The Five Blessings named in the Hongfan chapter of the Book of Documents are longevity, wealth, health and peace, love of virtue, and a life brought to completion. In Chinese, they are 寿、富、康宁、攸好德、考终命.
The first three still sound familiar in a modern list of things people might wish for. The last two use classical language and make a larger claim: a good life concerns what a person values and whether that life reaches its proper end. They need a little more explanation.
The five named in the Book of Documents
The Chinese text reads: “一曰寿，二曰富，三曰康宁，四曰攸好德，五曰考终命。” In the same order, these are:
- 寿 shòulongevity
- 富 fùwealth or material sufficiency
- 康宁 kāngnínghealth and peace
- 攸好德 yōu hào déa love of virtue
- 考终命 kǎo zhōng mìngbringing one’s allotted life to its proper end
Longevity, wealth, and health and peace
寿 means a long life. The text does not set a particular number of years; it names the enjoyment of a long lifespan as a blessing.
富 means material plenty or sufficiency. “Wealth” is a useful short translation, though the Chinese word does not have to suggest extraordinary riches.
康宁 combines wellbeing with tranquillity. Translating it only as “health” leaves out the sense of security and peace carried by 宁.
The fourth blessing: love of virtue
In 攸好德, the character 好 does not mean that a person merely possesses virtue. It carries the sense of liking or taking delight in what is good. A traditional explanation quoted by the Palace Museum glosses the phrase as finding joy in the moral way.
English summaries sometimes replace this blessing with “happiness.” That removes 德, the word for virtue. “Virtue” alone also misses the active preference expressed by 好. The Metropolitan Museum of Art uses “love of virtue,” a compact rendering that preserves both parts of the phrase without pretending to settle every nuance of the classical Chinese.
The fifth blessing: a life brought to completion
考终命 is often introduced as a peaceful or natural death. Those phrases are useful shorthand, but the Chinese expression also concerns a life reaching its completion rather than being cut short.
The Hongfan places the Five Blessings beside a contrasting list called the Six Extremes. In that setting, the blessings describe favourable human conditions: long life, sufficiency, health and peace, a commitment to virtue, and a life brought to its proper end. They are not five interchangeable forms of luck.
This is why the Five Blessings is a better general translation than “five happinesses” or “five kinds of good luck.” Short English labels remain useful, but the last two need a sentence of explanation.
How five bats came to represent the Five Blessings
The Book of Documents gives the five-part list; it does not prescribe an animal image for it. The visual association developed through wordplay. The word for bat, 蝠 (fú), is pronounced like 福 (fú), blessing or good fortune. Five bats can therefore stand for the Five Blessings.
A Qing-dynasty white jade belt buckle in the Palace Museum places five bats around a round 寿 character. The museum identifies it as a “five bats holding up longevity” design: the bats supply the Five Blessings, while the central character makes the wish for longevity explicit.
An eighteenth-century silk tapestry panel in The Metropolitan Museum of Art also contains five bats. The museum reads them as the Five Blessings, but here they appear with fish, stone chimes and clouds rather than circling a 寿 character.
Five bats may signify the Five Blessings; the more specific name “five bats holding up longevity” needs the longevity character or an equivalent central arrangement.