Lo Shu Square
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The Lo Shu Square, the unique normal magic square of order three, is an important part of Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese art of qi direction with regards to the placement of physical objects and their placement's effect on qi flow.
In Chinese, the square is known as Luo Shu (Simplified Chinese: 洛书; Traditional Chinese: 洛書; pinyin: luò shū; Literal: Luo (River) Book) or the Nine Halls Diagram (Simplified Chinese: 九宫图; Traditional Chinese: 九宮圖; pinyin: jiǔ gōng tú).
Chinese literature dating from as early as 2800 BC tells the legend of Lo Shu or "scroll of the river Lo". In ancient China, there was a huge flood (or a time of inundation caused by Heaven). The people tried to offer some sacrifice to the river god of one of the flooding rivers, the Lo river, to calm his anger. A turtle emerged from the water with a curious pattern on its shell, with patterns of circular dots arranged in a three-by-three grid on the shell, such that the sum of the numbers in each row, column and diagonal was the same: 15. This number is also equal to the 15 days in each of the 24 cycles of the Chinese solar year. This pattern, in a certain way, was used by the people in controlling the river, or overcoming the inundation, for as it has been pointed out above, the Lo Shu has astromonical properties.
The odd numbers in the Lo Shu Square are male or yang and light, while the even numbers are female or yin and dark. The numbers 1, the beginning of all things, and 9, representing completion, are considered most auspicious, while the number 5 at the centre is the most powerful. The Lo Shu square, in the form of a trigram, gives the basis for determining the orientation of buildings; traditional Chinese cities and temples were laid out in a square broken into nine sections. It is also a diagrammatic representation of the seasons showing the ratio of yin and yang in the annual cycle.
The odd and even numbers of the Lo Shu (like the Ho Tu) are given as from 1 to 10, representing Heaven (yang) and Earth (yin) or the 'Original Trigrams' of Ch'ien and K'un, that in their combination produce six more trigrams referred to in the I Ching as Chen, K'an, Ken, Sun, Li, and Tui, three of which are also Yang or male, and three Yin or female, all of which fit together as light and dark opposites across the Ba Gua, and in their actual binary form of unbroken or broken lines.
If the 'Original Trigrams' of Ch'ien and K'un are fitted into the Ho Tu and the Lo Shu, as Heaven and Earth also are given ten values, through a simple multiplication of their lines each of the eight trigrams receives its own value. Heaven 1 or Ch'ien 1 has three unbroken lines that when simply multiplied 1 + 2 + 3 = 6, and Earth 6, its partner in the Ho Tu, is 6 + 12 + 18 = 36; so between the combination of these values a sequence to all the other 6 trigrams made between Ch'ien and K'un are found (examples, as Li = 16, or K'an = 26).
