Wuji (philosophy)
| Wuji | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 無極 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 无极 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | "Without Ultimate" | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Vietnamese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vietnamese | Vô cực | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Korean name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hangul | 무극 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hanja | 無極 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Japanese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kanji | 無極 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kana | むきょく | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Wújí |
| Wade–Giles | Wu-chi |
| Wu | |
| Romanization | vu jih |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| IPA | [mȍu kɪ̀k] |
| Jyutping | Mou4 gik6 |
| Southern Min | |
| Hokkien POJ | bô-ke̍k |
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Revised Romanization | Mugeuk |
| McCune–Reischauer | Mugŭk |
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Romanization | Mukyoku |
Wújí 無極 (literally "without ridgepole") originally meant "ultimate; boundless; infinite" in Warring States period (476-221 BCE) Taoist classics, but came to mean the "primordial universe" prior to the Taiji 太極 "Supreme Ultimate" in Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE) Neo-Confucianist cosmology. is also a proper noun in Modern Standard Chinese usage; for instance, Wuji County in Hebei.
Chinese wuji "limitless; infinite" is a compound of wu 無 "without; no; not have; there is not; nothing, nothingness" and ji "ridgepole; roof ridge; highest/utmost point; extreme; earth's pole; reach the end; attain; exhaust". In analogy with the figurative meanings of English , Chinese ji 極 "ridgepole" can mean "geographical pole; direction" (e.g., siji 四極 "four corners of the earth; world's end"), "magnetic pole" (Beiji 北極 "North Pole" or yinji 陰極 "negative pole; cathode"), or "celestial pole" (baji 八極 "farthest points of the universe; remotest place").
Common English translations of the cosmological Wuji are "Ultimateless" (Fung and Bodde 1953, Robinet 2008) or "Limitless" (Zhang and Ryden 2002), but other versions are "the ultimate of Nothingness" (Chang 1963), "that which has no Pole" (Needham and Ronan 1978), or "Non-Polar" (Adler 1999).
Wuji 無極 references are found in Chinese classic texts associated with diverse schools of Chinese philosophy, including Daoism, Confucianism, and School of Names. Zhang and Ryden summarize the philosophical transformation of wuji "limitless".
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