New carved stone box, flat sand jade ruler

Author: Liu Bingzhong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-08-01
Features: This book is one of the works on geomancy in the series Treasures of the Forbidden City Anthology, specifically on feng shui. The original text was preserved in the Forbidden City and is a rare and valuable edition published by Huixian Zhai in the Ming Dynasty during the year Bingwu. It holds high value in terms of its version. Due to its substantial length, the original appendices The Master Builder's Manual, Complete Records of Choosing Auspicious Days, and Secret Methods of the Immortals were compiled into a separate volume and published concurrently. In ancient China, there was a school of feng shui known as the "Sanhe" theory. This method classifies the six mountains Shen, Zi, Chen, Kun, Ren, and Yi as water, the six mountains Hai, Mao, Wen, Qian, Jia, and Ding as wood, the six mountains Yin, Wu, Xu, Gen, Bing, and Shen as fire, the six mountains Ji, You, Chou, Xun, Geng, and Gui as metal. It also determines the left rotation (Yang) or right rotation (Yin) of the dragon vein at the starting point, and combines the five elements and the twelve Earthly Branches to analyze the dragon vein, mountain orientation, setting direction, and the flow of water, assessing their growth, decline, and stagnation. For "eliminating sand and diverting water," the four major water mouths—Yi-Bing converging to Qian, Xin-Wen meeting at Chen, the Ox and Taurus absorbing the energy of Ding-Geng, and the Ram collecting the essence of Gui-Bing—are used to judge the auspiciousness or inauspiciousness of Yin and Yang houses. The original book is richly illustrated, and the editor has added numerous illustrations to clarify how ancient people actually selected locations for Yin and Yang houses. This book is a classic work on the Sanhe theory. The content of divination is vast and complex, and it has been misunderstood for a long time. To provide readers with a comprehensive and correct understanding of divination, this series has invited experts to write two prefaces: the first explains the role of divination in traditional Chinese culture, and the second primarily addresses what terms are used.