History of fortune-telling and divination

Since when do you have a fortune teller?

Fortune-telling is a vulgar custom in old China, which has not disappeared in some places. People have different opinions on how China's ancient fortune-telling came into being and what its "theoretical" origin is.

Throughout the ages, fortune telling has been the industry, and Guiguzi in the Warring States period was the founder of this industry. According to Records of Historical Records Biography of Su Qin and Biography of Zhang Yi, Guiguzi was the teacher of military strategist Su Qin and Zhang Yi. Pei Qian's Collection of Historical Records also introduced that this person lived in the ghost valley market in Yangcheng (now Dengfeng, Henan) because of his place name. Others say that his real name is Wang Xu, and he enjoys both fame and fortune. "Sikuquanshu Mu Zong Shushu Shulei II" quoted relevant records: Sima Zhu Ji, a famous "fortune teller" in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, had obtained nine works of Gui Guzi on "Mystery Theory" in Hushan, that is, how to calculate "Numerology", and all subsequent fortune-telling theories took this as a vector, which was finally collected and annotated by Li in the Tang Dynasty. Modern scholars generally believe that this is Li's scam, and some even doubt whether Guiguzi is true. However, Sui Shu Jing Ji Zhi once contained a volume of Guiguzi. Qin Zuan said that Cai Yong visited Mr. Guiguzi in Qingxi at the end of the Han Dynasty, so some people speculated that there was another Guiguzi in the Han Dynasty, and he wrote Guiguzi in Sui Shu. Because the book was lost early, the traditional view that Guiguzi started numerology became a headless unsolved case. However, regardless of the authenticity of Guiguzi's book, there is still a view that fortune-telling originated in the Warring States period, based on the idea that Yin and Yang and the five elements coexist in fortune-telling, which is the result of the deduction of Yin and Yang in the Warring States period. In addition, there is another point of view: The Book of Changes unearthed from Qin bamboo slips shows that the Warring States period was the embryonic period of eight-character fortune telling at that time, and people's fate was inferred by the number of birthdays. For example, in 877, it was written that people born in the morning wanted to practice martial arts in the future; Jane wrote in 872 that Ding You was born in Japan and grew up to be an alcoholic. Jane 1 142 said that people born every day are slaves and so on (Jin Liangnian, editor-in-chief of China Encyclopedia of Mysterious Culture published by Shanghai Culture)

Mr Hong Pimo thinks that the origin of China's fortune-telling probably began in the Han Dynasty. In the relevant chapters of Wang Chong's Lun Heng in the Eastern Han Dynasty, not only the basis of the theory of five elements' destiny was put forward, but also the view that the birth of a gram and the theft of a husband and wife were both fates in the zodiac (China Ancient Fortune-telling, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2nd edition, 1990+02).

Gao Guofan, a Dunhuang scholar, believes that from the pre-Qin Dynasty to the Han Dynasty, the concept of believing in fate, including Wang Chong's explanation of the definition of fate, and the emergence and development of various specific magic methods such as divination, fortune telling, the five elements, the four seasons, the five elements and the zodiac all laid the ideological foundation and prepared conditions for the origin of fortune-telling customs, while the real fortune-telling came into being at a later time. It was not until the Fifth Five-Year Plan that the equality law was very popular that fortune-telling came into being in the prosperous Tang Dynasty (Dunhuang ancient customs and folk customs evolution, Hohai University Press,1June 990). He also specifically put forward the "Thirty-five Method of Pushing the Fate of Twelve People" which was discovered in Dunhuang and used twelve o'clock to tell people's fortune, and thought that it "fully demonstrated the true face of the mountain fortune-telling method".

Zhang Ronghua also believes that fortune-telling began in the Tang Dynasty, but he thinks there are two ways of inheritance: one is the concept of Yin-Yang and Five Elements in the Han Dynasty, and the other is the blending of western astrology. Superstitions in foreign astrology were introduced to China in the Six Dynasties along with Indian, Western Brahmanism and Buddhism. For example, Wang Songying-lin said, "Saturn's calendar pushed people's lives high and low, starting in the early years of Tang Zhenyuan, and Li Du warlock Li Bigan passed on the Brahma Book" Yu Jing "." Yuan Wu Lai explained that "Li Du" means "all come" and is the name of a river. Li Bigan is a foreign warlock from a well-off country. The Silk Sutra is a star book in India. There are also three volumes of "Weighing the Stars" in the unified examination. "In terms of the sun, the moon, Jin Mu, fire, water, earth, five stars and Luohou, they are all purple and angry, and they play the degree of the zodiac to blame others for their longevity. I don't know what to do, or I can learn from the clouds. " Luo Houyun, obviously a foreign word, can prove that it is from a foreign country. It can be seen that the five-element superstition of ancient astrology in China, together with the divination superstition of foreign astrology, constitutes the fortune-telling in the Tang Dynasty (ancient folk magic in China, Anhui People's Publishing House, 199 1 May).

Coincidentally, Joseph Needham, a British historian of science, also thinks that China's ancient fortune-telling contains foreign elements, and quotes "a horoscope of fortune-telling in China" in his famous book History of Science and Technology in China, asserting that it is the twelfth house of Greek astrology in the second to fourth centuries (History of Science and Technology in China, translated by He Zhaowu, Science Publishing House and Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1990). In this regard, Jiang, an expert in the history of astronomy, disagreed. He thought that although this picture was used for fortune-telling, it could not be said to be a Western-style "fortune-telling horoscope" in any sense, because there were no real celestial bodies and their positions in the picture, and the names such as Twenty-eight Nights appeared because of the customary practice of matching the twelve earthly branches and the zodiac with the Twenty-eight Nights in ancient China fortune-telling, which was completely different from the real position of the Twenty-eight Nights in the sky. Fortune-telling in ancient China was based on the so-called "birthday", which only recorded the time point with the branches, not the star chart at that time, and had no substantive or even formal relationship with the actual astronomical phenomena. According to the evidence found so far, it can be preliminarily confirmed that birth astrology was not born in ancient China. In the west, fortune-telling was accomplished by astrology, and in ancient China, it was accomplished by four-poster horoscope. The formation of this fortune-telling technique is also quite late-it is said that it was established in the hands of (Xu Juyi) in the Five Dynasties and the Early Song Dynasty, so it is also called "Zi" (astrology in history, Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press, 1995, 1).

While affirming that China's fortune-telling was formed in the Five Dynasties and the early Song Dynasty, Jiang also raised the question whether this fortune-telling custom was related to the traditional astrology. In this regard, general researchers believe that there is a source relationship. Feng and Bao's record of specializing in astrology at the age of 18 is the first, and people often use "five stars" or "astrological numerology" as another name for fortune telling, which is enough. In this regard, Jiang pointed out that this is because some fortune-telling books in late ancient China often used the word "star" in their titles, which caused misunderstandings, such as The Complete Book of Star Movement in Ming Dynasty and Textual Research on Emperors' Ephemeris in Qing Dynasty. All kinds of fortune-telling and fortune-telling techniques have nothing to do with the actual astronomical phenomena and celestial bodies, and do not conform to the basic definition of astrology at all. In a word, the basic feature of ancient astrology in China is "astrology in the army", which can be seen from the classification statistics of characters in Historical Records. None of them belong to the military category and are not aimed at personal affairs. The personal life and death, honor and disgrace, joys and sorrows of the ordinary people have no place in China's astrology (ibid.).

The opinions of the above schools are recorded. The main difference lies in how to identify and use them and make inferences. At the same time, it also involves the definition and understanding of the concept of "fortune telling", so readers are also qualified to participate in the debate within this condition. However, if there are new historical materials such as Qin bamboo slips "Japanese Book" and Dunhuang documents, it will naturally be another matter.