  It is almost impossible to separate Chinese ideas of body, state, cosmos from concepts of “nature,” though, as Nathan Sivin points out, there is no indigenous Chinese term for “nature” before the nineteenth century. Over the course of the last three centuries BCE, Chinese understandings of the physical world developed to reflect, and mirror, political consolidation (Sivin 1995, 2007). These new ideas of cosmic order—correspondence between microcosm (the body) and macrocosm (the cosmos)—appeared in new representations of the body, the state, and the cosmos that were based on systematic applications and correlations of the ideas of yin-yang and wuxing. They are prominent in Warring States politico-philosophical writings such as the Springs and Autumns of Master Lü (Lü Shi chunqiu) of Lü Buwei (291?-235 BCE) and the Luxuriant Dew of the Springs and Autumns (Chunqiu fanlü), attributed to Dong Zhongshu (179–104 BCE).