A dash of doo-doo to cure your ills
The sets of divination poems used in temples vary in size from 24 to 120 poems, the most common numbers being 60 and 100. In most cases they are in four-line stanzas of five or seven characters per line, in a jueju meter. As well as planchette writings, divination poems were written by temple elders and local literati, and existing poems were also used. For instance, a great many of the works of the Tang dynasty poet Du Fu were used as divination poems in the Song dynasty, and the ancient Book of Songs was also prime material for this use.
To make divination poems accessible for ordinary townsfolk, temples everywhere gradually ceased to stress the poems' literary refinement, but simply tried to make them easy to understand. There even appeared illustrated divination slips bearing a drawing and a brief prophetic phrase. Later, historical allusions and characters indicating points of the compass were added by way of explanation, and finally the meaning of the verse with reference to various matters of enquiry was stated plainly.
When people had problems or questions to do with luck, fame, health, marriage, money, litigation or long journeys, they would go to the temple to seek a divination of the future, and when they were ill there were also medicinal divinations they could use to decide a remedy. The divination poems in the temples covered every imaginable aspect of life's problems and ailments.
In the days before modern medicine, choosing a remedy by drawing divination strips in the temple was the way many ordinary folk went about treating their illnesses. The temples with medicinal oracles are mostly dedicated to spirits who were famous physicians in their mortal lives, such as Baosheng Da Di (the Great Emperor Protector of Life), Hua Tuo and others. The prescriptions cover everything from women's disorders and childhood diseases to injuries and eye ailments--just like a general hospital. Chuo Ko-hua, a scholar of folk customs and ancient monuments who has spent time studying divination poems and who also has an understanding of Chinese herbal medicine, says that the remedies prescribed by medicinal oracles were not powerful and were mainly tonics, but they could sometimes cure minor ailments.
Looking at the medicinal oracles more closely, apart from the usual Chinese medicinal herbs we can also find many amusing remedies, such as: "Take one cup of breast milk / Mix in some infant's stools / This eases the flow of the blood and rejuvenates / Its curative effect is the best"; or "Seven green willow branches / Plucked from the bank of a pool to the east / Drives out evil and relieves fevers / This remedy is most efficacious"; or again: "Take a candle from the imperial examination hall / Let its light shine on you before you sleep / Before noon and after midnight / This method works best". . . . There were also a number of "empty oracles" without a medicinal remedy, such as: "You are quick to curse and scold / Heaven has punished you with sickness and pain / If you hurry to mend your ways / Perhaps your illness can be relieved"; or: "Your illness is dangerous / Recite the scriptures / Release captive animals and refrain from killing any living thing / If you wish to change your fate". . . . These reflect the Chinese medical philosophy that disease comes from the mind, so that curing the mind is the best remedy.
Pretty scary!
The crucial feature of divination poems is that people believe the spirit will invisibly guide the person seeking advice to choose the correct poem. "It's pretty scary," says Chuo Ko-hua. Once he went to Tienhoukung Temple to draw a divination because his father had suffered a stroke, and the poem indicated that although his father was in some danger, if he could only get through the next two years then he would be fully cured; later events bore the prediction out. "Another time I went to the temple to draw a divination just because I was at a loose end, and the Sacred Mother in Heaven gave me a good dressing down for wasting her time," he recounts with a wry smile.
Under the Japanese occupation, Taiwanese had limited access to higher education. Lien Wen-pin, now a famous doctor at National Taiwan University Hospital, went to the temple to ask about his academic future shortly before he finished high school. The poem he drew read "You climbed the high mountain to study the immortals / But then came the imperial edict / When the white sun shines forever in a blue sky / If you so desire your fame will spread across the four seas." At the time he could make little sense of it, but before long Taiwan returned to Chinese rule under the ROC flag with its white sun in a blue sky, and the new government opened the doors to higher education. Thus Lien was able to complete his studies and later become a well-known and highly respected heart specialist.
In Taiwan's temples today one can draw divination strips before at least 27 different spirits. Among the best known are the poems in temples to Guan Gong, which use a set said to have been passed down from the Ming dynasty, from the "Temple East of the River."
Once is enough!
The legend goes that Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Ming emperor, was sailing along a river when his boat's mast was broken by a strong wind. Seeing a tall tree growing outside a temple on the river bank, he wanted to have it chopped down to make a new mast, but the temple's abbot requested that he first draw a divination strip to ask the temple spirit's permission. The divination he drew read: "Everything under heaven has a master / A gentleman takes nothing not his own / Though the qualities of a hero are endowed by heaven / He must seek the righteous path at every step." Zhu Yuanzhang was thoroughly taken aback and abandoned his idea. But news of the temple's power spread far and wide, and the set of divination poems has been used in Guan Gong temples to this day.
But are the prophecies accurate? Many devotees of the method say that if one asks with a sincere heart, one will get an accurate answer. But apart from sincerity, following the correct procedure is also important. Chuo Ko-hua says that according to old custom, one should come with a sincere heart, and should first abstain from eating meat and strong flavored foods, refrain from indulging one's desires, and purify oneself by bathing. But today people have abandoned this practice.
When one comes to the temple, after first buying incense and candles and doing obeisance to all the temple's spirits by turns, one then goes before the spirit one believes in and begins to ask for an oracle. The main equipment is a pair of crescent-shaped blocks (jiaobei) and a set of bamboo divination strips. One first stands in front of the spirit and introduces oneself, stating one's name, date of birth, address and the difficulty one is currently facing, and then by casting the crescent blocks one asks whether the spirit is willing to help one select a divination poem. One block flat side up and the other round side up indicates permission, and one can then go and draw a strip from within the container. "No matter how many bamboo strips are in the set, you must be sure they are all in the pot before you draw one, or the result will not be accurate," stresses Chuo Ko-hua.
The divination strip itself is chosen as follows: if the pot of strips is small, one shakes them up and down, or back and forth at an angle, and the strip which falls out or the one which projects highest is the one to choose; with a larger set of strips one should lift up the whole bundle and let them fall back into the pot, then pick the highest one. Then one throws down the crescent blocks again in front of the spirit to ask whether one has taken the right strip. How many times should one cast the blocks? Some say three times, others say it depends on what one has agreed with the spirit. But aficionados of the method, and temple officials responsible for explaining the divinations, almost all say: "If the spirit really has divinatory powers, once is enough."
At the lunar new year, many temples will also choose an auspicious day and time to carefully ask the prospects of all the local trades and professions for the whole of the coming year, which they then paste up in the temple for worshippers' reference.
Emotional guidance
Having thus picked a divination poem according to the number on the bamboo strip, it is time to interpret it. The fortunes indicated by the divination poems are categorized into three types, good, neutral and bad, or are sometimes more finely divided into nine types. Generally speaking, within one set of poems the numbers of these three categories are in a ratio of about 2:3:1. Because the poems are sometimes vague and ambiguous and often also include historical references, it is hard to distinguish whether they augur good or ill, so how to gain insight into their deeper meaning is very important. The saying goes that "seeking a divination requires sincerity, interpreting divinations requires discernment." Qiu Yiju and Chuo Ko-hua both believe that the most important thing in interpreting a divination is figuring out which role in the historical incident cited corresponds to the person seeking advice.
The year before last, Wong Ka Kue, lead singer of the Hong Kong pop group Beyond, fell from the stage while performing in Japan and thereafter remained in a coma, diagnosed as brain dead. One of the group's fans went to seek a divination at Wong Tai Sin Temple, and got the answer: "A wild wind swept through the eastern garden last night / Tearing out all the flowers / But fortunately the gardener rose early / And replanted their roots to restore them to life." One magazine interpreted the second two lines of the verse as meaning that Wong might recover, but Qiu Yiju believes that as the singer's roots were in Hong Kong, but he lay unconscious in Japan, it was not possible to "replant [his] roots," and so the outlook was not good for his recovery. And in fact later he did not regain consciousness.
Hsu Hsin-huang, executive director of the ROC Gift and Packaging Art Association, who studied Chinese at university and who hopes one day to specialize in interpreting divinations, says that whether one chooses a divination poem classed as good, neutral or bad, there is no absolute good or bad, because misfortune contains elements of good fortune, and good fortune elements of misfortune. This expresses the Chinese philosophy of life whereby, in the words of the Book of Songs, "Good fortune cannot exist without ill / Ill fortune bears the seeds of good." But when most people consult divination strips it is because they are uneasy about the future and its uncertainties, or because they are faced with some difficult choice, so the interpreter of divinations must play the role of a psychological guide, helping them unravel their problems.
In one commonly-used set of 100 divination poems, one in the unluckiest ninth category reads: "After crossing a thousand snowy ridges / You will see things in a different light." Whether divining spirits really exist or not, if we measure these words against our own experience of human life, in which things so often take a turn for the better when they seem at their most hopeless, and ups and downs follow each other by turns, can we deny their wisdom?
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The most important thing when seeking a divination is sincerity. In front of the spirit you offer a stick of burning incense, then state your date of birth, your name and what you wish to enquire about. After you throw the crescent blocks and pick a divination poem, temple staff are on hand to help you interpret the message.
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Drawing divination strips is extremely widespread among ordinary Chinese. To serve different needs, fortune and medicinal divination strips were developed, and even ways of choosing divinations at home. The custom spread far and wide, so that even many temples in neighboring Asian countries have divination poems.
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(left) Tianzhu Lingqian, printed in the mid-13th century during the late Southern Song dynasty, is the earliest set of divination poems discovered to date. Already very mature in form, they include illustrations, divination poems and explanations for various subjects of enquiry.
(courtesy of Lin Han-cheng)
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Thai divination poems.
(courtesy of Chuo Ko-hua)
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The divination poems at Hong Kong's Wong Tai Sin Temple are very well known, and one can often see worshippers kneeling on the ground clutching the pot of divination strips, reciting under their breath and asking for guidance. (photo by Chang Min-yi)
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Japanese Shinto shrines also have divination poems. After drawing a poem, many people tie them to trees to let ill fortune be blown away by the wind. (photo by Li Hsien-chang)
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Divination poems are the most common form of fortune telling among ordinary Chinese. From the rich and powerful down to ordinary people, when they meet with difficulties or problems in life they will often use divination poems to help them find their way out of trouble. (courtesy of Lin Han-cheng)