Much has been said about this mysterious art. The following is an article all about QMDJ taken from a source I've forgotten. Happen to see it in my database, thought I would post it before it is forgotten.
Part 1
The General
What is Dunjia?
Qi Men Dun Jia (or Qimendunjia) is one of the three most powerful oracles--Tai Yee, Liu Ren and Qi Men---to know both good luck and bad luck in aspects of time and space(direction). Tai Yee is used to divine the big events that happen with countries, such as earthquake, big hurricanes, massacre, natural disasters, etc. Qi Men is generally used for military action and take what strategic methods in ever-changing battle field. Liu Ren is mostly used for divining the general daily events which means it is close to our daily life.
Qi means mysterious or strange in usual, but here, it means valuable or holy. Men means a gate, and Dun means hidden or escaped (to make hidden), and Jia is the first one of ten stems, which is considered as the most sacred in this method.
All the three oracles use very special chart to divine and give conclusion. Yes, all of them cannot do without Heavenly stems, earthly branches, Ho-tu drawing, Luo-shu Drawing, Eight Trigrams, Emblematic elements and divine number, etc.
Dunjia can be divided into Year School Dunjia, Month School Dunjia, Day School Dunjia and Time School Dunjia in terms of the time. In terms of reasoning methods it should be divided into Line-Up Palace Dunjia and Jump-in-Palace Dunjia.
Here we introduce Time School Dunjia, Line-Up Palace Dunjia.
People may ask when the Dunjia came into presence and why it existed. Nowadays many people believe Dunjia originated from military force arrangements in the battle field and such statements gained wide approval in the scholar circle.
In the very old book The Song from Old Fishing Man carried the following story:
XuanYuan Emperor fought a fierce battle with Shi You without results for many years. In a dream he dreamed Heaven gave him an oracle and XuanYuan paid respect in a sacrifice platform and practiced such arts latter and got a final success soon after. He ordered military man Feng Hou to write down the arts in words and that was the beginning of Dunjia.
Also, it was Spring and Warring Times when the so many states fought endless battles to occupy territory and there was enough demand for application of such arts.
Also the book Arts of War carried similar words concerning the theory of Dunjia. Yet, most people don't understand the meaning exactly till now.
In Three-Dynasty Times the famous military counsellor Zhu Ge Liang applied Eight Trigram Arrangement in the battle field and won many times of success.
In Dun Jia(or Dunjia) theory, we use a kind of direction chart called Pan, which is drawed as a square divided into nine blocks( 3 x 3. eight directions and centre ). In each directional block, one of the eight gates is positioned. We put away Jia(because of its holiness) and use other nine stems to put them into Dun Jia Pan chart at first, and after several process of making, Jia comes into the Pan chart from one of the eight gates. And that's why this method is called Qi Men Dun Jia.
Later due to the wide application of Dunjia this divination approach gradually broke its own boundary and gained application in disease diagnosis, business desicion, agricultural divination, etc.
Why Dunjia be Used for Divination?
Any divination approaches, whatever forms they assume, are models set up to imitate the social society, the nature and the universe, etc. Dunjia is a mathematic and physical model set up by incorporating heaven aspect, earth aspect, human aspect and unexpected aspect, the time elements and space elements. There are basic nine Yang Dun Ju and nine Yin Dun Ju which provide us a dynamic unified model to imitate all transformations and changes for universal things. Therefore it can be used to divine the society, nature, individual life time or all which stays out of human's reasoning ability. By calculation we know there are altogether 216,000 Jus and ancient Chinese people hope that 216,000 Jus can imitate most part of situation in this practical world.
This is one of the most typical characteristics of Dunjia. In ancient age, those who won using Dunjia tried to keep it as top-secret, and suppressed Dunjia-masters to prevent from Dunjia-secret leaking to the enemies of the governors.
Many Dunjia-masters were arrested, but they'd never made the secret of Dunjia clear.
Basic Background
1. Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches, Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams
1-1. Heavenly Stems
Most people are familair with Heavenly Stems, there are Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren and Gui. For Western people, they may feel difficult to understand the meaning and remember them. In fact, ten Heavenly Stems have close connection with the movements of sun. It was heard that Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches were created by Da Nao, a very mysterious figure in ancient China.The following lists the general meaning of ten Heavenly Stems:
1. Jia: Bud - the sign of growth
2. Yi: Sprout - the spread of growth, bursting forth from Earth
3. Bing: Concentrated growth like fire in the house
4. Ding: Maturity, solidity, Heavens kiss.
5. Wu; Flourishing and nuturing
6. Ji: Full bloom
7. Geng: Harvesting and abundance. Fullness leading to changes
8. Xin: Dead heading, reformation
9. Ren: Sustenance, supporting life
10. Gui: Regenerating roots and preparation for spring
In terms of Five Elements attributes, ten Heavenly Stems fall in to the following category
Five Element Yin Yang
Jia(HS01) wood yang
Yi(HS02) wood yin
Bing(HS03) fire yang
Ding(HS04) fire yin
Wu(HS05) earth yang
Ji(HS06) earth yin
Geng(HS07) metal yang
Xin(HS08) metal yin
Ren(HS09) water yang
Gui(HS10) water yin
1-2. Earthly Branches
Earthly Branches have close connection with the movements of moon. They are described as follows:
1. Zi: Young shoot of a plant
2. Chou: Young plant supported by stick
3. Yin: Celebration of spring and New Year
4. Mao: Life springing forth
5. Chen: Pregnant and timid
6. Si: 7 months pregnant with fully formed embryo
7. Wu: Summer solstice
8. Wei: Big tree with solid branches
9. Shen:Expansion
10. You: Harvest, celebration
11. Xu: Clearing and preparation
12. Hai: Conception, mating of yin and yang
In terms of Five Elements attributes, ten Earthly Branches fall in to the following category:
Zi(EB01) water yang
Chou(EB02) earth yin
Yin(EB03) wood yang
Mao(EB04) wood yin
Chen(EB05) earth yang
Si(EB06) fire yin
Wu(EB07) fire yang
Wei(EB08) earth yin
Shen(EB09) metal yang
You(EB10) metal yin
Xu(EB11) earth yang
Hai(EB12) water yin
1-3. Orientation Attributes for Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches
Orientation Season Heavenly Stems Earthly Branches
East Spring Jia, Yi Yin, Mou
South Summer Bing, Ding Si, Wu
Center End of each four seasons Wu, Ji Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei
West Autumn Geng, Xin Shen, You
North Winter Ren, Gui Hai, Zi
1-4. The Application of Ten Heavenly Stems in Dunjia
Besides the time meaning represented by the ten Heavenly Stems, each Heavenly Stem has hidden meaning which denotes the personalized military force. Jia denotes the general who often hides in the military force arrangements. Just on account of this it is called Dunjia--Dun means hidden in Chinese, Jia indicates the first Heavenly Stem Jia. Yi, Bing and Ding are often called Three Wonders. In fact, they are three important assistant commanders close to the general. In modern military framework, they are similiar to the headquater, political department and logistic department. Sometimes we can understand them as the following below: Yi is the idea man, Bing is the general's bodyguard, and Ding is the logistic officer.
Sometimes we can regard the three as the arm forces often appearing suddenly.
Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren and Gui are six detachments (We call Liu Yi), each holding up flag of different color.
Wu, earth element, yang, holds up a just-yellow flag
Ji, earth element, yin, holds up a deputy-yellow flag
Geng, metal element, yang, holds up a just-white flag
Xin, metal element, yin, holds up a deputy-white flag
Ren, water element, yang, holds up a just-black flag
Gui, water element, yin, holds up a deputy-black flag.
In the sixty Stems and Branches system, Heavenly Stems will repeat six times while the Earthly Branches repeat 5 times, forming sixty combinations.
So, ancient Chinese people regard sixty years as one cycle. In one cycle Jia should appear six times, they are Jia-Zi, Jia-Xu, Jia-Shen, Jia-Wu, Jia-Chen and Jia-Yin. In them the Jia-Zi is the general, the other five are commenders. The six military officers should hide themselves each under a different flag and they should not change anyway.
Jia-Zi hides under the just-yellow flag holding up by Wu
Jia-Xu hides under the deputy-yellow flag holding up by Ji
Jia-Shen hides under the just-white flag holding up by Geng
Jia-Wu hides under the deputy-white flag holding up by Xin
Jia-Chen hides under the just-black flag holding up by Ren
Jia-Yin hides under the deputy-black flag holding up by Gui
1-5. Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams.
Nine Palaces derived from Luo-Shu Drawings. I assumed readers here should have some basic understanding of I-Ching. Alternatively, you can start by getting a book e.g. 'The Book Of Changes And The Unchanging truth' by Mr.Hua-Ching Ni.
1-6. San Qi
San Qi means three high-valued wonderful commanders or enforcements and consists of (sun wonder), (Moon wonder) and (star wonder).
1-7 Liu Yi
(The sixty jia-zi is divided into six groups of tens. Each group would start with a Jia stem, e.g. Jia-zi Wu, Jia-xu Ji, .....)
Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren and Gui are six detachments (We call Liu Yi), each holding up flag of different color, under which six Jia-Zi, Jia-Xu, Jia-Shen, Jia-Wu, Jia-Chen and Jia-Yin hide under them.
Wu, earth element, yang, holds up a just-yellow flag
Ji, earth element, yin, holds up a deputy-yellow flag
Geng, metal element, yang, holds up a just-white flag
Xin, metal element, yin, holds up a deputy-white flag
Ren, water element, yang, holds up a just-black flag
Gui, water element, yin, holds up a deputy-black flag.
That's all for now.
article courtesy of.... post it when I remembered.
