Names and variants
- Simplified
- 先天
- Traditional
- 先天
- Other names
- Xian Tian, Before Heaven, Prior to Heaven, precelestial
- Pinyin
- Xiān tiān
- English
- Xiantian
Overview
In the cosmological explanation preserved here, xiantian includes both an undivided condition and the transition in which heaven and earth become differentiated. It therefore covers more than a single moment before the world's appearance.
Houtian names the established world that follows. Read as a pair, xiantian and houtian contrast stages or orders of cosmic formation, not locations above and below the visible sky.
A second use connects xiantian with a tradition attributed to Fuxi and the eight trigrams. This symbolic setting is related to, but not identical with, the account of cosmic formation. The pinyin term remains useful because Before Heaven does not by itself specify which setting a writer has in mind.
References
- [1]Dictionary of Daoism