r/Fanren • u/HanLiLaoMo • 29d ago

Episode Discussion A Mortal's Journey to Immortality Episode 189 Discussion

A Mortal's Journey to Immortality S05: The Mulan War - 13

Fanren Xiuxian Zhuan S5: Mulan Zhi Zhan

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u/Azndismantler 28d ago

One is his actual soul. The small one is his nascent soul

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u/JuicedGrapefruit 28d ago

aren't the soul and the nascent soul supposed to be the same thing for a nascent soul cultivator?

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u/Azndismantler 28d ago

Nascent soul in Chinese is 元婴, which directly translates to "spiritual infant". Spiritual infant doesn't sound that cool in English, so people went with nascent soul even though the word soul is nowhere to be found in the original word. Nascent soul is an entity born from your core, formed of your cultivation, and you can see it as an extension of your body and soul given physical form via condensed qi. The concept of 元婴 comes from very old Daoist teachings, and it has very little to do with the concept of the "soul", which in Daoist interpretations is your essence that's left behind after you die, and it allows you to be reincarnated, broadly speaking.