The origin and development of the theory of Feng Shui

"The funeral is also angry. The qi is dispersed by the wind, and the boundary water is stopped. The ancients gathered to make it not disperse, and the line made it stop, so it was called feng shui. This passage is from the Book of Burial written by Guo Pu of the Jin Dynasty, which is the first time that the word "feng shui" appears in ancient Chinese literature. Guo Pu succinctly explained the fundamentals of the theory of "Feng Shui": taking "vitality" as the core, Tibetan wind and water as the conditions, seeking an ideal burial environment as the focus, and blessing the descendants as the ultimate goal. As for how to define the quality of feng shui, Guo Pu's view is: "Obtaining water is the first, and Tibetan wind is secondary." "The main work of the later generations of feng shui masters was to seek auspicious places where they could hide the wind, obtain water, and have vitality, and use them for burial or building dwellings, so that people could develop and reproduce.

However, China's millennial concept of "Feng Shui" did not emerge suddenly from the Jin Dynasty. In the 6,000-year-old Yangshao cultural tombs found on the west slope of Puyang, Henan, the left and right sides of a corpse appeared with mussel shells masonry, and the patterns of "green dragon" and "white tiger" with extremely clear patterns appeared. Some scholars believe that these two figures are the ancients' understanding of the projection of the stars in the sky on the ground, which is faintly consistent with the feng shui concept of "the left green dragon and the right white tiger" in later generations.

In the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, where feng shui was widely promoted, feng shui masters such as Guan and Guo Pu began to gradually refine the concepts of feng shui in the past and elevate it to a theory. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, feng shui masters Yang Yunsong and Bu Zewei lived in Jiangxi, and their descendants gradually formed a feng shui sect of "Situation Sect". At the beginning, the "Li Qi Sect" was spread in Fujian, and a feng shui master Wang in the Song Dynasty promoted its theory, thus forming another major feng shui school.

"Situation Sect" is also known as the Gan faction, the Xingfa faction, and the Luan Tou faction. The doctrine of this school focuses on achieving the unity of heaven, earth and man in the spatial image of the situation of mountains and rivers. "Liqi Sect" is also known as the Min School, the Zongmiao School, and the Law School. They pay attention to achieving the unity of heaven, earth and man in the time series, and the factors they consider include the five elements of yin and yang, the zodiac of the stem branch, the four seasons and five directions, the eight trigrams and the nine winds, and the three elements of luck. The shape method is mainly used for site selection, and the theory law focuses on determining the orientation pattern of indoor and outdoor. For the houses in the wilderness and valleys, because of their close relationship with the surrounding natural geographical environment, more attention is paid to the form; As for the house of Jingyi, because it is limited by the external environment, it is often used in combination with the law and the law. However, both the "Situation Sect" and the "Rational Qi Sect" follow the three basic principles of the unity of heaven, earth and man, the balance of yin and yang, and the mutual growth and restraint of the five elements.

Many people who are interested in Feng Shui or are new to Feng Shui often encounter a problem, that is, when they often see or hear some friends who have a deep understanding of Feng Shui talking about Feng Shui from books, they often mix some Feng Shui terms and miscellaneous questions, and they do not understand it, but they are embarrassed to ask. So let's talk about Feng Shui terminology.

A general map of the "Three Great Dragons" listed in ancient Chinese Kanyu ancient books

Six things: The Fan Garden discussed by the Yang House, in addition to the form method, is a case study, in terms of the use of hexagrams and directions, it probably refers to those within the residence, and a total of six main items are used as the main purpose of the inference, which is commonly known as the Six Things of the Yang House. respectively

(1) Door - refers to the outer gate, house door, house door, and back door, in terms of the actual condition of the dwelling.

(2) Road-road refers to the channel from the inside of the gate to the middle of the hall door, and is a principled inference based on its scope.

(3) Stove - today refers to the location of the gas or LPG stove in the kitchen.

(4) Wells – today refers to the location of tap water or water towers. Tap water is mainly used in the kitchen for cooking.

(5) Pit toilets - today's toilets.

(6) Milling - There are very few facilities for grinding in today's dwellings, unless it is a specific occupation, and there are machinery and equipment for grinding and grinding, so it is necessary to make inferences.

Incense: refers to the ancestral ancestral hall and the ancestral shrine of the land god, all of which must be placed in the natal auspicious side of the house owner in order to be appropriate.

Ruler method - the ruler method of the yang house, there are four kinds in ancient times, (1) the ovary ruler. (2) Curved ruler. (3) Luban ruler. (4) Xuannu ruler. Today, the usual user is the Luban ruler. The four types of rulers are briefly described below. (1) Lu Ban ruler to the common "wealth, separation, righteousness, palace, robbery, harm, this" eight intervals, to "wealth, righteousness, palace, this" four words as auspicious. (2) The size of the ovary is 9 inches as 9 steps. Venus Ji. Martian fierce. Luo Xing is fierce. Ben Xingji. Ziyanji. Wen Xing is fierce. The plan is fierce. Moon Rebellion. Mercury Ji. This decree is no longer commonly used. (3) The curved ruler is divided into nine steps in nine inches. One inch is one white auspicious, and six inches is six white auspicious. Eight inches is eight white auspicious. Nine inches are nine Ziji, and the rest of the "two, three, four, five, seven" inches are all fierce. According to this, the doors and windows of the yang house are only based on the balance of inches. For example, two feet eight inches is auspicious. Two feet and four inches are fierce, etc. (4) The Xuannu ruler is divided into eight steps in nine inches. Noble Ji. Scourges. Tiancaiji. Guan Luji. Lonely and fierce. Fubiki. All of the above methods are not taboo to add half an inch.

Five stoves should be the day (good and evil are the same) (1) wood stove - should be 30 days later. (2) Clay stove - should be 50 days later. (3) Stove - should be 20 days later. (4) Water stove - should be 60 days later. (5) Golden stove - should be forty days later.

Moon puppet - the yin house is the day odd, and the yang house is the moon puppet, so the moon puppet is another name for the yang house.

Kanyu side arch - refers to the two mountains there is a water, two water in the mountain, where the house stands, the shape is like a water jump, and it is really the auspicious "side arch".

Homesteads - can be divided into six types. (1) Flat slope. (2) Pinggang. (3) Plains. (4) Pingyang. (5) Hirata. (6) Pinghu. The yang house is on the outskirts of the hill, and it is to take the height but not the nest.

Acceptance of Qi - Acceptance of Qi is different from Riding Qi, Receiving Qi is taking the gas of the earth, and Accepting Qi is Accepting Qi, that is, it does not take the direction of the house as the main seat, and also takes the gas of the door and the road. Anzao Death Day - May and September - Taboo Day, February, June and October Taboo Jiazi Day. March, July and November are taboo on the day of the Emperor, and in April, August and December, the day of the noon day of the Emperor is taboo.

Death Day - Eliminate the twelve gods with construction. Heart, Ang, Kui, Lou, Kei, Tail, Ginseng.

Five gods - regulations for the construction of yang houses. One: A and B are green dragons. (2) C Ding is Mingxi. (3) It has been a warehouse. (4) Heptxin is a white tiger. The mourning of the white weeping of the Lord. (5) Nong is a thief. The Lord has a thief.

Fuyuan - the house sits in the Fude Palace, and each life is suitable, the east four lives live in the east four houses, and the west four lives live in the west four houses.

Destiny - the house has "sitting, direction" and "east, west". Those who monograph the mountain direction and ignore the fate of the big murderer, and those who monopolize the fate regardless of the mountain direction are "small murderers". Those who are in harmony with their lives and sit together will be blessed forever.

Fire direction - the stove "fire door" goes straight to the four auspicious sides "angry, prolonged, giant gate, and lying down".

Flue – today's range hood outlet. It is advisable to come up with four evil prescriptions: desperate, five ghosts, scourge, and literary song.

Good luck and evil with the four auspicious squares: angry, prolonged, giant door, suitable for bed, incense, gate, back door, room, etc. The four evil parties - desperate, five ghosts, scourge, Wenqu should be equipped with stoves, pit toilets, mills - and so on.

In fact, the theory of feng shui originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty, in the early Eastern Han Dynasty, Ban Gu's "Hanshu Art and Literature Chronicle Tenth", the first to see the monograph containing Kanyu art, which is called "Kanyu Jinkui" fourteen volumes, and the five elements of yin and yang, the seasonal sun, and the disaster response books are listed in the same category of "five elements", which is one of the six kinds of "mathematics" at that time.

Ban Gu commented on the Five Elements and the like: "Its law also starts from the end of the five virtues, and pushes it to the extreme, and the small number of families think that it is good and evil, and they act in the world, immersed in chaos." At the end of "Mathematics Strategy", he always said that "Mathematics Practitioners, all Mingtangxi and Shi Bu are also in charge." Glimpse its meaning,

As one of the monographs of Kanyu at that time, the purpose of "Kanyu Jinkui" is the same as that described in the "Historical Records".

According to the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty: The Biography of Wang Jing", Wang Jing, a water conservancy expert of the same era as the Ban Tuan, once "used the six classics to contain divination, and the behavior of things was qualitative in the yarrow turtle, and the books were mixed, and the good and evil were opposite. "

It can be seen from this that the art of Kanyu is indeed like the commentary of Sima Qian and Ban Gu, and it is derived from the inheritance of divination before the Han Dynasty.

The interpretation of the word Kanyu, Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty once said: "Kan, the way of heaven; Authentic"

Measuring public opinion is the way of heaven and earth. Xu Shen's words come from the article "Fourteen Volumes of Kanyu Jinkui" in the early Tang Dynasty.

Later, Li Shan's note in "Selected Writings" also quoted Xu Shen's sentence "Kanyu" in Yangxiong's "Ganquan Fu". In Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jie Zi", it is said that "Kan, Di Tu Ye", "Yu Yu, Che Yu Ye", there is no continuous interpretation of the word "Kan Yu". It is likely that the words of Xu Shen quoted by Yan Shigu and Li Shan are from the "Kanyu" sentence involved in Xu Shen's note "Huainanzi" in the early Tang Dynasty (see "Sui Shu Jing Ji Zhi"). Looking at the "Kanyu" involved in "Huainanzi", "Historical Records", "Ganquan Fu", and "Hanshu Art and Literature Chronicles", it makes sense to interpret them as the way of heaven and earth.

After Xu Shen, there was Zheng Xuan's note "Zhou Li", mentioning Kanyu, which is the name of the art book. Its interpretation of "Chunguan Zongbo III" is "Baozhang's family, holding the stars, the changes of the stars, the sun and the moon, and observing the movement of the world to distinguish its good fortune and evil." The land of Kyushu is sealed by the star soil, and the enclosed domain has a star to watch the demon auspicious", the note says: "The star soil, the star is also sealed; Sealed, Judah also. The great realm is called Kyushu, the fiefdom of the states in the state, and there is also a division in the stars, and its book is dead. Although "Kanyu" has the degree of county and country, it is not an ancient number. Now there is something to speak of, and there are twelve times. Xingji, Wu Yueye; Xuanfang, Qi also; Na Zi, Wei Ye; Lou, Lu also; Da Liang, Zhao Ye, Shi Shen, Jin Ye; Quail head, Qin also; Quail Fire, Zhou Ye; Quail tail, Chu also; Shou Xing, Zheng Ye; Fire, Song also; Wood analysis, swallow also. The demon auspiciousness of this division is imaged by the guest star and the qi of Huixiao. "

According to Zheng Xuan, there was a "Kanyu Clear" before the Han Dynasty, and the "Kanyu" written by later generations is divided into 12 times, and there are still ancients who can speak of it. Zheng said that after the release of "Kanyu", that is, or Ban Gu called "Kanyu Jinkui" of Kanyujia. And the ancient astrological method of the Shushangzong, that is, the orbit of Jupiter or the star of the year of the twelfth year, is divided into 12 equal times, called 12 times, and corresponds to the county on the earth, that is, the so-called division, depending on the changes in the stars of each celestial region and the omen corresponds to the auspicious and evil of the regional world.