At a glance
- Reading focus
- Compare input, generation, lookup and interpretation separately.
Definition and details
Compare the data used, result-generation procedure, textual lookup and interpreter. Birth information, present time, casts and written forms are different inputs; six labels, piece counts and classical figures are different outputs. Structural comparison helps identify a method without ranking predictive accuracy by complexity, age or association with a famous author.
Structure and history
Hanshu’s six bibliographic groups show historically situated classification. Xiao Liu Ren, Lingqi and oracle slips use fingers, pieces and paper, while Taixuan’s eighty-one heads differ from Lingqi’s 125 count combinations. Result-space counts describe structure, not comparative efficacy or equal probabilities for all outcomes produced by physical casting.
A concrete example
Compare three cases: month–day–hour counting yields a six-position label, twelve cast pieces select a Lingqi passage, and a numbered lot selects an oracle poem. Counts and lookup can be checked, but meanings depend on witness and setting. Matching favorable labels do not establish independent scientific confirmation, especially when interpretations influence one another.
Context and limits
Distinguish practitioners’ accounts, observed operations and controlled efficacy research, recording whether the interpreter knew the question beforehand. Different inputs can make outcomes non-interchangeable despite shared terminology. Comparison can guide cultural reading without medical, investment or relationship recommendations; acknowledging missing procedures and variant witnesses is more useful than inventing one all-purpose divinatory classification.
References & further reading
Historical sources document ideas and rules of their time, not empirical proof of predictive accuracy. Source notes identify the nature and scope of each reference.
- Taiwan MOE Revised Mandarin Dictionary · 小六壬Institutional / reference source
Government dictionary explicitly lists six positions and finger-counting by month, day and hour; not an authorship source.
- 靈棋經（四庫全書本）· 全覽Primary / tradition source
Public-domain twelve-piece procedure and texts with an account questioning prestigious attributions.
- 太玄經Primary / tradition source
Public-domain Yang Xiong text with directly inspectable eighty-one heads, statements and explanations.
- National Museum of Natural Science · 籤詩Institutional / reference source
Museum interpretation of oracle slips, printing blocks, donors and consultation procedures.
- 漢書 · 卷030 藝文志Primary / tradition source
Public-domain bibliographic history with astronomy, calendars, phases, turtle/stalk, miscellaneous and form categories.