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An Appreciation of Chinese Geomancy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Andrew L. March
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Chinese geomancy (feng shui) holds that if a man is buried in a properly sited grave, his descendants will prosper; and that the siting of houses, cities, and whole regions similarly works good or ill for their inhabitants. Although taken seriously by many eminent thinkers of traditional China (the philosopher Chu Hsi, for example), it is likely to impress us today on first encounter as a baffling and silly mishmash of things better sorted out as physical science, religion, esthetics, psychology, philosophy, and sociology. Understanding is easier if we can look on it as first, a kind of integral experience, and second, certain meanings given to such experience.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , February 1968 , pp. 253 - 267
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Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1968

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References

1 F.S.T., , “Feng-Shui,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 29, March 1874, 347Google Scholar. F.S.T. is identified as Turner, Storrs by Edwin Joshua Dukes in his article “Feng-Shui” in Hastings, James, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 5 (New York, 1914), 833–35Google Scholar.

2 “Geomancy” translates feng shui, k'an yü, or even ti li which ordinarily corresponds to “geography.” It is not the “geomancy” of the Oxford English Dictionary (Vol. 4, Oxford, 1933)Google Scholar: “The art of divination by means of signs derived from the earth, as by the figure assumed by a handful of earth thrown down upon some surface. … Hence, usually, divination by means of lines or figures formed by jotting down on paper a number of dots at random.” This latter is evidently the sense in which it is understood by Danielli, Mary in her article “The Geomancer in China, with some Reference to Geomancy as Observed in Madagascar,” Folklore, Vol. 63, December 1952, 204–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and in general anthropological studies like Jaulin, Robert, La Géomancie: Analyse Formelle, Cabiers de l'Homme, n.s. No. 4 (Paris [Mouton], 1966)Google Scholar. Gutzlaff, Charles (China Opened, revised by Andrew Reed, London, 1838, Vol. 1, 501) calls geomancers “necromancers.”Google Scholar

3 de Groot, J. J. M., The Religious System of China, Vol. 3 (Leiden, 1897), 938Google Scholar.

4 Sarton, George, Introduction to the History of Science, Vol. 1 (Baltimore, 1927), 345Google Scholar.

5 Dukes, Edwin Joshua, Everyday Life in China (London, 1885), p. 145Google Scholar (in the chapter “Feng-shui” the Biggest of all Bugbears,” pp. 145–59). Some other Western writings on geomancy are Ball, J. Dyer, “Geomancy, or Fung-shui,” in his Things Chinese, 4th ed. (London, 1904), pp. 312–15Google Scholar; Hubrig, , “Fung Schui oder chinesische Geomantie” (Vortrag), Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte (appended to Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Vol. 11, 1879), 34–43Google Scholar; Henry, B. C., The Cross and the Dragon (London, 1885?), pp. 160–78Google Scholar; Regnault, Jules, “Rôle du Foung-choei et de la Sorcellerie dans la vie privée et publique des Jaunes,” Revue Politique et Parlementaire, Vol. 46, No. 137, November 10, 1905, 353–73Google Scholar; Eitel, E. J., Fêng-Shui, Principles of the Natural Science of the Chinese (Hong Kong, 1873)Google Scholar; Needham, Joseph, Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1956). 359–63Google Scholar, and Vol. 4:1 (Cambridge, 1962), Section 26 (i), passim; Freedman, Maurice, Chinese Lineage and Society, London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology, No. 33 (London, 1966), pp. 118–54Google Scholar; Feuchtwang, Stephan D. R., “An Anthropological Analysis of Chinese Geomancy,” unpublished M. A. thesis, University of London, 1965Google Scholar (I saw this too late to make full use of it); de Groot, J. J. M., Universismus (Berlin, 1918), pp. 364–84Google Scholar; Thomson, John, The Land and the People of China (London, New York, 1876), pp. 209–15Google Scholar; Johnson, Samuel, Oriental Religions and their Relation to Universal Religion (Boston, 1877), pp. 715–17Google Scholar; Willoughby-Meade, G., Chinese Ghouls and Goblins (London, 1928), pp. 274–91Google Scholar; Soothill, W. E., The Three Religions of China (London, New York, Toronto, 3rd ed. 1930), pp. 163–68Google Scholar; Jernigan, T. R., China in Law and Commerce (New York, London, 1905), pp. 264–66Google Scholar; Doré, HenryResearches into Chinese Superstitions, trans, by Kennelly, M., Part 1, Vol. 4 (Shanghai, 1922), 402–16Google Scholar; Clennell, W. J., The Historical Development of Religion in China (New York, 1917), pp. 71–78Google Scholar.

6 Dukes, Everyday Life, p. 159.

7 Ibid., pp. 151–52.

8 Johnson, op. cit., p. 717.

9 Eitel, op. cit., p. 7. Also p. 82: “There is one truth in Feng-shui. … It is the recognition of the uniformity and universality of the operation of natural laws.”

10 F.S.T., op. cit., p. 338.

11 de Groot, Religious System, pp. 1054–55; cf. Eitel, op. cit., pp. 3–4: a similar observation about Hong Kong.

12 Henry, op. cit., pp. 220–21.

13 Ibid., p. 178.

14 Clennell believed the experience was more than just Chinese, e.g.: “I lately came across the suggestion that much of the British objection to the making of the proposed Channel Tunnel is essentially due to a belief in Fêngshui, though we in England have not learned to call it by that name. Britain would, it was maintained, be just as safe with the tunnel as far as actual danger of attack goes, but she would lose the propitious Fêngshui that comes of insularity” (op. cit., pp. 75–76). If the reader still finds geomancy far-out and exotic, a look at Mitford's, JessicaAmerican Way of Death (New York, 1963)Google Scholar, will make it seem tame.

15 In geomancy, as in alchemy, a main purpose is to achieve certain results in the psyche, and hence material things are evaluated above all in terms of their psychological properties. See Jung, C. G., Psychologie und Alchemic, Psychologische Abhandlungen, Vol. 5 (Zurich, 1944) esp. 331 ff.Google Scholar Similar ideas are developed in works of Bachelard, Gaston such as La Terre et les Rêveries de la Volonté (Paris, 1958)Google Scholar, and La Terre et les Rêveries du Repos (Paris, 1948)Google Scholar. Chinese alchemy also has this psychological aspect: see Waley, Arthur, “Notes on Chinese Alchemy,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, London, Vol. 6, pt. 1 (1930), 1–24Google Scholar.

16 Kuo P'u, Tsang shu, TSCC 17.665.la. Principles for buildings are about the same as for burial; see TLTC, tʻe 3.32a-b.

17 TLTC, tʻe 1.22a.

18 Chao Fang, Tsang shu wen ta, TSCC 17.680.21a.

19 Hao, Shen, Liu-pu Shen Hsin-chou hsien sheng ti hsüeh (preface 1652) (Shanghai, 1914). 1.59aGoogle Scholar; this edition by the Shanghai Chin chang t'u shu chü. For particularly hard passages I have referred also to another edition purporting to date from 1713. The two differ quite considerably.

20 See de Groot, Religious System, p. 1015; in the TSCC, 17.654.32a, 17.658.26b, 17.680.4b (tsa lu). The landscape's geomantic characteristics may change as an unintended result of habitation. Thus a mountainous area where most of the peaks have the Fire shape does not naturally afford good sites; however, “if hill farmers dig and cultivate and settle there, there they are obliged to bury their dead. But after they have made fields, there are low and flat places; and low means Water, flat means Earth: there is Earth to screen from the Fire and Water to rule the Fire. Hence they do find suitable grave and house sites” (Shen, op. cit., 1.21a).

21 TLTC, tʻe 2.79a-b.

22 The best summary and critique of this theory of mountains is in Chang Huang, T'u shu pien (completed in 1577), ch. 30.

23 Cf. de Groot, Religious System, p. 1009; Freedman, op. cit., p. 138.

24 Huang ti chai ching, TSCC 17.651.1a-b.

25 TLTC, tʻe 1.12b.

26 chiu she, Shanghai hsing hsiang yen, ed., Hsing ming feng shui mi ch'uan (T'ai-chung, 1957), p. 63Google Scholar.

27 TLTC, tʻe 1.31a.

28 TLTC, ts'e 2.74b. There was controversy over what actual landscape features were yin and what yang; see TLTC, tʻe 1.19b ff.

29 Shen, op. cit., Introduction 2b. A filial son, however, should not endanger himself by climbing the heights and looking into the depths, according to Li chi, ch'ü li 1.4b (SPPY Vol. 6). Elsewhere Shen speaks of packing a lunch for such excursions (op. cit., 1.59a).

30 TLTC, tʻe 1.21b.

31 Shen, op. cit., 2.29b.

32 I. e., before 255 B.C. Religious System, p. 983.

33 Op. cit., Vol. 4:1, 240. Tsou Yen flourished in the 4th or 3rd century B.C. Han: 206 B.C–221 A.D.; San Kuo: 222–265 A.D. Cf. Eitel, op. cit., p. 64: “In short, the elementary principles of Feng-shui appear to have been practised centuries before Confucius, unconsciously, as it were, by superstitious people. But there is nothing to prove that Feng-shui was reduced to a science, that it was practised methodically as a profession.”

34 Ch. 109, under Tsang shu; cf. ibid, under Chai ching. The Chou kuan (i.e., Chou li) reference is to ch. 22.1a, 2b (SPPY Vol. 4).

35 Shih chi, 88.5a. The author, Ssu-ma Ch'ien, thought that his guilt was rather that he had been indifferent to the sufferings of the people (ibid., 5b).

36 Lun heng, 24.12a, b (SPPY Vol. 138); the chan she shih che is for some reason translated as “geomancers” in Forke, A., Lun Hêng, Vol. 1 (Shanghai, London, and Leipzig, 1907), 531Google Scholar; cf. Needham, op) cit., Vol. 2, 359 and 377; Vol. 4:1, 240. Other early references collected by Needham and by de Groot (Religious System, Vol. 3, 994 ff.) do not contradict the opinions of SKCSTM or of Wang Wei (see below). Revelant passages not mentioned by them are Huai nan tzu 4.5ab; Po wu chih 1. 3a; and the comments of Cheng and Chia in Chou li chu su 26.12b (all SPPY). Yin-Yang and Five-Element theory, astrology, and the philosophy of organism in general (Needham, op. cit., Vol. 2, 280–81 et al.) all have their own histories which interweave and overlap with geomancy's.

37 Scholar, poet, master of occult arts. Besides writing the Burial Book (see below), he annotated the dictionary Erh ya, the Shan hai ching, and other works.

38 Wang Wei, Ch'ing yen tśung lu, pp. 7b–8a (in Pai ling hsüeh shan, tʻe 3); quoted in part in SKCSTM, 109, under Tsang shu. On the two schools, see also de Groot, Religious System, Vol. 3, 1006–09; Needham, op. cit., Vol. 4:1, 242; and Eitel, op. cit., p. 77.

39 Op. cit., Vol. 4:1, 281.

40 In describing the “Ancestral Hall” method, Wang Wei says “a yang hill should face in a yang direction, a yin hill in a yin direction.” These words appear also in the Ch'ing nang hsü (in Kuo, Chiang, ed., Ti li cheng tsung [preface 1814], Hsin-chu, 1960, 5.3b)Google Scholar, a work which (together with a Ch'ing nang ao yü) the Ssu K'u ch'üan shu chien ming mu lu (Shih chieh ed., 11.421) says is the source of the Li ch'i school; however, this work is associated with Tseng Wen-ti, who is supposed to belong to the Shapes school. The Tz'u yūan dictionary, under li ch'i, says this is another name for the school of geomancy specializing in star-symbols and directions.

41 Shen, op. cit., 2.88b, 89b.

42 Cf. de Groot, Religious System, Vol. 3, 1008: “In the mountainous southern provinces, the School of Forms obviously predominates. Even in Fuhkien no geomancers are so highly esteemed as those who pretend to exercise their vocation in strict accordance with the Kiangsi method. …”

43 Cf. Chao Fang, Tsang shu wen ta, TSCC 17.680.23a: “In Shapes the principles are clear but the practice is difficult … with Directions the principles are obscure but the practice is easy.”

44 Shen, op. cit., 1.50b.

45 Ibid., 1.26b.

46 de Groot, Religious System, Vol. 3, 1008; the mixing is exemplified in Shanghai hsing hsiang yen chiu she, op. cit., a short popular manual of geomancy and fortune-telling; and in Chiang Kuo, op. cit., 5.1b, and in Chiang's inclusion, in this collection, of works belonging to both schools.

47 Cf. Freedman, op. cit., p. 125.

48 Cf. Henry, op. cit., pp. 160–61: ancestral worship (with which geomancy is “inseparably connected”) ”reduced to its final motive, springs from the fear of the living that the dead will injure them. … It terrorizes the living, and presents a picture of the dead at once miserable and hopeless”; de Groot, Religious System, Vol. 3, 982: geomancy's “first embryo … grew out of the worship of the dead, which already in the mist of ages was the religion proper of the Chinese”; also Soothill, op. cit., p. 164. My study has been based mostly on rather high-class literary geomancy, and these observers may well be correct about the practice, even if generalizing too far about the theory. De Groot, although he does use some literary sources, says, “Every Chinaman being more or less initiated in the secrets of the system, a practical intercourse with the people is sufficient for a foreigner to gain a tolerably clear idea of what it is.…” (ibid., p. 939), and calls it “hardly worthy of serious study” (p. 938).

49 Shen, op. cit., 1.34b.

50 Porkert, Manfred, “Wissenschaftliches Denken im Alten China—Das System der energischen Beziehungen,” Antaios, Vol. 2, 1961, 533Google Scholar. Cf. Needham, op. cit., Vol. 3, 448–49. Cheng Yüeh (tzu: Man-ch'ing) of New York similarly criticizes Fung Yu-lan's Western approach to Chinese philosophy in Fung's Chung kuo che hsüeh shih (Shanghai, 1931ff), arguing that “philosophy” is simply not the same thing as the che of che hsüeh or Chinese philosophy.

51 Porkert, loc. cit. C. G Jung writes on synchronicity in his commentary to Wilhelm, Richard, trans., The Secret of the Golden Flower (English trans, by Cary F. Baynes) (London, 6th impression 1945), pp. 142ffGoogle Scholar; “Uber Synchronizität,” Eranos Jahrbuch, Vol. 20 (1952), 271–84Google Scholar; The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (English trans, by Hull, R. F. C.), Collected Works, Vol. 8 (London, 1955), 417–531Google Scholar.

52 Arguments against geomancy are collected in the TSCC; see especially Chao Fang, Tsang shu wen ta; Lo Yü-ch'en, Pien huo lun; and Hsiang Ch'iao, Feng shui pien; all are in 17.680. de Groot (Religious System, Vol. 3, 1021–26) translates a long attack on geomancy by Ssu-ma Kuang. It was criticized also because it did not work, and because of the expenses and quarrels it led to.

53 Shen, op. cit., Author's preface, 1b; cf. also 1.35a.

54 Analects, 12.5.

55 TSCC 17–665.3a.

56 Chao Fang, op. cit., TSCC 17.680.20a.

57 Hsin T'ang shu, 34 (Hsiang-kang wen hsüeh yen chiu she chu pan ed., Vol. 5, 3712d). Cf. Analects, 10.16; the Gentleman changes countenance at a clap of thunder or gust of wind.

58 Hsiang Ch'iao, op. cit., p. 35a.

59 Chao Fang, op. cit., p. 23b.

60 Hsiang Ch'iao, op. cit., p. 42a.

61 Shen, at any rate, often speaks of the Creator, e.g. 1.5b, 1.7b, 1.16a.