河圖 and 洛書
The He Tu and the Luo Shu
Two numeric diagrams sit beneath Chinese cosmology and feng shui.
The Luo Shu
The order-three magic square
The Luo Shu, 洛書, arranges the numbers one to nine in a three by three grid, the unique order-three magic square. Every row, column, and diagonal sums to fifteen, with five always at the center.
Nine palaces and Flying Star
The moving numbers
The nine cells map to the eight directions plus the center, the nine palaces, 九宮. In Flying Star feng shui the nine numbered stars move through the palaces in a fixed Luo Shu order, from the center outward and back, which is why the square drives the Flying Star chart. The He Tu, 河圖, is the companion diagram of paired numbers one to ten, tied to the five phases. Tradition tells of a dragon-horse and a turtle bearing the diagrams; history places them as numeric objects by the Han period.
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