From End to Beginning: The Way of Culmination and Return in the Great Cold Solar Term
This article offers a deep reading of Great Cold (Dahan), the final of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms, drawing on pre-Qin Confucian and Daoist philosophy, etymological analysis, and astronomical and phenological traditions. It reveals the dialectic of extreme cold and returning spring, the cyclic principle that every ending harbors a new beginning, and illuminates the late-winter rites of the Grand Nuo exorcism and the clay ox ceremony—inviting the reader into the ancients' cosmic wisdom of 'tracing origins by returning to endings' and the eternal circle of ceaseless renewal.
Chapter One: The Original Meaning of "Great Cold"--The Reverse Extreme of Cold and the Year's Terminal Term
I. Why Is "Cold" Called "Cold"$8
Before entering into specific discussions of Great Cold, we must first contemplate the character "cold" (han) itself. Why was "cold" chosen to name the year's most frigid state$9 What is this character's original meaning$10 What lived experience of "coldness" did the ancients encode in its form$11
The construction of the character han is extraordinarily vivid. Master Xu Shen explains in his Shuowen Jiezi: "Han means 'frozen.' It depicts a person beneath a roof, covered over with layered grasses, with ice below." Let us parse the scene this character portrays: "mian" is a roof; a "person" stands beneath it; "mang" represents dense grasses (used to pad and cover); and "bing" is the original character for "ice" (the two dots resemble icicle forms). The entire character depicts this scene: a person huddled inside a dwelling, body wrapped in thick, tangled grass for warmth, while underfoot the ground is frozen.
What an utterly vivid, utterly concrete act of character creation! It does not abstractly define "low temperature" but directly presents a shivering person on a cold night--they have retreated indoors (mian), they have wrapped themselves in straw (mang), yet the ice beneath their feet (bing) still radiates bone-piercing cold. The ancients created the character "cold" not from the concept of temperature, but from the situation of a living, breathing person who is freezing. This is a classic example of the ancient script principle of "taking images from close at hand" (jin qu zhu shen)--all understanding of the world begins from one's own authentic experience.
Even more thought-provoking is the detail of "ice below" (bing) in the character's composition. A roof can block the wind, tangled grass can wrap the body, but the ice is underfoot--it comes from the earth, from the most fundamental cosmic cold that human effort cannot entirely shut out. This implies a profound truth: cold, in the final analysis, is a state of heaven and earth's vital breath, a cosmic force that humans must face and endure no matter what. All one can do is "cover oneself with layered grasses"--employing limited means to resist a little, yet unable to alter the comings and goings of cold itself. This humility and helplessness before the powers of heaven and earth is the very bedrock of the ancients' cosmological sensibility.
II. What Is "Great Cold"$12--The Reverse Extreme of Cold
Having established the original meaning of "cold," we must ask: why "Great Cold," and not simply "Cold"$13 What does the word "great" (da) mean here$14
Master Wu Cheng states with perfect clarity in his Collected Explanations of the Seventy-Two Pentads of the Monthly Ordinances: "Great Cold falls in the middle of the twelfth month. The explanation follows what came before. At the month's beginning, the cold is still small, hence the name Minor Cold. By mid-month it becomes great." He further elaborates from the explanation of Minor Cold (Xiaohan): at this point the accumulation of cold has reached the "reverse extreme of cold" (han qi zhi ni ji). "Reverse extreme" means the cold's accumulation has reached its absolute limit, its summit, beyond which it cannot advance one step further. The word "reverse" (ni) conceals a further subtlety--it does not merely mean "reaching the peak," but implies that "when things reach their extreme they must reverse." The reverse extreme of cold is precisely the critical state where cold is about to turn and yang is about to return.
Why name the year's coldest state "great"$15 Here lies a naming logic of the ancients that is at once supremely simple and supremely profound. As we saw in our reading of "Summer," "great" in pre-Qin usage was by no means a simple adjective. In the naming of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms, "great" and "minor" consistently appear in pairs--Minor Heat and Great Heat, Minor Snow and Great Snow, Minor Cold and Great Cold. "Minor" marks the first appearance of a climatic feature; "great" marks its full flourishing. At Minor Cold, the cold is still accumulating, not yet cresting; by Great Cold, it has accumulated to the state of "greatness"--filling heaven and earth, congealing all things, reaching the year's highest peak of yin-qi.
Yet here we must note an apparent contradiction that is in truth profoundly revealing--a fact of astronomy that must be stated plainly. In the actual climate of the Central Plains, although Great Cold is named "the reverse extreme of cold," in terms of sheer cold, Minor Cold sometimes surpasses it; the folk saying goes, "Minor Cold outdoes Great Cold." Why$16 The answer confirms precisely the deeper significance of Great Cold as "reverse extreme": from a purely astronomical standpoint, the cumulative effect of ground heat loss means the coldest trough often falls around Minor Cold. Great Cold is still honored as "the reverse extreme of cold" and given the name "Great" because, in its calendrical and philosophical significance, it marks the point where yin-qi has reached its logical terminus--an extreme of principle (li), not merely of degree (du). In other words, the "greatness" of Great Cold lies not only in the greatness of temperature, but in the greatness of this cosmic node where "yin-qi reaches its exhaustion here, and yang-qi is about to be reborn from here." It is the endpoint of yin, and therefore the starting point of yang. This layer of understanding is the key to the entire meaning of Great Cold.
III. The Year's Terminal Term: The Last Link in the Twenty-Four Solar Terms
Great Cold possesses yet another identity that no other solar term shares--it is the last of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms, the terminal term of the year.
The Twenty-Four Solar Terms begin with Start of Spring and end with Great Cold. From the "birth" of Start of Spring, through Rain Water, Awakening of Insects, Spring Equinox, Clear and Bright, Grain Rain, all things sprout forth; through Start of Summer, Grain Full, Grain in Ear, Summer Solstice, Minor Heat, Great Heat, all things flourish in growth; through Start of Autumn, End of Heat, White Dew, Autumn Equinox, Cold Dew, Frost Descent, all things gather inward; through Start of Winter, Minor Snow, Great Snow, Winter Solstice, Minor Cold, all things seal themselves in storage; and at last we arrive at Great Cold--where the year's vital breath has traveled to its very end. After Great Cold comes Start of Spring, and a new year, a new cycle, begins afresh.
This position as "the last link" endows Great Cold with a unique, almost sacred significance. It is the endpoint, the place where the year's vital breath is exhausted and returns to concealment; yet it stands immediately adjacent to the starting point--its "back door" opens directly onto Start of Spring's "front door." End and beginning merge into one at the juncture of Great Cold and Start of Spring.
Why did the ancients place "the coldest solar term" at "the year's end"$17 Was this merely because winter falls at year's end$18 No. There is an exquisitely precise philosophical design at work. The year's vital breath begins with Start of Spring's faint stirring of yang and ends with Great Cold's pure yin at its zenith--a complete trajectory from "the initial birth of yang" to "the utmost flourishing of yin." And the utmost flourishing of yin, according to the Zhouyi principle of "when things reach their extreme they must reverse," is precisely the eve of yang's rebirth. Placing the coldest, most yin, most silent Great Cold at the year's end is not meant to conclude the year in deadness, but to plant the seed of renewal in that deadness's deepest depths. The year's end exists precisely for the year's beginning; Great Cold's chill exists precisely for Start of Spring's warmth. This is a "conclusion" filled with hope--it points not toward nothingness, but toward new life.
Master Wu Cheng states at the very opening of his Collected Explanations: "The twenty-four terms, called the four seasons and eight nodes, serve precisely to record one year's endings and beginnings (zhong shi)." Note the coupling of "endings and beginnings" (zhong shi): not "beginnings and endings" (shi zhong), but "endings and beginnings"--placing "ending" before "beginning," which precisely accords with Great Cold's special position as the last solar term, directly adjoining Start of Spring. Ending, immediately followed by beginning; the year's end is the mother pregnant with the year's start.
IV. Why "Endings and Beginnings" Rather Than "Beginnings and Endings"$19
The order of these two words--"endings and beginnings" (zhong shi)--is by no means accidental. It is a deeply significant cipher of pre-Qin thought, worthy of special attention.
In everyday language, we habitually say "beginnings and endings" (shi zhong)--having a beginning and an end, finishing well what one begins, from start to finish. This embodies a linear view of time: first a starting point, then an endpoint, time flying like an arrow from past to future.
But in pre-Qin classics, the seemingly inverted expression "endings and beginnings" (zhong shi) frequently appears. The Xugua Zhuan (Sequence of the Hexagrams) of the Zhouyi, when arranging the order of the sixty-four hexagrams, concludes by saying: "After Completion (Jiji) cannot be exhausted, therefore it is followed by Before Completion (Weiji), and there it ends." Why do the sixty-four hexagrams not conclude with "After Completion" (Jiji, signifying completion) as a satisfying finale, but instead with "Before Completion" (Weiji, signifying incompletion)$20 Because "After Completion" implies termination, exhaustion, while "Before Completion" implies remaining room, a new beginning. Placing "Before Completion" at the end is precisely meant to show: what is called the "end" is never truly exhausted, but is rather the very doorway to a new round of "beginning." "After Completion yet it cannot be exhausted"--fulfillment, paradoxically, is inexhaustible, because after fulfillment a new opening must follow.
This is the deep meaning of "endings and beginnings" rather than "beginnings and endings." In the ancients' cyclical view of time, "ending" is not where the arrow lands, but a point on a circle--a point that is both the close of the previous revolution and the commencement of the next. Great Cold's position within the Twenty-Four Solar Terms is precisely such a point: it is the "ending" of the old year, and also the seedbed of the next year's "beginning." Master Wu Cheng thus speaks of recording "one year's endings and beginnings" (zhong shi), not "one year's beginnings and endings" (shi zhong)--because the essence of the solar terms is not a line segment running from start to finish, but a circle revolving endlessly. On this circle, the endpoint forever adjoins the starting point; reaching the very end is returning to the very beginning.
Once we understand this, we can truly read Great Cold aright. It is not the final, abruptly silenced note of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms' great symphony, but the bridge passage at the music's close that leads into the next repetition--enabling the entire composition to sound forth again, without end.