ABSTRACT
Chinese views of the cosmos differed in notable respects from Western beliefs. Most significantly, for the Chinese the entire universe was a single organism. In the eleventh century A.D. a cosmical plan, Explanations of the Diagram of the Supreme Pole, was discussed by the noted Daoist teacher Zhou Dun-Yi who otherwise left few writings to posterity. All cosmologies—or at least all early conceptions of the universe—have a religious aspect. Cosmology in China thus was associated both with astronomy and with chemistry as they developed through the history of the Old World. Chinese cosmology differed from cosmology in the West primarily in being holistic. The Chinese viewed mankind and the heavens as part of a vast organism, with actions on earth echoed in the heavens. Chinese views of the soul and an afterlife were also different from Western views.
