Classical elements refer to the concepts in ancient Greek of fire, water, air (wind), earth, and aether (void), which explained the nature and complexity of all universal matter in terms of simpler substances.
Ancient cultures (Egypt, Babylonia, Japan, Tibet, and India) had a similar lists.
In Babylonian mythology, the creation myth text (Enuma Elis), written between the 18th and 16th BC, involves 4 gods sought as personified cosmic elements: sea, earth, sky, wind. It was recovered in fragmentary form in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq), and published in 1876, by George Smith, and English Assyriologist who discovered and translated one of the oldest-known written works of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh. The text has about a 1000 lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on 7 clay tablets, each holding between 115 and 170 lines of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform script. Most of tablet 5 has never been recovered, but the text is comprehensible.
The first tablet starts with the following script: "When the Sky above was not named, and the Earth beneath did not yet bear a name, and the primeval Fresh Water (Apsu), who begat them, and Chaos, the Oceanic Waters, the mother of them both, their waters were mingled together, and no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen; when of the gods none had been called to being.... ."
A Greek text called "The Virgin of the World (Kore Kosmou)," ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, the author of the Hermetic Corpus (a series of sacred texts), and associated with the Egyptian god Thoth (a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon), names the 4 elements fire, water, air/wind, and earth. In the text it is described as follows: "And Isis answered: 'Of Living Things, my son, some are made friends with Fire, and some with Water, some with Air/Wind, and some with Earth, and some with 2 or 3 of these, and some with all. And, on the contrary, again some are made enemies of Fire, and some of Water, some of Air/Wind, some of Earth, and some of 2 of them, and some of 3, and some of all. For instance, son, the Locust and all flies flee Fire; the Eagle and the Hawk and all high-flying birds flee Water; Fish flee Air and Earth; the Snake avoids the open air. Whereas Snakes and all creeping things love Earth; all swimming things love Water; winged things, Air, of which they are citizens; while those that fly still higher love the Fire and have the habitat near it. Not that some of the animals as well do not love Fire; for instance Salamanders, for they even have their homes in it. It is because one or another of the elements do form their bodies' outer envelope. Each soul, accordingly, while it is in its body is weighed and constricted by these four.
These elements, according to Galenus of Pergamon, a prominent Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire, were used by Hippocrates in describing the human body with an association with the 4 humors: yellow Bile (Fire), Phlegm (Water), Blood (Air), and black Bile (Earth).
In Classical Thought, the 4 elements earth, water, air (wind), and fire, proposed by Empedocles, a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher [citizen of Acragas (Agrigentum), a Greek city in Sicily], who is best known for originating the cosmogenic theory, frequently occur. Influenced by the Pythagoreans, Empedocles was a vegetarian who supported the doctrine of reincarnation. Aristotle added a 5th element, aether; it has been called akasha in India and quintessence in Europe.
The concept of the 5 elements formed a basis of analysis in both Hinduism and Buddhism, in which the 5th element describes that which is beyond the material world.
In Buddhism the 4 elements, to which 2 others are added, are not viewed as substances, but as categories of sensory experience (philosophy of perception), where the focus is on beliefs about experience (perceived sensation) rather than what is it directly like to be experienced (having a glass of wine instead of perceiving the taste of wine). The 4 elements are a basis for understanding suffering and for liberating oneself from suffering. The earliest texts explain that the 4 material elements are the sensory qualities of their characterization: solidity or inertia (earth), fluidity/cohesion (water), temperature/heat/energy content (Fire), mobility/expansion/vibration (Air). Instead of concentrating on the fact of material existence, one observes how a physical thing is sensed, felt, and perceived.
The Chinese Wu Xing, also known as the 5 elements, 5 phases, 5 agents, 5 movements, 5 processes, 5 steps/stages, and 5 planets of significant gravity (Jupiter, Saturs, Mercury, Venus, Mars). It is a fivefold conceptual scheme that traditional Chinese fields use to explain a wide array of phenomena, from cosmic cycles to the interaction between internal organs, and from succession of political regimes to the properties of medicinal herbs. The 5 phases are: -wood (mu), fire (huo), earth (tu), metal (jin), and water (shui). The order of presentation is known as the "mutual generation/overcoming," and describes the interactions and relatiopnships between phenomena. After it came to maturity in the 2nd century BC during Han Dynasty, this device was employed in many fields of early "Chinese Thought,"including fields such a Feng Shui, astrology, medicine, music, military strategy, and martial arts. The system is still in use in some forms of complementary/alternative medicine and martial arts.
The system of 5 elements (pancha mahabhuta) found in Vedas are: -earth (bhumi), -water (ap or jala),
-fire (agni), - air or wind (marut, vayu or pavan), and aether or void (akash). They suggest that all of creation, including the human body, is made up of these 5 essential elements and that upon death, the human body dissolves into these 5 elements of nature, thereby balancing the Cycle of Nature. The 5 elements are associated with the 5 senses, and act as the gross medium for the experience of sensations. The base element, Earth, created using all the other elements, can be perceived by all 5 senses: hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell. The next higher element, Water, has no odor but can be heard, felt, seen, and tasted. Next come Fire, which can be heard, felt, and seen. Air can be heard and felt. Aether is beyond the senses of smell, taste, sight, and touch; it being accessible to the sense of hearing alone.
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