Page "religion" Paragraph 144

All this emphasis on Centrality and on the number 5 as a symbolic expression of the Center, which seems to have begun as far back as 400 B.C., also may conceivably have led to the development of the Five-Elements School and the subsequent efforts to fit everything into numerical categories of five.

We find, for example, such groupings as the Five Ancient Rulers, the Five Sacred Mountains, the Five Directions ( with Center ), the Five Metals, Five Colors, Five Tastes, Five Odors, Five Musical Notes, Five Bodily Functions, Five Viscera, and many others.

This trend has often been ascribed to the cult of the Five Elements itself, as though they had served as the base for all the rest ; ;

but why did the Old Chinese postulate five elements, when the Ancient Near East -- which may have initiated the idea that natural elements exerted influence in human life and activities -- recognized only four??

And why did the Chinese suddenly begin to talk about the Five Directions, when the animals they used as symbols of the directions designated only the usual four??

Obviously, something suddenly caused them to start thinking in terms of fives, and that may have been the workings of the Lo Shu.