “ruler” for one of seven consecutive days. This sequence deter-
mined the days of the week as followed in the Western world. See O.
Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity (New York: Dover Publications,
1969; reprint of 1957 edition), 168–69.
2. For further discussion of the ritual origins of science, see Abraham
Seidenberg, “The Ritual Origin of Science,” Archive for History of Exact Sciences
1 (1962): 488–527.
3. This theory is developed in Frank Swetz, “Trigonometry Comes Out of
the Shadows,” Learn from the Masters, ed. Frank Swetz et al. (Washington, DC:
Mathematical Association of America, 1995), 57–71.
4. For information on Stonehenge, see Gerald Hawkins, Stonehenge Decoded
(New York: Doubleday, 1965); for information on the Sun Dagger, see Anna
Sofar, The Sun Dagger (Bethesda, MD: Atlas Video, 1993). Video recording.
5. The judgment of just what comprises “scientific thinking” is relative. All
traditional peoples have some form of science, an ethnoscience. In the context
above, “prescientific thinking” is that which takes places outside of the Western
deductive-based paradigm founded on the scientific method consisting of obser-
vation, conjecture of hypothesis, experimentation, and conclusion.
6. Actually the Greeks conjectured that the planets moved around the Earth
in circular orbits with each orbit contained within a crystal sphere. Thus the
Earth itself was encased in a series of seven crystalline spheres that vibrated due
to their planets’ rotation. If the planets rotated at their proper frequency a har-
monic resonance would be established—the “music of the spheres.” However,
if the heavenly bodies did not perform correctly, a dissonance would result
causing celestial and human tension.
7. In particular René Descartes (1596–1650), French philosopher and natu-
ral scientist, used the example of a circle in his metaphysical and theological dis-
cussions. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), Newton’s rival in the
seventeenth century, also held such a view. His circular conception of God was
influenced by the theories of the German mystic, Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464),
who believed that God could only be appreciated by mystical intuition.
8. For a consideration of geometric shape and culture, see Robert Lawlor,
Sacred Geometry (London: Thames and Hudson, 1982).
9. The literature on the mystical power of numbers is extensive. See, for

example: W. Wynn Westcott, Numbers, Their Occult Powers and Mystic Virtues
(London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1911) and Christopher Butler,
Number Symbolism, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970).
10. Think of the football chant so often used by fans: “We’re number one!”
11. For many people, the number thirteen is considered an unlucky num-
ber. This belief goes back at least two thousand years to ancient Babylonia
where it was felt twelve was a good number for astrological and mathematical
reasons. The rotation of the night sky was divided into twelve parts. Thus a
complete cycle encompassed twelve units, thirteen, one beyond twelve, was
considered undesirable or unlucky.
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Acknowledgments
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p. 20. With permission.
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p. 364.
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Civilization in China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1985),
p. 35. With permission.
4.14 As reproduced in Lars Berglund, The Secret of Luo Shu: Numerology in
Chinese Art and Architecture (Lund: Lund University, 1990).
207
208 Illustrations Acknowledgments
6.10 As reproduced in Antoinette K. Gordon, Tibetan Religious Art (New

York: Paragon Book Reprint, 1963), p. 89.
6.19 W. Ahrens and Alfred Maass, Etwas von magischen Quadraten in
Sumatra und Celebes (Berlin, 1916), pp. 251, 253.
6.24(a) Georges Ifrah, The Universal History of Numbers: From Prehistory to the
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Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
6.32 From Girolamo Cardano, Practice arithmetice et mensurandi singularis
(Milan, 1539).
7.17 Reproduced from C. F. Sallows, “Alphamagic Squares: Adventures with
Turtle Shell and Yew Between the Lowlands of Logology.” Abacus (Fall,
1986), pp. 28–45, p. 31. With permission of Springer-Verlag, New York.
7.26 Reproduced from Claude Bragdon, The Frozen Fountain (New York:
Books for Libraries Press, 1970), pp. 44, 76. Copyright 1932 and renewed
1960 by Henry Bragdon. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a
Division of Random House.
7.27 Reproduced from Claude Bragdon, The Frozen Fountain (New York:
Books for Libraries Press, 1970), p. 76. Copyright 1932 and renewed
1960 by Henry Bragdon. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a
Division of Random House.
8.5 Figure 3, “The Aztex five world regions,” by Raymond Turver.
Reproduced from The Penguin Dictionary of Religions, ed. John R.
Hinnels (Penguin Books, 1984), p. 95 With permission of Penguin
Books, U.K.

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What are some ways the Luoshu was used in Chinese culture?

What are some ways the Luoshu was used in Chinese culture?

OC Luoshu_ver.

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Legacy of the Luoshu

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Copyright © 2008 by A K Peters, Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

1. THE JOURNEY BEGINS 1

2. ON THE BANKS OF THE LUO RIVER:

3. YINYANG, WUXING, AND KEY NUMBERS IN THE LUOSHU 19

4. THE LUOSHU IN COSMIC RITUAL, FORTUNE-TELLING,

5. CHINESE VARIATIONS ON THE LUOSHU THEME 65

6. THE MAGIC SQUARE OF ORDER THREE IN

7. LUOSHU MISCELLANEA 121

8. SOME FINAL THOUGHTS 151

Such widespread interest and support reflects on the appeal and

How I Got Interested in Magic Squares

I sorted through this information and arrived at a tentative but rela-

• In what context was the magic square developed in China?

Eventually, I discovered the writings of Schuyler Cammann which

luoshu and urged that further research on the subject be undertaken.5

2 Legacy of the Luoshu

The luoshu is a very special magic square. A magic square is a square

The Journey Begins 3

arrived at by the ancient Pythagoreans, in which, for instance, the num-

I was astounded to learn that Jesuit missionaries in China in the seven-

The Journey Begins 5

Rather, he was inclined to attribute it to his fellow Jesuit P. Joachim

6 Legacy of the Luoshu

Matteo Ricci (1552–1655) who entered the Celestial Kingdom in 1583.9

The Journey Begins 7

Through his writings, Leibniz informed the European audience of

8 Legacy of the Luoshu

According to legend, a tortoise with numbers inscribed on its shell

Mystical Beginnings on the Shell of a Tortoise

10 Legacy of the Luoshu

In the acquisition of knowledge, both Fuxi and the Sage King Yu

He drained off the rivers and opened up the nine outlets;

Yu tamed the waters by channeling them, whereas his father, who

The Chinese Origins of the Luoshu 11

12 Legacy of the Luoshu

The Earliest References to the Luoshu

The Chinese Origins of the Luoshu 13

14 Legacy of the Luoshu

16 Legacy of the Luoshu

In the twelfth century, Cai Yuanding (1145–1198), a respected geo-

The Traditional Method of Constructing

The Chinese Origins of the Luoshu 17

demonstrating the traditional method of construction for the luoshu.19

(a) (b) (c)

20 Legacy of the Luoshu

earthly institutions. It was an adaptable symbol of the Chinese world

“Nineness” and “Fiveness” in the Luoshu

Yinyang, Wuxing, and Key Numbers in the Luoshu 21

Two numbers, in particular, dominate the conception and operation

[Yu the Great] stamped up high the nine mountains; dredged