What is Nhân Tướng Học?
Physiognomy (Nhân Tướng Học) is a discipline that observes facial features, hands and body to infer personality and destiny. It exists in both Eastern and Western traditions, is intended for reference, and has not been verified by modern science.
Also called: physiognomy reading
What Is Nhân Tướng Học?
Nhân Tướng Học (Chinese characters: 人相學) is the field that studies the connection between physical features and human destiny. People in the past held that the face, the hands, the voice and outward bearing reflect, in part, a person's character, health, fortunes and lifespan. This is traditional knowledge offered for reference; modern science has not verified it.
Where does Nhân Tướng Học come from and how is it used?
Nhân Tướng Học appears in both the East and the West, tied in the East to the notion that "tướng do tâm sinh" (appearance arises from the mind) and in Europe to the reading of facial features. The term is commonly used in articles about reading faces, hands, moles and voices. In practice, the face is divided into positions such as the Ngũ Quan (the five organs: eyes, nose, mouth, ears, eyebrows) and the Lục Phủ (the regions of bone and line). Each position is said to represent an aspect of life: the eyebrows are the Bảo Thọ quan (the guardian of longevity), the ears are the Thái Thính quan (the guardian of hearing), the mouth is the gateway of speech. Nhân tướng học also considers the ngũ âm (five tones) of the voice, such as the Chủy tone (Fire) or the Thương tone (Metal).
In China, the oldest surviving text on physiognomy is the chapter Cốt tướng (骨相, bone physiognomy) in Wang Chong's Lunheng, written around the year 90 during the Eastern Han. Wang Chong opens the chapter with the idea that people say fate is hard to know, yet fate is very easy to know, and the way to know it is through the bones of the body (骨體); one grasps fate through "biểu hậu" (outward signs), that is, the method of bones, just as one looks at a measure or a box to know its capacity. He recounts strange physiognomies handed down about sages and kings, such as Shun with double pupils, Yu with three holes in his ears, and King Wen with four breasts, and holds that not only wealth, poverty, nobility and lowliness but also temperament have their bone method. In the same chapter, his view is that fate is fixed from the moment one receives one's qi, and so physiognomy shows in the body; where the reading of physiognomy fails, he attributes it to the reader not examining carefully. Notably, Wang Chong was famous for his skepticism in the Lunheng, yet the Cốt tướng chapter comes down on the side of physiognomy, because his reasoning is consistent with that belief in preordained fate.
How is Nhân Tướng Học distinguished from easily confused terms?
Nhân Tướng Học differs from "tướng số" (fortune reading by physiognomy) in that tướng số usually includes Tử Vi (Vietnamese astrology), Bát Tự (BaZi) and other methods of prediction. "Xem tướng" (reading physiognomy) is the concrete act, while "nhân tướng học" is the field of study. It should be distinguished from "tướng pháp", the detailed theoretical system. Nhân Tướng Học is also not the same as "chỉ tay học" (palmistry), since palmistry focuses only on the hands.
What to keep in mind when learning what Nhân Tướng Học is?
The conclusions of nhân tướng học should be treated only as reference information, not used to judge people or decide their fate. Modern science has no verified evidence for a connection between appearance and destiny.
How do the different schools understand it?
- Traditional Eastern school: Nhân Tướng Học rests on the theory of yin and yang and the five elements, holding that appearance reflects temperament and destiny, and can change with the mind.
- Folk school: Nhân Tướng Học is passed down orally through folk verse, focusing on concrete signs such as moles and wrinkles, highly practical but lacking system.
- Modern school: Nhân Tướng Học is regarded as cultural heritage, to be studied objectively, and should not be applied mechanically to judge people.
Where does Western physiognomy come from?
European physiognomy has its own roots; it was not borrowed from the East. The pocket volume The Pocket Lavater, printed in New York in 1817, distills Johann Caspar Lavater's observations on facial physiognomy (the original books appeared from 1775 to 1778) and prints alongside them a section by Giambattista della Porta comparing human physiognomy with that of animals. Della Porta held that the lion is strong and quick to anger, the fox cunning, the sheep slow, and that a person who resembles an animal carries that animal's nature; he cites two Greek physiognomists, Polemon and Adamantius. These are the words of those authors themselves, not verified conclusions.
Set side by side, the two reveal one neat difference: Chinese physiognomy in the Lunheng reads both fate (wealth and poverty, nobility and lowliness) and temperament through bone physiognomy, while the European physiognomy of Lavater and della Porta mainly reads temperament. Neither approach has been verified by modern research.
Related articles
- What is face reading? The main positions in nhân tướng học: an overview
- Moles on the lips and chin: meaning in folk nhân tướng học
- Reading the eyebrows in nhân tướng học
- The mouth (Xuất Nạp quan) in the Ngũ Quan: the gateway of fortune and of speech
- Reading the ears in nhân tướng học
- The eyes (Giám Sát quan) in the Ngũ Quan: Eastern nhân tướng học
- The Chủy tone (Fire) among the five tones of nhân tướng học: what the voice reveals
- The Thương tone (Metal) among the five tones of nhân tướng học: what the voice reveals
- Thượng Phủ (the two forehead bones) in the Lục Phủ: meaning in nhân tướng học
- Moles on the eyebrows: meaning in folk nhân tướng học
- Moles on the palm: meaning in folk nhân tướng học
What groups of features does Nhật Nguyệt use in nhân tướng học?
| Feature group | Number of options | Options |
|---|---|---|
| Face shape | 5 | Square (the character Điền), Full and round, Oval (goose egg), Long (the character Mục), Heart-shaped (the character Do) |
| Forehead | 3 | Broad and high, Narrow and low, Square-angled, Slightly protruding |
| Eyebrows | 3 | Thick and long, Slender and sparse, Slanting up (sword brows) |
| Eyes | 3 | Large and bright, Small and deep-set, Long and narrow |
| Nose | 3 | Straight and high (coconut-palm nose), Large with a round tip, Small and pointed |
| Mouth and lips | 2 | Wide with full lips, Narrow with thin lips |
| Chin | 3 | Square and strong, Round and full, Pointed and narrow |
Traditional nhân tướng học describes correlations between physical features and character. This is a long-standing cultural notion, not a conclusion verified by science; the table lists exactly what the site's tool looks up, no more.
The figures in the table match the results of the lookup tools on Nhật Nguyệt.
