Along with acupuncture, the best known representative of Chinese science in the West today is fengshui. The term is often translated as “geomancy,” though the two graphs that comprise the term simply mean “wind” and “water.” The practices associated with fengshui have been informed by ambiguity since their early beginnings – between a practice encouraging charlatanry based on mystification and a set of practical recommendations grounded in sensitivity to the natural environment. This article will ignore the mantic and divinatory aspects of fengshui, and the associated panoply of arcane symbolism of colors and animals and planets and stars, all of which distract from its more down‐to‐earth applications. Footnote 1
It was not until the 1950s that Western scholars began serious investigation of Chinese sciences, as signaled by the first volumes of Joseph Needham's monumental Science and Civilization in China. Needham devotes large sections of his second volume to the philosophies of...
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For a more detailed treatment of fengshui is its broader context, see Parkes (2003) and see Geomancy in China in this Encyclopaedia.
- 2.
The quote is cited from the article by H. Chatley in Samuel Couling's Encyclopaedia Sinica (1917).
- 3.
Cited from the Shiji (Records of the Historian), in the Cambridge History of China 1: 62.
- 4.
Western philosophy has generally devoted far more thought to abstract space than to live place: for a judicious restoration of this imbalance, see Casey (1997).
- 5.
For example, the Guanshi dili zhimeng (Mr. Guan's Geographical Indicator) attributed to the third‐century author Guan Lo, the Zhangshu (Book of Funerals) attributed to Guo Pu, and Wang Wei's Huangdi zhaijing (The Yellow Emperor's Siting Classic); see Needham (1956: 360).
- 6.
A comprehensive account of the practices of the Fujian School, with fascinating descriptions of the geomancer's compass, is to be found in Feuchtwang (1974: 18–95).
- 7.
- 8.
References
Bennett, Steven J. Patterns of the Sky and Earth: A Chinese Science of Applied Cosmology. Chinese Science 3 (1978): 1–26.
Casey, Edward S. The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
Clunas, Craig. Fruitful Sites: Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996.
Feuchtwang, Stephan D. R. An Anthropological Analysis of Chinese Geomancy. Ventiane, Laos: Vithagna, 1974.
Hadot, Pierre. Trans. Michael Chase. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.
Hay, John. Kernels of Energy, Bones of Earth: The Rock in Chinese Art. New York, NY: China Institute in America, 1985.
‐‐‐. Structure and Aesthetic Criteria in Chinese Rocks and Art. Res 13 (1987): 6–22.
Ji, Cheng. Trans. Alison Hardie. The Craft of Gardens. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
Jullien, François. The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China. Trans. Janet Lloyd. New York: Zone Books, 1995.
March, Andrew L. An Appreciation of Chinese geomancy. Journal of Asian Studies 25 (1968): 253–67.
Needham, Joseph. The Grand Titration: Science and Society in East and West. London: Allen & Unwin, 1969.
Needham, Joseph and Wang Ling. Science and Civilisation in China. History of Scientific Thought. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956.
‐‐‐. Science and Civilisation in China. Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Parkes, Graham. Waters, Winds, and Earth‐Energies: Fengshui and Sense of Place. Ed. Helaine Selin. Nature Across Cultures: Non‐Western Views of Nature and the Environment. Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer, 2003: 185–209.
‐‐‐. Thinking Rocks, Living Stones: Reflections on Chinese Lithophilia. Diogenes 52/4 (2005): 75–87.
Porkert, Manfred. The Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974.
Stein, Rolf A. Trans. Phyllis Brooks. The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings in Far Eastern Religious Thought. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990.
Twitchett, Dennis and John K. Fairbank eds. The Cambridge history of China. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Parkes, G. (2008). Fengshui. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8590
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8590
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-4559-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-4425-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law