Volume 1 Issue 3 - June 2006

by Matthew Bauer

In the introduction to her landmark translation of the Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen, a.k.a., the Yellow Emperor’s Classic, Ilza Veith commented that three primary concepts are critical to understanding that complex work. She listed those three as: ?(1) Tao, (2) Yin and Yang, and (3) the theory of the elements and, closely connected to it, the imposition upon the universe as well as upon man of a system of numbers among which the number five predominates? (Veith 1972, p10).