Chinese Divination on shooting stars
自《陶朱公致富奇書》
From Tao Zhugong's Wonder book bettering wealth
Tao Zhugong's Wonderbook for Bettering wealth- is a ming-dynasty compendium of agricultural knowledge. It is highly heterogeneous, containing advice to grow various kinds of plants, animal husbandry, and agricultural poems. One of the entries is this is a short divinatory text, showing what will happen if you see a shooting star - or meteor, travel in a particular direction. The interpretations concern weather (eg drought, flood, wind), but one deals with human catastrophes- robbers.A final section gives predictions based on the meteor's general appearance
I have chosen to base my translation on this copy: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b90064365/f92.item; an image of the full text (spliced together from 2 images) is shown above.
【占流星】
On Shooting Stars or Meteors
東向西移主來日有雨。
東向南移主來日火災。
東向北移主境內有賊。
If the Shooting Star moves from the East to the west: Rain in the coming days
East to South: Disaster by fire in the coming days
East to north: robbers nearby
西向東移主三日內有雨。
西向南移主當年水旱災傷。
西向北移主來日風雨大作。
W-E: Rain in three days
W-S: Drought, flood in the year; harmful
W-N: Great wind and rain
南向東移主旱。
南向西移主秋霜行雪。
南向北移主來日有霧。
S-E:Drought
S-W:Frost& snow in autumn
S-N Fog the next day
北向東移主連日雨不斷。
北向西移主水渰田禾。
北向南移來日陰而不雨
N-E: Continuous rain for many days
N-W:Water submerges the fields and rice
N-S: Cloudy in coming days but no rain
星碎碎散火而行，當年蝗蟲生。
星大而帶黑暈行，人民災厄。
星昏而行，江河泛漲。
If the shooting stars come in fragments [and resemble] scattered flames; there will be locusts that year
If the stars are big and bear a black halo, Disaster amongst the people
If the stars are foggy 昏 the rivers will burst and flood 泛漲
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