2. The Transformation of the East Asian Trifunctional System
The reason the trifunctional system could serve as the background of East Asian astronomy is that it was the constitutive principle of the universe. To express the trifunctional system in terms of modern science, it refers to the horizontal, vertical, and three-dimensional functions that are fractally common to all things. Unlike the West, the East viewed the essence of the universe as circulation—as in modern physics—and, instead of atoms and electrons, expressed it as endless interpenetration (jungjung-mujin), that is, the Taegeuk, or infinitely nested circulation.[6]
The three functions are the vertical, horizontal, and three-dimensional movements that make circulation possible. The trifunctional system also became the founding principle of the Three Bonds and Five Relations. Among the Three Bonds, the father-son relationship is vertical, the husband-wife relationship is horizontal, and the ruler-subject relationship is three-dimensional.
The Heaven-Earth-Human Three Powers, too, are interpreted as Heaven being vertical, Earth being horizontal, and Human being three-dimensional.[7] Examining the transformation of the East Asian trifunctional system inscribed in the constellations, the earliest trifunctional system in Eurasia begins with the Yellow Emperor and Emperor Yao. The Yellow Emperor formed the three functions together with Chiyou and Shennong, and the functions of politics and war were transferred from Chiyou to the Yellow Emperor. The Yellow Emperor, Chiyou, and Shennong seem to be related respectively to the Sumer, Aryan, and Slav peoples—the peoples who lived together in Central Asia when humanity of that era gathered there.[8]
The trifunctional system of the Yellow Emperor, Chiyou, and Shennong continued into the generation of Emperor Yao, with Emperor Yao, Dangun, and the Sanmiao people taking on the three functions; and it was Budo, the sacred capital built by Emperor Yao, that inherited even the function of religion to Emperor Yao.
After the Yin (Shang) dynasty, China and Korea separated, and Korea continued as Mahan (politics), Jinhan (religion), and Byeonhan (production), which in turn continued as Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla.