The Sutra of the Sun and moon: Part 2: The Sutra of the Moon 太陰星君聖經

In this post I will translate The Sutra of the Moon 太陰星君聖經, or Sutra of the Stellar Worthy of the Great Yin which is a hymn to the Moon. In a previous post I have translated The Sutra of the Sun 太陽星君聖經 , its companion. That post contains more context about these sutras. 

The Sutra of the Sun and moon: Part 1: The Sutra of the Sun 太陽星君聖經

The Sutra of the Sun 太陽星君聖經 

In this post I will translate the Sutra of the sun. This sutra- or scripture- is mostly a short hymn in praise of the god of the Sun, the Stellar Worthy of Great Yang 太陽星君. 

  

觀世音菩薩靈杯圖 The Divine Jiaobei of Guanyin

  In this post I will translate a buddhist divinatory text, The Divine Jiaobei of Guanyin. This occurs as part an appendix to Guanyin's lot oracle 觀音靈簽, or the Divine Lots of the Goddess of Mercy.

Buddhist Apocrypha: 生天經(偽造) The Scripture on birth in the Heavens

 生天經(偽造)

The Scripture on birth in the Heavens  (APOCRYPHAL)

This is the third of a series of buddhist apocrypha from that are collected in this 1931 edition of Chanmen Risong: 禪門日誦 Zen Daily Recitations. For an introduction to what this book is, you should read this post about another apocryphon in the same collection, the Scripture of Wondrous Sand

Unlike the others, this rather short apocryphon has a moral dimension, describing immoral acts that one must abstain from to have a fortunate rebirth in the Heavenly Realm. However, like all the other apocrypha in this collection, it contains an incantation. It is my speculation that this incantation caused the scripture to remain in circulation, perhaps as a funerary text. as far as i can tell, however, it is not used as such today, and the scripture, like most of the others in this collection, have ceased to be recited or printed. 

The Scripture as presented in the Zen Daily Recitations. 

https://books.google.com/books?id=qObnAAAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&pg=PP94#v=onepage&q&f=false

  

A chart showing the auspiciousness of the 28 Lunar Mansions 二十八宿吉凶定居图: Chinese electional astrology

In this post I shall translate a short Chinese electional astrology text on the "Lunar mansions" or Xiu. It comes from the 2018 edn of the 集福堂 “Hall of collected fortune" almanac of China. This post was based on a twitter thread I published in 2021 https://x.com/edwardW2/status/1435541551598342146/

There are many such texts that are currently circulating in Chinese almanacs. They vary in form and content; some are 4 lines of 7-character verse; others have 8 lines of verse. per lunar mansion This particular poem. however is particularly concise- each judgment merely 12 characters long. Hence it is a ripe candidate for translation.

As some of my readers are no doubt aware, these Xiu 宿 are Chinese constellations. However, we are not concerned with these constellations today, but rather with their current use: as a cycle of 28 days that has no relation to the moon's position in the sky whatsoever. (Think of it as a 28-day week) Chinese almanacs tabulate what is the Xiu or lunar mansion assigned to a particular day. For example, the day I type this (10 Feb 2025) is assigned to the Xiu 心- heart, the 5th lunar mansion. Reading the relevant poem, we find it is an inauspicious day to marry or build. Tomorrow, by contrast will be assigned the 6th lunar mansion, Wei the tail. This is a propitious day to build or bury, as it brings officials.

Each Xiu is associated with an animal. I have taken the translations of the animal names from Thomas Thomas F. Aylward's _The Imperial Guide to Feng Shui and Chinese Astrology (his translation of 協記[辦方書)

which is one of the very few good books on Chinese astrology in English. Each entry of this text is headed with a small drawing of the relevant animal, which adds much to its charm.

Again, you might notice that each of the names of the xiu are associated with a planet/ one of the 5 phases. When the xiu are used in practise, each xiu lines up one of the seven days of the week; so, all the xiu assigned to the "sun"in them fall on Sundays; all the xiu with the word "Fire" on them fall on Tuesdays (as Tuesday- Mars day (martidi) - 火曜日)

As regards the categories of elections, the categories that are mentioned almost invariably in each entry are burial, marriage and construction- things which are in generally the preoccupation of Chinese electional astrology.

Some entries need a bit more explaining, such as mentions of “Doors” and “Water”. Doors, refers to auspicious days to fix/repair doors. “Releasing Water” I gather, surrounds opening irrigation ditches and suchlike works.Finally, as regards to the caveat attached at the end of the whole text, what the book is referring to is a rather complex form of divination called the "Evolving beasts" 演禽術, which somewhat resembles Greater Six Ren 大六壬 divination

Some other almanacs, like the Hong Kong 廣經堂 - Hall of Broad Classics almanac express an even more extreme skepticism about the lunar mansions:

值於舊曆書內所載之二十八宿，原為西城人士紀曆之用，本無吉凶之分，玉匣記附以吉凶詩斷，協記己闢非，今仍註於六甲子日之下者，實為保留紀曆作用，對星宿吉凶論斷，實毋需重視也。

"in the old calendars, were recorded the 28 mansions . These were originally used by the people of the Western Lands to record time, and originally were not divided into auspicious or inauspicious [xiu]. The Jade Box Record 玉匣記, has an appendix which contain poems judging the auspiciousness of each of the xiu; however The Imperial Guide to Feng Shui and Chinese Astrology has shown why [these poems] are baseless 闢非. These lunar mansions are placed beneath the 60 Stems and branches (in this almanac), for the sake of preserving their calendarical use. As for their [in]auspiciousness, in truth, one should put much stock by them.

Ancestor Peng's Hundred Prohibitions 彭祖百忌- Chinese electional astrology

I will now translate a short text of Chinese electional astrology, the Pengzu Bai ji = 彭祖百忌, "Ancestor Peng's hundred prohibitions" This is possibly the simplest text of Chinese Electional astrology there is, but AFAIK has never been translated into English. This blogpost is a republication of a twitter thread I did in about 2020. Ancestor Peng's Hundred Prohibitions shows the inauspicious activities for each of the ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches. To use a western analogy, it is no more complex than using the day of the week to find auspicious days to do something. The present version was derived from the Baidu text https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BD%AD%E7%A5%96%E7%99%BE%E5%BF%8C, which agrees with most printed sources. I have however referred to two other compendia of electional astrology, the Aspects of Auspiciousness almanac 象吉通書, and the Ao's head almanac 鰲頭通書 for alternate entries.

As a matter of background, The Chinese measure time using two cycles, one of ten terms which represents the 5 “Chinese elements” in their Yin and Yang forms), called the Heavenly stems, and one of 12 terms, which is the familiar chinese zodiac animals.The 2 cycles run concurrently, so the end result is the combinations of heavenly stems and earthly branches repeat every 60 terms.
Now, years, months, days and two-hour periods of each day are all assigned such terms. For the purposes of this text we are looking at the terms associated with the day. If you know the stem and branch associated with each day, The text shows what you should not do for on that day- hence its name
For example, the day I first posted this text on twitter-- 20 march 2020 was the day of the Yang Water Dog 壬戌, the 59th term of the cycle. as today has the Heavenly stem of Yang Water, I should not attempt to brew. As today has the earthly branch of the Dog, I should also not attempt to eat dogs.Similarly, As the next day was the day of the Yin Water Pig 癸亥, I should also not attempt to sue anyone, or get married. Furthermore As the sexagenary cycle is also used to number hours, some sources say that the prohibitions apply to the hours of the day as well.