The Divine Turtle Carrying the Scroll of the Luo River

During the time of Fuxi A legendary cultural hero and sage-king of ancient China, credited with creating the Eight Trigrams., a dragon-horse carrying a map emerged from the Meng River. Its numbers consisted of nine sections. The Heavenly numbers are one, three, five, seven, and nine; the Earthly numbers are two, four, six, eight, and ten. There are five Heavenly numbers and five Earthly numbers. These five positions correspond to one another, and each has its match. The sum of the Heavenly numbers is twenty-five; the sum of the Earthly numbers is thirty. The total sum of the numbers of Heaven and Earth together is fifty-five.

While Yu the Great The legendary founder of the Xia Dynasty, famous for controlling the Great Flood. was surveying the lands, a divine? turtle carrying a scroll emerged from the Luo River. The patterns were inscribed upon its back, and it was named the Luo Shu original: 洛書. This is often called the "Magic Square of Three," where the numbers are arranged so that every row, column, and diagonal adds up to 15.. [Luo Shu Diagram]

This diagram shows the arrangement of the Five Elements and their associated colors and numbers as they appear on the turtle's shell.

Center: Earth
Top: Fire
Bottom: Water
Left: Wood
Right: Metal

Surrounding numeric/color labels:
Jade-Green Four (Top Left)
Black Two (Top Right)
Green Three (Left)
Red Seven (Right)
White Eight (Bottom Left)
White Six (Bottom Right)
White One (Bottom)