Cuīguān piān 催官篇
Hastening-Office Chapters (geomantic methodology for promoting career-and-rank) by 賴文俊 (Lài Wénjùn / Lài Bùyī, Sòng, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
Lài Wénjùn’s 2-juan systematic geomantic treatise organized under four topical headings: Lóng 龍 (Dragon — mountain-ridge analysis), Xué 穴 (Acupoint — site-determination), Shā 砂 (Protective-Mountains — surrounding configuration), Shuǐ 水 (Water — flow patterns). Each topic is presented as a gē (chanted-verse mnemonic) for memorization. The work’s name (Cuīguān — “hastening office”) refers to the geomantic objective of promoting the career-and-rank of the family of the deceased through proper tomb-siting.
The Lóng chapter divides the 24 mountain-positions into yīn and yáng, with ZhènGēngHài as the Three Auspicious and XùnXīnGènBǐngDuìDīng as the Six Excellents; analyzes the variations of acupoint-reception and their auspicious-or-inauspicious correspondences. The Xué chapter takes the Lóng (dragon) as primary determinant but distinguishes receiving-pneuma configurations: āizuǒ (clinging-left) vs. āiyòu (clinging-right). The Shā and Shuǐ chapters use directional-positions to determine fortune.
The 提要 commends the work’s substantive geomantic reasoning: examples of the work’s logic include “YínJiǎ two dragons produce-paralysis-and-lameness” — derived from the analysis that wood-pneuma generates wind, the asterism corresponds to the Tail and Winnowing-Basket, Zhèn trigram corresponds to the foot, and wind-excess produces extremity-disease, hence paralysis-and-lameness. Or: “Bǐng-direction corresponds to the Star-Horse and so produces silkworm-silk auspiciousness”; “Dīng-direction corresponds to the Longevity-Star and so produces longevity”. These derivations show “although [the work] flows somewhat into the supernatural-and-strange, on the yīnyáng wǔxíng generation-restraint and control [it] truly speaks systematically”.
The 提要 contrasts this work’s reasoned methodology with “the absurd-without-foundation talk that lavishly-speaks of fortunes-and-misfortunes without being able to clarify their why-they-are-so [reasons]” — i.e., placing Lài Wénjùn above the ordinary geomancer-charlatan as a substantive geomantic-methodologist.
The work’s integral commentary is anonymous but the 提要 commends it: “the elaboration is rather detailed-and-comprehensive; its transmission is already long; we have included it for reference”.
For Lài Wénjùn’s biography, see 賴文俊. For the broader geomantic tradition, see KR3g0019-KR3g0027.
Tiyao
[Full text in source file. Dated Qiánlóng 46 (1781), tenth month.]