Zàngshū 葬書
The Burial Book (foundational text of Chinese tomb-siting geomancy) pseudepigraphically attributed to 郭璞 (Guō Pú, 276–324, 晉); actually a Sòng-period compilation; with 蔡元定 (Cài Yuándìng) and 吳澄 (Wú Chéng)‘s textual-critical re-organization
About the work
A 1-juan foundational text of the Chinese geomantic tradition for tomb siting (xiàngmù 相墓) — sister-discipline to the residence-siting tradition exemplified by KR3g0019 Zháijīng. The work is universally cited as the foundational text of the Zàngshū / Zàngjīng tradition, but its actual textual-historical situation is complex.
The Sìkù 提要 makes a thorough textual-critical case:
(a) The ZhōuHàn evidence: tomb-siting practice is not documented in pre-Hàn Confucian sources. The Zhōu-li Zhǒngrén and Mùdàfū offices indicate that ancient burial used clan-based collective sites without site-selection.
(b) The Hàn evidence: the Hànshū Yìwén zhì groups xíngfǎ (form-method) — including residence-siting, person-siting, animal-siting — together with no separate tomb-siting branch. So while geomancy as a category emerged in the Hàn, tomb-siting per se was not yet specialized.
(c) The Eastern-Hàn / Tang evidence: the HòuHànshū Yuán Ān zhuàn’s anecdote about the three students directing Yuán Ān’s father to an auspicious burial site documents the practice’s emergence in the Eastern Hàn. The Tang-end-period catalogs list a Zàngshū dìmài jīng and a Zàngshū wǔyīn — both anonymous, neither attributed to Guō Pú.
(d) The Sòng emergence: only the Sòng zhì records “Guō Pú’s Zàngshū 1 juàn” — i.e., the Guō Pú attribution dates to the Sòng. The Sòng-period text is what underlies all subsequent transmission.
(e) The Cài Yuándìng critical revision: the late-Sòng text proliferated to “twenty pieces”; Cài Yuándìng 蔡元定 (蔡元定) “sickened of its weed-and-confusion, deleted twelve pieces, preserving eight”. His son Cài Shěn (蔡沈) was Zhū Xī’s principal disciple, locating Cài Yuándìng’s redaction within the Cheng-Zhū school’s text-critical lineage.
(f) The Wú Chéng further refinement: Wú Chéng 吳澄 (吳澄) further subdivided Cài’s eight-piece recension into Inner Chapter (nèipiān, the most pure-and-correct), Outer Chapter (wàipiān, mixed pure-and-coarse), and Mixed Chapter (zápiān, the coarse-and-impure that should be deleted but is kept tentatively). The present transmitted text follows Wú Chéng’s three-chapter division.
(g) The Liú Zézhāng commentary: Liú Zézhāng 劉則章 of Xīnyú 新喻 received Wú Chéng’s recension directly and produced the now-standard commentary; the Sìkù recension’s commentary attribution to Liú Zézhāng is uncertain.
(h) The title transmission: the Sòng-period title was Zàngshū (Burial Book); subsequent geomancy-promoters renamed it Zàngjīng (Burial Classic) to enhance its authority. Máo Jìn’s 毛晉 Jígǔgé edition uses the inflated title; the Sìkù editors restore the original Zàngshū.
The work’s geomantic content develops the foundational concepts of the tomb-siting tradition: qì 氣 (vital pneuma) flowing through the earth; lóng 龍 (dragon = mountain ridges as channels of qì); xué 穴 (acupoint = the site at which qì emerges, where the tomb should be placed); shā 砂 (surrounding mountains protecting the site); shuǐ 水 (water flow patterns auspiciously surrounding the site).
For the parallel residence-siting foundational text, see KR3g0019 Zháijīng. For the principal Tang-period geomantic technical works (the Yáng Yúnsōng tradition), see KR3g0021 Hànlóng jīng and the related works. For the textual-critical figures, see 蔡元定 (Cài Yuándìng), 吳澄 (Wú Chéng).
Tiyao
[Full text in source file. Dated Qiánlóng 46 (1781), tenth month.]
Translations and research
- Field, Stephen L. Ancient Chinese Divination, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008.
- Bruun, Ole. An Introduction to Feng Shui, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
- Field, Stephen L. (trans.). Burial Book of Master Qing Wu and Burial Classic of Guo Pu, in various publications.
- Yates, Robin D. S. (in Chinese Religions, ed. Daniel Overmyer): treats the geomantic tradition.