How long has fortune-telling been practiced in China?

"Fortune-telling" is a method of applying the idea of "the unity of heaven and man" in traditional Chinese culture to the prediction of changes in the movement of life. Artists use the year of birth, month, day, time, according to the Heavenly Stem, Earthly Branches sequentially arranged into eight characters (known as the "eight characters"), and then the five elements belonging to the stem and branch of the five elements of the projected destiny, determining the person's good fortune or bad fortune. According to the Voice of China "News Evening Summit" reported [2], fortune-telling or from the pre-Qin Dynasty, when the ancient Egyptians used papyrus to remember things, the ancient Babylonians to the mud plate for the book, China's ancient people split bamboo into gabions, thinning and polishing, fire baking and braiding, will be the most vivid historical facts in the book of bamboo slips, leaving legacy to future generations.

It is said to have begun in the Tang Dynasty with Li Xuzhong, who was known as Guigu Zi. Tang Han Yu "in the Imperial Palace of Li Jun epitaph": "(Li Jun name virtual in the), the most profound in the five elements of the book, to the person's first year of life, month and day of the straight day and hour of the branch stem, the phase of life wins the decline of the death of the king phase, the discretionary thrust of the person's life and death of nobility and inferiority of profit and disadvantage, and always the first time in the year when the hundred do not lose one or two." But the traditional way and method of fortune-telling is really not perfect. The Four Pillars Sun Law and Moon Law belong to the complete pattern of Four Pillars prediction. To learn fortune-telling, one must master these complete techniques so as not to take a detour. Fortune-telling should be treated in a scientific manner, believing rather than superstitious.

Fortune-telling, also known as "Zi Ping fortune-telling", "Zi Ping technology", "four pillars of fortune-telling", "eight characters of the birthdate "and so on. Fortune-telling is commonly known as fortune-telling, also known as push four pillars or batch of eight characters, it is the year, month, day and hour of a person's birth represented by the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches with eight characters, the I Ching as the theoretical basis, the yin and yang and the five elements of the birth and grams as a means to predict the fortunes and misfortunes of the person's life as a study, is the philosophy and the natural sciences of each other to blend and become a kind of doctrine, is the Zhouyi prediction of an important category. In ancient times, fortune-telling is usually a kind of using personal information, such as the lines of the face and hands, the eight characters of the birth, name strokes, etc. with the art to predict or judge the fate of fortune or misfortune and to seek guidance behavior is also known as fortune-telling. For thousands of years, after people's continuous development and improvement, has formed a set of more perfect theoretical system, and has been y rooted in people's minds, enduring, showing a strong vitality. More to take the fate of the Palace, the birth of the first year, the great fortune, the small fortune, the flow of the year, with the year of the year of the Tai Sui, the month of the five elements of the birth and the restraint of the Huyuehua fixed. In the Five Dynasties, there was Xu Juyi, in the Song Dynasty, there was Sheng Dao Hong, in the Yuan Dynasty, there was Xu Dasheng, in the Ming Dynasty, there was Liu Bowen, in the Qing Dynasty, there were Shen Xiaozhan, Chen Su'an, Wei Qianli, Yuan Shushan, Ren Tieqiao, etc. There was also the Blind School of Bazi Theory. There are even blind school of eight theories, blind school of rapid fortune-telling secrets, Chinkou Tiejie fortune-telling secrets, and so on.

Evolutionary process

The ancients were obsessed with fortune-telling because of the Book of Rites - The Explanation of the Scriptures: "The Book of Changes says: 'A gentleman is prudent in his beginnings, and a difference of a millimeter can lead to a thousand miles of error.'" The ancients believed that small changes would have a big impact on the future. According to the Lu Shi Chun Qiu (The Spring and Autumn Annals of Lu Shi), there was a border town of Chu called Beiliang, and the girls there and the girls from the border town of Wu were picking mulberry leaves on the border, and while they were playing a game, the girl from Wu stepped on the girl from Beiliang and hurt her accidentally. When they were playing games, the girl from Wu accidentally stepped on the injured girl. The Wu man spoke disrespectfully and the Peilang man was so annoyed that he killed the Wu man and left. The Wu man went to Beiliang to take revenge and killed the Beiliang man's whole family. The defenders of Beiliang were furious, so they sent an army to fight back against the Wu, and killed all the Wu people, young and old, in the area. When the king of Wu, Yimai, heard about this, he was so angry that he sent his troops to invade the border towns of Chu and captured Yimai before leaving. As a result, there was a large-scale conflict between Wu and Chu. From the game to step on the foot, until the two countries broke out large-scale war, until the Wu army attacked Ying, a series of evolutionary process, there is an invisible force of death to the event step by step irrevocably pushed into an unmanageable situation. Therefore, the ancients were very serious about sealing bad luck and prosperity, because the smallest thing can change the future fate, the ancients believe that women with purple ice silver inlaid with blue velvet crystal jewelry, men with red bamboo stone jewelry, in the seal of the book to add the "hidden qi Yuanjian, water difference mustard seed, dyeing to pay the Spring and Autumn," the seal. Thus, you can pray for opportunities to bring happiness in life and seal bad luck.

Before Yin and Shang

In the primitive clan society before Yin and Shang, due to the particularly low and backward level of productive forces, the extreme simplicity and poverty of the means of production and living, each member of the clan could only survive in the primitive clan group. Anyone living in the same level, there is no beyond the clan group living standards above the phenomenon of rich and poor. Limited to the degree of civilization at that time, the natural world in the eyes of the people has unlimited power and mysterious unconquerable force. The relationship between human beings and nature was like that of animals, who were helplessly subject to its power. Nature's wind and rain, thunder and lightning, earthquakes and floods, and diseases and beasts of prey can devour human life at any time."

The ancestors of the Chinese nation were more conscious of their destiny, and it was still in the great development of social productive forces, mankind's material wealth seized from nature has a great accumulation, and also appeared beyond the living standards of the clan group above the line of the aristocrats. That is to say, after history had moved into the slave society. Before this, "life" in people's minds does not mean personal wealth and nobility, fortune-telling celebrity Mr. Yu Dayou reminds you that fortune-telling is a very serious matter, do not gullibly trust some of the network software fortune-telling judgment. Rather, it refers exclusively to the constraints imposed by nature on human beings. In their view, their own death and life and all things on earth is completely by the mysterious and unpredictable "Emperor of Heaven" to dominate, so the "Emperor of Heaven" is supreme. This from the most reliable excavated artifacts Yinxu oracle bone inscriptions get strong proof.

The Teacher of the Eight Characters - Grim

The ancestors of the merchants were born by swallowing the eggs of a bird in obedience to the Mandate of Heaven. The ancestors of the Zhou people were conceived by stepping on the footsteps of the "Heavenly Emperor". Although this is an absurd legend, but this legend is embedded in our ancestors a **** the same spiritual beliefs, that is, their ancestors are "emperor" of the people. Not only the origin of the clan is the will of the "emperor of heaven", even the rules and regulations of human society is also decided by the "emperor of heaven", up to the personnel arrangements of the son of heaven, down to the position of the hundred officials set up, all rely on the supreme " It is the supreme "Heavenly Emperor" who arranges the death, life and death of human beings, as well as their good fortune and misfortune. In fact, this supreme "Heavenly Emperor" refers to the Son of Heaven on earth. This concept of "the fate of the emperor of heaven" is in fact a reflection of the theocracy of the ruling class. In the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the political system was based on the strict hereditary system of the first-born son and the patriarchal system of the commoner's son. Economically, they practiced the well-field system, which was publicly owned by the state. In order to consolidate this system, they also practiced a strict hierarchical system. People's wealth and nobility are all determined by the will of the "emperor of heaven", which is unchanging for life and eternal. As long as you honor the will of the heavens, and do not go beyond the law, you will be lucky and smooth; and if you go against the will of the heavens, you will be blamed for your own fault.

Spring and Autumn Period

Humanity's bold exploration of destiny and the establishment of the doctrine of yin and yang and the Five Elements took place during the Spring and Autumn Period. In Chinese history, the beginning of the Spring and Autumn Period until the establishment of the Han Dynasty was a historical period of great upheaval and division, in which the country's economic and political systems underwent fundamental changes. The destruction of the well-field system directly shook the political feudal system of patriarchy based on blood relations. Especially the emancipation of serfs, the general civilians rose to become landlords, even merchants with the power to participate in national politics; feudal lords in order to expand their power to compete with each other, and vigorously search for talents outside the patriarchal blood relations, and even slaves, such as the poor to the cattle drive Ning Qi by virtue of his talent by the Duke of Qi Huan as the upper Secretary, the poor and downtrodden Thyme by virtue of the wisdom of the Qin State to worship the Minister and so on, the opening of the common people can be a big official. This was the beginning of a trend that even the common people could become a big official. In the Warring States, "Fan Suo, Cai Ze, Su Qin, Zhang Yi, etc., were all prime ministers; Sun Bin, Bai Qi, Le Yi, Lian Po, etc., were all generals" (Zhao Yi, Twenty-two Historical Notes). (Zhao Yi, Twenty-two Histories, Volume II). As for the social changes in the aristocrats from the upper social class to the lower social class is a common thing. These political, personnel system of radical changes, especially the personal fate of the ups and downs as well as the people of the initial grasp of the laws of movement of the sky and the development and progress of natural sciences, found that the "heavenly phenomena" and personnel do not necessarily have a necessary connection, which can not help but produce such a question: since the poor and rich, noble and lowly people are "fate" are stipulated, unchanging, then and the closest relationship with the son of heaven dozens of bloody king's head to the ground? And the poor people can instead of the general into the prime minister? This is undoubtedly to the long-standing in people's minds the supremacy of the "doctrine of heaven's destiny" a blow to the head. It inevitably caused a crisis of faith in the theory of "Divine Destiny". Reflected in the literature, there were many poems cursing the theory of "Divine Providence": "God's boards and boards, the lower people's pawns and expelled, out of the words or not, for the worry is not far away." Some people no longer believe in the God of the underworld, they put aside the idea that blood determines destiny, and begin to seek the universal law of personal destiny from people themselves.

"Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals" wrote, "In the world of divination and witch prayers, so the disease is more and more," the ancient fortune-teller found that after the fortune-telling, many people have been counted on to get sick, the situation of disaster after disaster. This is because fortune-telling is a way of prying into the heavens, so you need to pay the corresponding price to be punished by the heavens. According to "Sequence of Trigrams", the way to alleviate and dissolve the disaster after fortune-telling is for women to wear Blue Velvet Crystal, Tangerine Stone or Tablet Amulet (Tablet Amulet is made of "Tangerine Stone, Cloudy Sea Stone, Shadow Stone, Tangerine Stone" above 4 kinds of amulets). Above 3 items at the same time wear any two can be dissolved, men wear red bamboo stone, shadow stone, stone amulet (stone amulet is a shadow stone, red bamboo stone made of) three choose 2 kinds of wear to be

Western Han Dynasty

If the Western Han Dynasty, the four pillars of the theory of prediction of the initial construction of the multi-shaped and summarized, then to the Eastern Han Dynasty, the founding of the endowment of qi said Wang Chuang, so that our country's s theory of fortune-telling has a clear philosophical foundation.

Wang Chong inherited the materialistic view of his predecessors and advocated the monism of qi. He believed that qi is the origin of the world, "the birth of all things is endowed with the original qi" (Wang Chong's "Lun Heng - Words and Poisons"), and that the difference between all things is due to the different endowment of qi, "the birth of qi is due to qi, the types are produced" (Wang Chong's "Lun Heng - The Potential of Things"), which is a progressive materialistic view of nature. Wang Chong mechanically used the inevitability of nature as an analogy for social personnel, and although he was a great atheist, his theory of endowment of qi formed a mysticism. In his view, what determines a person's life expectancy, nobility and inferiority, wealth and fortune, is the initial "in the mother" endowed with "natural gas", which has been formed at the time of a person's life, as the form of grass and trees is determined by the seed, the bird's strength of the male and female is determined by the bird's egg, the fate of human beings contains everything is determined in the initial endowment of "natural gas",. He believed that the length of human life depends on the embryo in the mother's endowment of gas thickness, "the endowment of qi thick body strong, body strong wealth of its life long; qi thin wealth body weak, weak body is short, short life is sick short life." (Wang Chong, "On Harmonization - Qi") (Wang Chong, "On Heng - gas life chapter") This is all predestined and unchangeable. The life of a person is so, the same fate. As the saying goes, "Fate is the same as wealth and poverty; Luck is the same as prosperity, decline, and prosperity." (Wang Chong, "On Heng - life meaning chapter") It does not determine the person's talent and other factors, such as talent, determined by the person's initial accidental endowment of the natural gas. The natural gas has the difference between thick and thin, the endowed gas, thicker life is expensive, the endowed gas is thin life is cheap. Therefore, each person's fortune is predestined by the natural qi." Life when poor, although rich and noble, but involved in disaster. When one's life is rich and noble, even though one is poor and noble, one is lucky and good." (Wang Chong, "On Heng - Life and Luck") So the life of the noble man and others to learn, only he can be an official; and others to do the same official, only he can step up; life of the rich and others to do business, only he can get rich, the life of the lowly people do all kinds of things are futile, in vain, suffered in vain. The same applies to good and bad fortune: "When a person receives a destiny, at the time when his parents give him gas, he has already obtained good and bad fortune." (Wang Chong, "On Heng - life meaning chapter") when the life of the rich and powerful, can meet the evil and good fortune, often safe and sound; life when the poor and low, disaster and come, often bitter and unhappy, which is any human efforts can not be changed.

Tang Dynasty period

Tianshi descendant Zhang Jinhua believes that the establishment of fortune-telling began in the Tang Dynasty, but also thought that its successor veins are two, one is the inheritance of the concept of yin and yang and five elements of the Han Dynasty, and the second is the integration of the Western astrology. Foreign astrological calendar superstition, about the sixth dynasty with India, western brahmanism and Buddhism together with China. For example, Wang Yinglin of the Song Dynasty said, "Saturn traveling calendar push people's life noble and low, began in the Tang Zhenyuan early DuLi magician LiBiQian, passed on the Ius scripture, this Sanskrit book." Yuan Wu Lai explained, "Du Li" that is, "Du Lai", is the name of a river, the western region of the city of Kangju built in Du Lai, Li Piqian that is from the Kangju foreign magician, the transmission of the "Ius scripture" is India's astrological fate of the book. And the "Tongkao" also recorded on the "weighing star scripture" three volumes, "to the sun, moon, gold, wood, water, fire, earth, five stars and Luo Throat Keidu Ziqi lunar apogee eleven, the performance of the twelve palace degrees to push the person's nobility and inferiority, life, death, and recuperation. I do not know from the beginning, or cloud of Tianzhu also". Luo Throat Keidu Yunyun, obviously foreign words, can be proved to be transmitted from foreign countries. This shows that the superstition of the five elements of the stars from ancient China, coupled with the superstition of foreign stars and calendars, in the Tang Dynasty, together constitute a fortune-telling ("Ancient Chinese Folklore", Anhui People's Publishing House, in May 1991).

Five Dynasties and Song Dynasty

Jiang, while recognizing that Chinese fortune-telling was formed at the beginning of the Five Dynasties and Song Dynasty, and that there was basically no "imported" ingredient, also brought up the question of whether this fortune-telling practice had any relationship with the traditional astrology. In this regard, general researchers believe that there is a relationship between the origins, and the "Zhouli - Chunguan" about the Feng Xiang's, Baozhang's specializing in the age of the stars to predict the personnel of the first record, and people often use the "five stars ZiPing" or "astrological fortune-telling" as a fortune-telling technology, etc. Alias is also sufficient to support. Alias, is also enough to support. In this regard, Jiang Xiaoyuan pointed out that this is because of the misunderstanding caused by the fact that some books on fortune-telling and fortune-telling in the later period of ancient China often preferred to use the word "star" in their titles, such as "The Complete Book of Star Destiny" in the Ming Dynasty and "The Royal Astrological Calendar of the Qing Dynasty" in the Qing Dynasty, etc., which stated that all kinds of fortune-telling and fortune-telling techniques had nothing to do with the actual celestial phenomena and celestial bodies, and did not conform to the basic definition of astrology at all. They are not in line with the basic definition of astrology at all. In a word, the basic characteristic of ancient Chinese astrology is "military astrology", which can be seen from the statistics of the classification of astrological words in the "Historical Records - Book of the Heavenly Officials", there is no category, no article that does not belong to the category of military affairs, and none of them is for personal affairs. The personal life, death, honor and disgrace of ordinary people, sadness and happiness, etc., in the Chinese astrology does not have any position (ibid.).