A SHORT GLOSSARY OF GEOMANTIC TERMS
CAROLE MORGAN
Chinese geomancy (fengshui) like many other esoteric sciences has developed a technical vocabulary both to facilitate the transmission of concepts from master to pupil and, one suspects, to set the learned fengshui xianzheng apart from the rest of the population.
Although Western scholars have studied the visual manifestations as well as the social implications of fengshui, its technical vocabulary, with the possible exception of J. Edkins' stab at a few definitions in the late 18th century, has largely been ignored. It is the author's hope that the definitions outlined in the following pages will help to fill some of the gaps in our knowledge of geomancy.
The vocabulary as well as the explanations to be found in this article have all been gleaned from fengshui manuals dating from the early 18th century to the present day, and refer mainly to yinzhai or the siting of tombs. But just as different schools of geomancy use different compasses or luobans, they do not always interpret the same term in the same way, which implies that the definitions given below, though generally accepted by most schools, are not the only possible ones for any given term.
The first series of terms concerns the general topography of a site.
xue refers to the burial site as a whole and includes all topographical features such as mountains, their height, the slope of the ground, the supply of water, etc.
biantou is another term for mountain ridges, it being understood that the mountains in question may be no higher than hills or even knolls. Geomancers are particularly interested in the spot where mountains rise from the plain (see tai).
long is, as one manual points out, one of the hardest fengshui
1 J. Edkins in J. Doolittle's Vocabulary and Handbook (1873). The definitions provided by S. Feuchtwang in his An Anthropological Analysis of Chinese Geomancy (1974) are, for the most part, not very reliable.
A SHORT GLOSSARY OF GEOMANTIC TERMS
CAROLE MORGAN
Chinese geomancy (fengshui) like many other esoteric sciences has developed a technical vocabulary both to facilitate the transmis- sion of concepts from master to pupil and, one suspects, to set the learned fengshui xianzheng B✯✯ apart from the rest of the population.
Although Western scholars have studied the visual manifestations as well as the social implications of fengshui its technical vocabulary, with the possible exception of J. Edkins' stab' at a few definitions in the late 18th century, has largely been ignored. It is the author's hope that the definitions outlined in the following pages will help to fill some of the gaps in our knowledge of geomancy.
The vocabulary as well as the explanations to be found in this article have all been gleaned from fengshui manuals dating from the early 18th century to the present day, and refer mainly to yinzhai () or the siting of tombs. But just as different schools of geo- mancy use different compasses or luobans (* *), they do not always interpret the same term in the same way, which implies that the definitions given below though generally accepted by most schools are not the only possible ones for any given term.
The first series of terms concerns the general topography of a site.
xue refers to the burial site as a whole and includes all topograph- ical features such as mountains, their height, the slope of the ground, the supply of water, etc.
❤biantou is another term for mountain ridges, it being under- stood that the mountains in question may be no higher than hills or even knolls, Geomancers are particularly interested in the spot where mountains rise from the plain (see tai ).
long is, as one manual points out, one of the hardest fengshui
1J. Edkins in J. Doolittle's Vocabulary and Handbook (1873). The definitions provided by S. Feuchtwang in his An Anthropological Analysis of Chinese Geomancy (1974) are, for the most part, not very reliable.
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