T’ang Geomancy: The Wu-hsing (“Five Names”) Theory and Its Legacy

Tang Studies 8-9 (1990-91) Tang Geomancy: The Wu-hsing ("Five Names") Theory and Its Legacy CAROLE MORGAN PARIS, FRANCE In the modern Chinese context, geomancy refers to those mantic systems that deal with the selection of an auspicious site for the construction of houses (yang-chai \&%) and tombs yin-chai P£^) so as to maximize the effects of ch'i M, the vital pneuma that permeates both man and his environment. This is particularly important for the dead, whose pneuma is exhausted and who must capitalize on the ch'i of a site if they are to exert a beneficial influence on their descendants. In imperial times the belief that a family's good fortune emanated from its ancestral tomb led to the adoption of severe measure for the protection of gravesites. For instance, article 1191 of the Ch'ing penal code1 stipulates that anyone found digging into a tomb other than that of his own family would be banished for three years, and anyone bold enough to open a stranger's coffin could expect death by strangulation. This is only one example of geomancy 's impact on Chinese life until the advent of the present regime, and today it still plays a significant role in overseas Chinese communities. Perhaps the earliest geomantic system—as opposed to traditional burial rites as set out in such classics as the Li chi 3!IB and the Chou li H?I—was the Wu-hsing 3!$£ or "Five Names" system, whose practices were already ridiculed by Wang Ch'ung 3:5fe (ca. 27-100) in the "Chieh shu" t*#r of his Lun heng m'&. Yet in a list of two hundred and forty-one diviners and their techniques, culled by KJ. DeWoskin from works dating from the fourth century B.C. to the fourth century A.D.,2 the three terms that today designate geomancy, that is, k'an-yii *1PJ ("the canopy [of Heaven, spread over] the chariot [of Earth]"), ti-li i&3 (topomancy), and feng-shui ^7jc ("wind and water"), are G. Boulais, Manuel du code chinois (Shanghai, 1924), 532. "A Source Guide to the Lives and Techniques of Han and Six Dynastiesfang-shih," Society for the Study of Chinese Religions Bulletin 9 (1981), 79-105. 45 Carole Morgan: Tang Geomancy never mentioned. In fact, the first appearance oifeng-shui, the term by which geomancy is best known in the West, occurs in the Tsangshu &M (Book of Burials), a work attributed to KuoP'u IUSI (276-324) but probably by an unknown Six Dynasties author.4 Although the wu-hsing system existed since the Han dynasty, yin-yang practitioners during the early part of the Tang dynasty still considered it an orally transmitted theory despite the sizeable literature to which it had given rise. However, there is little doubt that between the seventh and the ninth centuries the wu-hsing became the dominant geomantic system of its time. Yet, despite the popularity it once enjoyed, the name of this method has been eradicated from Chinese consciousness , though, as will be evident below, most of its practices have survived. Evidence of the wu-hsings popularity during the Tang may be adduced from two sources: (1) the criticism of the yin-yang specialist Lu Ts'ai S #* (died 665),5 and (2) the discovery of a number of Tunhuang manuscripts that deal with some aspects of the theory. These documents not only enable us to reconstruct the wu-hsing, but also disclose a general shift of emphasis in geomantic practices: while the "Five Names'' concentrates on recipes for quelling telluric bogies that pollute the soil, later geomantic systems are primarily concerned with the correct orientation of houses and tombs in order to increase the beneficial flow of ch'i. It is surprising that k'an-yil is omitted from this list. As M. Loewe points out (Cambridge History of China, vol. 1: The Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C.—220 A.D. [Cambridge, 1986], 667), k'an-yil was a method related to the selection of an auspicious time. I wish to thank Professor R.J. Smith of Rice University for calling my attention to this point. 4 The editors of...