element
Earth as element
Ground as a philosophical or ritual element: stability, burial, and world-body talk. Kept distinct from soil as a farmer’s medium (see Soil).
Chinese tradition
Earth as element appears in Chinese tradition.
The Yijing’s classical phase and trigram speech seats earth among the working powers of the hexagram world. A named earth-phase in that classic, not soil as dirt and not the bare earth landform.
from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950
appears in · sourced · documented
Vedic tradition
Earth as element appears in Vedic tradition.
The Ṛgveda hymns Earth (Pṛthivī) among the dyadic powers with sky. A named Vedic earth-element in that corpus, not the mood-shelf earth quality and not a farmer’s soil dump alone.
from Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton (translation) · The Rigveda, 2014 (this translation); hymns much older
appears in · sourced · documented
Roman religion
Earth as element appears in Roman religion.
Pliny’s Natural History seats earth among the elemental ground of Book 2 cosmology beside fire, air, and water. A named earth-as-element in that encyclopedia, not soil as tilled dirt and not Yijing phase earth already walked.
from Pliny the Elder · Natural History, c. 77 CE
appears in · sourced · documented
sources
- I Ching (Yijing) · Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation)
The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. Richard Wilhelm, English Cary F. Baynes.
- The Rigveda · Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton (translation)
Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton, The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India.
- Natural History · Pliny the Elder
Pliny, Naturalis Historia.