Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism
The BaZi (Four Pillars of Destiny) fortune-telling method handed down to us today was established roughly in the Tang dynasty of ancient China. But its origins go back much further: it developed through the continuous exploration of generation after generation and contains a rich and ancient store of historical and cultural information.
As early as the Shang dynasty, divination was a very important and sacred matter, with dedicated officials to manage it. Before undertaking any major affair, the rulers would first divine and consult the spirits to decide important matters such as war, agriculture, the selection of officials, and royal succession. This is amply recorded in the oracle-bone inscriptions.
The “Offices of Spring” in the Rites of Zhou (Zhouli) records: “The Fengxiang official is in charge of the positions of the twelve years, the twelve months, the twelve chen, the ten days, and the twenty-eight stars, distinguishing their sequence to match the positions of heaven.” “The Baozhang official is in charge of the heavenly stars, recording the movements of the stars, sun, and moon to observe the changes in the world below and distinguish good fortune from ill. By the stars and the land, he distinguishes the fiefs of the nine provinces; each fief has its allotted star, by which to observe omens of disaster and blessing.” The Fengxiang and Baozhang officials mentioned here were officials devoted to divination in remote antiquity. The text not only records their names but points out specifically that their function was to observe the movements of the sun, moon, and stars and, by reading the stars, to observe human affairs—“to observe omens of disaster and blessing,” that is, to predict. “Each fief has its allotted star” shows clearly that people already sensed some correspondence and connection between the heavenly bodies of the cosmos and the human world.
In the Former and Later Han dynasties, Confucian teaching prevailed throughout the land, and the idea of the mandate of Heaven spread even more widely. The chapter “Monthly Ordinances” of the Book of Rites (Liji), from the early Han, already contains many ideas about the Five Elements and the four seasons. It records that the stems of spring are Jia and Yi, its element Wood, its color green, its place the east. The stems of summer are Bing and Ding, its element Fire, its color red, its place the south. The stems of autumn are Geng and Xin, its element Metal, its color white, its place the west. The stems of winter are Ren and Gui, its element Water, its color black, its place the north. Earth among the Five Elements dwells at the center of the four seasons, its stems Wu and Ji, its color yellow. This matching of the Heavenly Stems with the four seasons and four directions, and the understanding that Earth dwells at the center, was already a major development of Five Elements theory.
Han-dynasty books such as the Huainanzi, the Comprehensive Discussions in the White Tiger Hall (Baihu Tong), and the Balanced Discourses (Lunheng) further developed views of destiny and the theory of the Five Elements. The Baihu Tong has a chapter on the Five Elements that discusses their nature and functions in detail, and it became a basis for later fortune-telling.
“What are the Five Elements? They are Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth. They are called ‘xing’ (moving) to express the idea that they move the qi on behalf of heaven.” The book analyzes lesser yang, greater yang, lesser yin, and greater yin. It holds that lesser yang appears in Yin (Tiger), flourishes in Mao (Rabbit), and declines in Chen (Dragon); its days are Jia and Yi, its season spring, its place the east, its color green, its god Goumang, its essence the Azure Dragon. Greater yang appears in Si (Snake), is at its height in Wu (Horse), and declines in Wei (Goat); its days are Bing and Ding, its season summer, its place the south, its color red, its god Zhurong, its essence the Vermilion Bird. Lesser yin appears in Shen (Monkey), is strong in You (Rooster), and declines in Xu (Dog); its days are Geng and Xin, its season autumn, its place the west, its color white, its god Rushou, its essence the White Tiger. Greater yin appears in Hai (Pig), is strong in Zi (Rat), and declines in Chou (Ox); its days are Ren and Gui, its season winter, its place the north, its god Xuanming, its essence the Black Tortoise (the Dark Warrior, Xuanwu). Earth is the central palace; its days are Wu and Ji, its god Empress Earth (Houtu). This is already a very detailed exposition of the yin-yang teaching.
The famous Han scholar Wang Chong also put forward some basic ideas of fortune-telling in his Balanced Discourses. “In spring and summer some things are imprisoned and dead, in autumn and winter others are thriving and prosperous; this is not something that can be made to happen. The sun comes out in the morning and sets in the evening; this is not done by art—it is the Way of Heaven, so of itself.” That is, the turning of the seasonal states of rest, imprisonment, birth, and flourishing comes about because the Tao follows what is so of itself. He also wrote: “Among the men and women of the world who die early, the husband harms the wife, or the wife harms the husband”—that is, death through husband and wife clashing with each other. And again: “Heaven gives birth to the myriad things, and the myriad things contain the qi of the Five Elements; the qi of the Five Elements in turn harm one another.” This points out that all things contain the Five Elements and that the Five Elements control one another. He further said: “Moreover, one person's body contains the qi of the Five Elements, so one person's conduct has the five constant virtues.” This not only brought the Five Elements into the human body but also provided a basis for fortune-telling by the Five Elements.
It should be said that the Han dynasty laid down the basic ideas of fortune-telling, but its methods of calculation were still very simple and far from complete. Generally, predictions were made by relying on the phenomena of the moment or on the theory of the Five Elements. Emperor Guangwu, who restored the Han, drew on prophetic and apocryphal texts and had diviners declare that he was the man who answered Heaven's bright mandate; only so was he able to succeed to the Han house. Fortune-tellers after the Han included Sima Jizhu and Yan Junping; Guan Lu of the Three Kingdoms; Guo Pu of the Jin; and Tao Hongjing of the Southern dynasties. Many of the destiny books they wrote were falsely attributed to Guiguzi and Luoluzi of the Warring States period.
By the Tang dynasty, the study of destiny inherited the ideas of yin and yang and the Five Elements from the Han onward. And as Brahmanism and Buddhism from the Western Regions and India came into China at this time, bringing Western astrology with them, their combination with the traditional Chinese yin-yang and Five Elements fortune-telling gave rise to the new BaZi method of fortune-telling.
The Song-dynasty Collected Works of Wang Yinglin records: “Calculating the nobility or lowliness of human destiny from the movements of the planet Saturn began at the start of the Zhenyuan era of the Tang with Li Biqian, a diviner from Duli, who transmitted the Yusi Jing, originally a Sanskrit book.” That is, in the Zhenyuan era of Emperor Dezong of the Tang, a foreign diviner from the Western Regions kingdom of Kangju, Li Biqian (the Chinese name he took), brought the Indian astrological book Yusi Jing. This was a very important event.
According also to the Comprehensive Examination (Tongkao), there was at the time a destiny book called the Chengxing Jing, in three volumes, “of unknown origin; some say it is Indian learning” (that is, transmitted from India). Clearly, by the Tang, Chinese fortune-telling had absorbed certain elements of Western culture, especially regarding the stars, that is, the auspicious and inauspicious stars (shensha). But on the whole the foreign elements were not many, and native elements still held the main place.
The one who carried fortune-telling to its height was the Tang master of destiny Li Xuzhong. He was the first to calculate the generation and control of the Five Elements from the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches of a person's year, month, and day of birth, and thereby to predict the good and ill fortune of the person's whole life, forming a systematic and intricate method of fortune-telling that has been used ever since. So it can be said that Li Xuzhong was the true founder of systematic fortune-telling in ancient China. The famous man of letters Han Yu, his contemporary, praised him highly and personally wrote his epitaph. The “Epitaph of Li Xuzhong” in the Collected Works of Han Changli records: “… As he grew older he loved learning and mastered everything. He was most deeply versed in the books of the Five Elements. Taking the branches and stems of the day and chen that a person's year, month, and day of birth fell on, and weighing mutual generation, conquest, decline, death, and flourishing, he calculated people's long life or early death, nobility or lowliness, benefit or harm. Each time he would first set up the year and the hour, and out of a hundred he missed no more than one or two.” Li Xuzhong's readings were fairly accurate, and his fame spread far even in his own time.
In the Five Dynasties, the diviner Xu Ziping built on Li Xuzhong's foundation and developed the method of calculating from the stems and branches of year, month, and day into the “Four Pillars” method, which predicts from year, month, day, and hour together. The Four Pillars contain eight characters in all, and from then on reading destiny came to be called reading the BaZi, the “eight characters.” Only with Xu Ziping did BaZi fortune-telling become truly complete, and so later generations also call it the Ziping art. Xu Ziping's Four Pillars are: the stem and branch of the person's year of birth as the first pillar, of the month as the second, of the day as the third, and of the hour as the fourth. One then calculates according to the specific yin-yang and Five Elements components contained in these eight characters to deduce the destiny of the person's whole life.
In the Song dynasty, Xu Dasheng compiled the book Yuanhai Ziping on the basis of Xu Ziping's key methods, an important work in the history of BaZi fortune-telling. In addition, the Rhapsody of Bright Understanding (Mingtong Fu) is also said to have been handed down by Xu Ziping.
After Xu Ziping, every dynasty of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing had authors of astrological destiny books: Chongxuzi, the monk Daohong, and Xu Dasheng of the Song; Zuixingzi, Shen Xiaozhan, Zhang Shenfeng, and Liu Ji of the Ming; Chen Su'an and Yu Quyuan of the Qing; and many others. Their writings were mostly developments and refinements on Xu Ziping's foundation.
The monk Yixing and Sang Daomao of the Tang, and the monk Tanying, Wang Tingguang, and Li Tong of the Song, were also important scholars who contributed to fortune-telling. But the standing of Li Xuzhong and Xu Ziping as founding patriarchs is universally acknowledged.
The Ming dynasty was another minor peak of fortune-telling, with abundant writings. The better-known among them include “On Emolument and Destiny” by Song Lian, a founding minister of the Ming; Di Tian Sui by Liu Ji; Ziping Zhenquan by Shen Xiaozhan; Shenfeng Tongkao Mingli Zhenzong by Zhang Shenfeng; and Sanming Tonghui by Wan Minying.
A precious legacy of traditional Chinese culture, the fifty works of the Siku Collection of Divination Books from the imperial Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (Siku Quanshu) have now been compiled and published by the Shanghai Classics Publishing House. This monumental collection is well worth reading for anyone who studies or cares about the evolution of Chinese fortune-telling.