page_title: Chinese sun and moon mirrors
section_title: Yangsui
hierarchical_section_title: Chinese sun and moon mirrors / Terminology / Yangsui
caption_attribution_description: 中文: 华表顶端的蹬龙（朝天吼） 拍摄
context_page_description: The yángsuì 陽燧 or sun-mirror was an ancient Chinese burning-mirror that concentrates sunlight to ignite tinder and the fāngzhū 方諸 or moon-mirror was a device that collects nighttime dew by condensation. These two bronze implements are literary metaphors for yin and yang, associating the "yang-mirror" yangsui with the sun, fire, dry, and round, and the "yin-mirror" fangshu with the moon, water, wet, and square.
context_section_description: Yángsuì < Old Chinese *laŋsə-lu[t]-s can be written 陽遂 or 陽燧, compounding  yáng 陽 (of yīnyáng) "sunshine; shining; sunny side" with suì 遂 "advance; accomplish; achieve" or suì 燧 (clarified with the fire radical 火) "light a fire". Compare the mirrorless sui terms Suiren 燧人 (with "person") "a mythical sage who invented friction firelighting", suìshí 燧石 (with "stone") "flint", mùsuì 木燧 (with "wood"), meaning either "hearth-board" or "fire-drill", and fēngsuì 烽燧 (with "beacon") "beacon-fire". Yángsuìzú 陽燧足 "sun-mirror feet" is an old Chinese name for "brittle star". Suì 燧 also had early graphic variants 鐆 and 䥙, written with the metal radical 金 specifying the bronze mirror.
  The Hanyu Da Cidian unabridged Chinese dictionary (1993, 11: 1974) gives three meanings for yángsuì 陽遂 (written without the "fire radical"): 亦作"阳燧" 古代利用日光取火的凹面铜镜 ["Also written 阳燧, a concave bronze mirror anciently used to start a fire from sunlight."]; 清畅通达貌 ["appearance of clear, unobstructed flowing"], which was first recorded in a poem (洞箫赋) by Wang Bao (c. 84 – c. 53 BCE); and 古代车上的一种采光装置 ["an ancient type of chariot window that admits light"], which was first recorded in the Book of Jin history covering 265 to 420 CE.
  Three uncommon variant names for the concave fire-starting mirror are fúsuì < *[b]asә-lu[t]-s 夫遂 (with 夫 "that") used in the Zhouli (below), jīnsuì < *k(r)[ә]msә-lu[t]-s 金燧 (with 金 "metal") used in the Liji (below), and yángfú < *laŋ[b](r)o 陽符 used in Taiping Yulan (below) (1993, 2: 1457).
  English translations of the Chinese sun-mirror in classic texts (cited below) include:
  "metal speculum for getting fire from the sun" (Legge 1885)
  "burning-glass" (Forke 1907)
  "sun-mirror" (de Groot 1910)
  "burning mirror" (Needham and Wang 1962)
  "solar kindlers" or "igniters using yang" (Schafer 1963)
  "burning-mirror" (Ware 1966)
  "burning mirror" (Major et al. 2010)
caption: Hou 犼 dragon sitting on a chenglupan 承露盤 "dew collecting plate" capping a huabiao column
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