The Neck mansion (亢宿,
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
: Kàng Xiù) is one of the
Twenty-eight mansions of the
Chinese constellation
Traditional Chinese astronomy has a system of dividing the celestial sphere into asterisms or constellations, known as "officials" (Chinese ''xīng guān'').
The Chinese asterisms are generally smaller than the constellations of Hellenistic t ...
s. It is one of the eastern mansions of the
Azure Dragon.
In Chinese Cosmology, the Kang Constellation is associated with the Kidney Organ. 亢 is a picture of a person standing with their legs open, as in horse stance, and so holds the quality of strength that comes through a proper foundation. This matches up with Chapter 8 of the Suwen, which says that the Kidney is in charge of strength and fortification. The Kidney houses the Zhi, which is in charge of solid grounding in one’s life purpose.
Kang is also the neck or throat of the Azure Dragon of the East, which, while the throat area is ruled by the Lung, has everything to do with sound—pointing to the Kidney’s orifice of the ears.
Around the 5th Century BC, it is believed that eclipses would take place in this constellation. This coming together of the Sun and the moon works as a symbol that points towards the ShaoYin relationship of the Kidney and Heart.
Asterisms
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neck (Chinese Constellation)
Chinese constellations