With the rise of the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-905), which is famous for its revival of literature generally and of poetical literature especially, which had hundreds of Buddhistic works translated from Sanskrit into Chinese, a new era opened, particularly favourable to the propagation of mystic and fanciful doctrines assuming, as geomancy had learned to do, the garb of national as well as Tauistic and Buddhistic philosophy. The notion of five planets (Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and Saturn) influencing the earth and every living being, made its first appearance about this time, and was eagerly taken hold of by the professors of Feng-shui. The above-mentioned “book of interment” became now a popular handbook, and various other books, among which the Han-lung-king (the canon on the art of rousing the dragon), the Ts’ing-nang-king (the canon of the green bag) and the E-lung-king (the canon on the doubtful dragon), are the most important. The Han-lung-king mentions also, in addition to the five planets, the above-mentioned nine stars, which some commentators refer to the constellation called bushel, whilst others explain them to be the seven stars of the Great Bear with two neighbouring stars, others again declaring them to be floating about in space. But the Han-lung-king bases on the influence of these stars a whole theory of selecting propitious sites for houses or tombs. The Ts’ing-nang-king opens with an exposition of the mystic properties of the combination of even and uneven numbers (1-6, 2-7, 3-8, 4-9, 5-10), and proceeds to lay down the rule, that everything in heaven has its counterpart (in corresponding numbers) on earth. The E-lung-king refers especially to those forms and outlines of nature where dragon and tiger do not prominently stand forth and are as it were concealed. The authorship of these three books is ascribed to Yang-kwan-tsung, who professed to be a disciple of Ko-po and who developed especially that part of the Feng-shui system which refers to the signs of dragon and tiger, to the direction and shape of watersheds and the influence of water-courses.

But it was not till the rise of the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960) that all the above-mentioned elements of the geomantic art gathered into one grand system, built up on a philosophical basis and developed methodically, so as to combine every form of influence which heaven may be said to exercise on earth and which both heaven and earth were supposed to have on human affairs. This system is in fact but a practical application of the materialistic speculations for which Chow-leen-k’e, Chang-ming-taou, the two brothers Ch’ing, and most especially the illustrious Choo-he gained such general acceptation, that their cosmogonic theory of the universe, their speculations concerning the Great Absolute, the male and female principles and the two-fold breath of nature as the prime agents of all physical phenomena, became the national faith of China. No wonder then the devotees of Feng-shui, wisely adopting all that was popular and attractive in this grand scheme of natural philosophy, and promulgating their fantastic geomantic speculations in accordance with the favourite terminology of Choo-he, came in for a share in that national favour and national popularity which the great philosophers of the Sung dynasty so justly obtained. A scholar called Wang-k’e was the chief representative of the Feng-shui profession at this time. He is assumed to be a disciple of Ko-po, and claims the credit of having invented the theory of the mutual production and destruction of the five elements. It was he that systematized, in the phraseology of the new philosophy, all the traditional ideas on geomancy and reorganized the Feng-shui art on the basis of Choo-he’s materialism.

At the present day the adherents of Feng-shui are divided into two classes or schools, the Tsung-miau (ancestral temple) school, which took its rise in Foh-kien, and the Kwang-si school. In the preceding chapters I have explained the more prominent theories which these schools have in common, and I have therefore merely to add, that these two schools are chiefly distinguished by the comparative prominence each gives to one or other of four divisions of the Feng-shui system. The Foh-kien school of geomancers, claiming Wang-k’e as their founder, attribute the greatest importance to the doctrines of the order of nature (Li) and of the numerical proportions of nature (Su). They are therefore specially attached to the use of the compass. The second school, called the Kwang-si school of geomancers, because it took its rise in the Kwang-si province, claim Yang-kwan-tsung as their founder, and lay the greatest stress on the doctrines of the breath (K’e) and outlines (Ying) of nature. They use the compass too, but only as a subordinate help in prospecting the country, for their principle is, first to look for the visible symptoms of dragon and tiger and of a good breath, and then to judge of the surrounding influences by consulting the compass.

These two schools have produced a very voluminous literature, which is, however, but an expansion of the above-mentioned ideas on the basis of the philosophy of Choo-he.

Having thus traced the history and literature of Feng-shui down to the present, it only remains for me to add a few words as to the extent of influence which this strange medley of superstition, ignorance and philosophy possesses at the present day.
Feng Shui, or the Rudiments of Natural Science in China by Ernest J. Eitel [b. 1839, d. 1908] Hong Kong: Trubner & Co., [1873]