Overview
Key data
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Ascribed to | Li Chunfeng, Tang |
| Actual composition | Perhaps by a later hand, under Li Chunfeng’s name |
| Volumes | Fifty in the Ming edition |
| Contents | Star divination, sun and moon, clouds and vapours, wind |
On the ascription
The work is ascribed to Li Chunfeng, but its contents differ in many places from the Yisi Zhan,
and it is generally held to be by a later hand using Li Chunfeng’s name to give it weight.
⚠ The ancient star classics were mostly compiled by later hands, and the date of the received text must be kept apart from the period to which it is ascribed. The present texts were often put together in Tang or Song times and cannot simply be read as Warring States books.
Contents
Its categories are close to those of the Yisi Zhan but more elaborate: the sky, the sun and moon, the five planets,
clouds and vapours, wind angles, and military divination, each quoting earlier writers.
The Ming edition is large, and preserves a good deal of earlier divination literature.
Value
For the transmission of ancient astral divination this work is an instance of “one source, different versions.”
Its contents overlap heavily with the Yisi Zhan, but the books it quotes differ at points, so it can serve in collation.
Compiled and arranged by Chujia Kuang.