Língqí jīng 靈棋經
The Spirit-Chess Classic (foundational divination-by-12-counters classic) pseudepigraphically attributed to 東方朔 (Dōngfāng Shuò, Western Hàn); various traditional commentators incl. 劉基 (Liú Jī = Liú Bówēn) for the standard Míng-period exposition
About the work
A 2-juan foundational classic of Chinese divination-by-counters (qíbǔ 棋卜), in which 12 counters (each having a yīn-side / yáng-side) are tossed and the resulting yīnyáng pattern interpreted using a fixed set of 124 hexagram-like configurations. The work is one of the principal pre-Buddhist Chinese divinatory systems alongside the Yìjīng’s yarrow-stalk method and the Tàiyī / Liùrén later systems.
The work’s authorship-attribution is uncertain: traditional ascriptions include Dōngfāng Shuò 東方朔 of the Western Hàn (the famous court-jester-and-polymath whose fùshè (covered-divination) skill is documented in the Hànshū); Zhāng Liáng 張良 with his teacher Huángshí Gōng 黃石公; or Liú Ān 劉安 the Huáinánzǐ. The Sìkù 提要 dismisses these as “all the divination-school’s reliance-and-attribution sayings”. Bibliographically the work first appears in the Sui Jīngjí zhì as Shíèr Língqí bǔ jīng in 1 juàn — establishing its existence by the late-Six-Dynasties period. The Nánshǐ preserves a recorded yáo-poem (“The visitor came from the south, leaving me good materials, treasure-goods, pearls-and-jade, gold cups, jade goblets”) that corresponds to the present recension’s hexagram-37 — confirming the Sòng-period text descends from a substantially earlier original.
The work consists of 124 guà (hexagram-like configurations) — actually 12 + (12 yīn-or-yáng) generating 12 × 12 = 144 patterns, but with one (all yīn — hùndùn wèimíng “primordial-chaos not-yet-clear”) considered void of meaning, leaving 124 + 12 (with the void) = 124 substantive configurations. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì lists only 120, missing 4 — probably a counting error.
Multiple commentaries have been transmitted: Yán Yòumíng 顏幼明 (Jìn) and Hé Chéngtiān 何承天 (Sòng) with annotations; Lǐ Yuǎn 李遠 with preface; Chén Shīkǎi 陳師凱 (Yuán Lúshān) with explanation; Lǐ Jìn 李進 (Sòng) with annotation (lost). The early-Míng Liú Jī (Liú Bówēn) 劉基 produced the standard Míng-period exposition modeled on the Zhōu Yì commentary structure, with 4-stage cosmological-numerological analysis: 3 as the jīng (warp) representing ruler-officials-people, 4 as the wěi (weft) representing 1=shàoyáng, 2=shàoyīn, 3=tàiyáng, 4=lǎoyīn. Liú Jī’s exposition is preserved as the most substantial commentary; the 提要 commends it as “specifically Liú Jī’s own work; observing its diction concise-and-meaning refined, truly different from the world’s [shallow] generation-restraint-and-control [practitioners]“.
The Sìkù preserves the work as the foundational document of the qíbǔ divinatory tradition. For the related divinatory-numerological tradition, see KR3g0029 Jiāoshì Yìlín (Hàn-period Yìjīng hexagram-by-hexagram divinatory-poetry compendium), KR3g0030 Jīngshì Yìzhuàn (the Hàn-period Yìjīng method of Jīng Fáng), KR3g0031 Liùrén dàquán (the Six-rén divinatory system), KR3g0032 Bǔfǎ xiángkǎo.
Tiyao
[Full text in source file. Dated Qiánlóng 46 (1781), tenth month.]