LO SHU SQUARE
&
THE PERFECT NUMBER
©2018 Dr Fung
A Chinese legend concerning the pre-historic Emperor Yu (夏禹) tells of the Lo Shu Turtle.
In ancient China 3000BC there was a huge deluge: the people offered sacrifices to the god of one of the flooding rivers, the Luo river (洛河), to try to calm his anger.
A magical turtle emerged from the water with the curiously unnatural Lo Shu pattern on its shell: circular dots representing numbers arranged in a 4 by 4 grid.
In the Lo Shu pattern; the 4 numbers at the four corners, each of the 4 rows, each of the 4 columns, and in both diagonals, all add up to one particular number...
This is regarded to be The Perfect Number
Recent publications state that The Perfect Lo Shu Number became an important Chinese model for time and space - and served as a basis for city planning, tomb design, and temple design. The Lo Shu Number was also used to designate spaces of political and religious importance.
Here is a representation of that 4 x 4 Grid - and the Perfect number
Since ancient times turtles are considered as mysterious and symbolic animals.
Their age often becomes very advanced; and therefore embody immortality or at least longevity.
Many cultures shared the idea that the earth lies on a large turtle, or that the inhabited world is a cosmic turtle’s shell, rising from the water.
Hand in hand with the attribution of age comes wisdom; if a creature has lived so long, seen so much and heard so much, it must have drawn a great deal of knowledge from all those experiences.
In addition turtles are considered to be stable, calm and thoughtful.
In ancient China, the turtle’s symbolism was alike. One compared its shell with the firmament and the underside with the flat disc of the earth, so the turtle became a symbol for the universe itself, for eternity, wisdom and knowledge.
Thus it hardly surprises that the savants of that time immediately recognized the message and the universal harmony of that magical square on the shell of the Lo Shu turtle.
3D Turtle puzzles, Popular in China, originate from the Lo Shu legend
