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龜卜兆辭

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Text ID
KR2p0088
Date
-400–-200
Dynasty
戰國

Guī Bǔ Zhào Cí 龜卜兆辭

Turtle Oracle Crack Statements (modern editorial title; guī bǔ 龜卜 = turtle-shell divination; zhào cí 兆辭 = statements interpreting the omen-crack)

(anonymous; excavated bamboo manuscript, no attributable author)

About the work

Guī Bǔ Zhào Cí 龜卜兆辭 is a technical divination manual preserved on approximately 13 bamboo strips. The source collection is uncertain: while the CHANT corpus places this text under the KR2p series of Warring States excavated manuscripts, its precise provenance is not definitively established; it may belong to the Shanghai Museum corpus (上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書) or to another Warring States or early Hàn bamboo-slip assemblage. The text records interpretations of turtle-shell crack shapes (zhào 兆) attributed to named interpreters — Féi Shū 肥叔, Jì Zēng 季曾, Cài Gōng 蔡公, and Yuān Gōng 淵公 — providing the earliest detailed taxonomy of crack morphologies and their prognostic meanings yet attested in any Chinese manuscript source.

Abstract

Structure. The text is organized as a series of entries, each following the pattern: [named interpreter] said (yuē 曰): [description of crack shape] is called [technical term]; [prognostic statement]. This format closely parallels the structure of day-books (rì shū 日書) and divination manuals found at Shuǐhǔdì 睡虎地 and Fāngmǎtān 放馬灘, but focuses exclusively on turtle-shell crack morphology rather than the calendrical concerns more typical of day-books.

Féi Shū’s entry (strip 1). “Féi Shū said: ‘A crack with its head raised and toes projecting (zhào yǎng shǒu chū zhǐ 兆仰首出趾) — this is called “split” or “cleaved” (pì 闢). The diviner has no calamity (bǔ rén wú jiù 卜人無咎); he will leave his ward (lǐ 里) and go to another district.‘”

Jì Zēng’s entry (strip 2). “Jì Zēng said: ‘A crack with its head bowed and toes drawn in (zhào fǔ shǒu nà zhǐ 兆俯首納趾) — this is called “trap/snare” (xiàn 陷). Living at home (chǔ gōng 處宮): no calamity. If there is illness, it will be long (jiǎn 簪, elongated/prolonged).‘”

Cài Gōng’s entry (strip 3). “Cài Gōng said: ‘A crack that appears to have its head raised and toes projecting but with back and chest blurred/mixed together (shùn bèi hùn yīng 沌背混膺) — this is called “obscured/hidden” (bì 蔽). For the fire-turtle (bǔ huǒ guī 卜火龜) there is distress (lìn 吝); in dwelling, do not divine about major pollution (dà wū 大汙); only divine about major valleys (dà gǔ 大谷).‘”

Anonymous entry (strip 4). “A small-sunken crack (zhào xiǎo xiàn 兆小陷) — this is called “extinguished/submerged” (miè 滅). Small son: auspicious; elder son: then weeps (nǎi kū 乃哭). Use [this reading] for dwelling in the home (chǔ gōng 處宮 = [reading as] ‘dwelling’).”

Crack shape entry 5 (strip 5). “High on the end, deep and pure (yīng chún shēn 嬰純深) — this is called “shoulders” (jiān 肩, reading 肣 as 肩?). A woman [with this omen]: shoulders back, eating and drinking; a man [with this omen]: deep and in hiding (fú nì 伏匿).”

General prognostic entries (strips 6–9). After the named-interpreter entries, the text shifts to general prognostic rules: “In one divination [a certain omen]: auspicious; the state must have illness (bāng bì yǒu jí 邦必有疾).” And: “As a rule, three cù 簇 [crack joints] with blemishes; three tips [that are] only auspicious; [if the crack is] white as if yellow — [this is a] zhèn [divination] for the state.” The term cù 簇 (joints/clusters of the crack) is a technical term for segments or branchings of the pyromantic crack.

Divining for the state (strips 8–9). “Zhèn [divination] for the state: the crack only rises and hooks (gōu 鉤), [like] white-and-red, like gathered and distant (cuì yǐ tì 萃以逖); zhèn for the state: no calamity; [the state] will have [military] service (yì 役).”

Yuān Gōng’s entries (strips 10–13). “Yuān Gōng divined and said: ‘Three cù joints detached (tuō 脫) — the Zhōu state has distress, but will not be cut off (bù jué 不絕).‘” And: “Three tip-sections eat ink (shí mò 食墨) and [are] also dark — our Zhōu’s descendants will be scattered among the hundred states; a major divination for the state: also inauspicious (xiōng 兇).‘”

“Yuān Gōng divined and said: ‘If you divine for the state [and] three cù [joints] hook inward and are distant; three tips [that are] only ruined (bài 敗): no great calamity, but there is distress outside (yǒu lìn yú wài 有吝於外).‘” And: “If the three tips are only auspicious and the three cù [joints] are gathered (cuì 萃): also no great calamity, but there is distress inside (yǒu lìn yú nèi 有吝於內).”

Historical context. Turtle-shell pyromancy (guī bǔ 龜卜) was the primary divination technique of the Shāng dynasty, attested in tens of thousands of oracle-bone inscriptions. By the Warring States period, it coexisted with milfoil divination (shī bǔ 蓍卜, the Yì jīng 易經 system) and was codified in technical manuals of the kind represented by this text. The reference to “the Zhōu state’s descendants” (wǒ Zhōu zhī zǐ sūn 我周之子孫) in Yuān Gōng’s entry identifies the Zhou royal house as the institutional context for these divinatory practices; the dispersal of Zhou descendants “among the hundred states” corresponds to conditions of the mid-to-late Warring States period when Zhou’s actual power had collapsed entirely. The named interpreters — Féi Shū, Jì Zēng, Cài Gōng, Yuān Gōng — are not attested in received texts and represent a specialist divinatory lineage otherwise unknown.

Provenance uncertainty. The CHANT digital text does not identify the Shanghai Museum volume in which this text appears, and the editorial transcription does not match the style of strips 79–87 in this series. The text may belong to a different bamboo-slip assemblage or represent an as yet unpublished segment of the Shanghai Museum corpus. Readers should treat the source attribution as provisional.

Translations and research

  • Keightley, David N. The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China. Institute of East Asian Studies, 2000 — the authoritative study of Shāng pyromancy and its social context.
  • Loewe, Michael, and Edward L. Shaughnessy, eds. The Cambridge History of Ancient China. CUP, 1999 — Part II covers divination and the oracle-bone tradition.
  • Shaughnessy, Edward L. Rewriting Early Chinese Texts. SUNY Press, 2006.
  • Cook, Constance A. “Shang Oracle-Bone Inscriptions.” In Loewe and Shaughnessy (1999), 14–96.

No substantial secondary literature specifically on this text has been located.

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