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Chapter 12 of 12
易冒
Yi Mao consists of ten volumes, written by Cheng Liangyu of the Qing Dynasty. Cheng Liangyu, styled Yuanru, was a native of She County, Anhui Province. The core method discussed throughout the book is the Liuyao Najia (Six Lines with Embedded Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches) technique, which uses copper coins in place of yarrow stalks for divination.
According to the author's own preface, he lost his sight at the age of five and thereafter devoted himself wholeheartedly to the study of divination. He initially wrote fifty chapters titled Shi Lei (Categories of Divination). By the year Kangxi Jimao (1699), while traveling through the Huguang region, he encountered an elder styled Ku Pao Lao Ren (the Old Man of the Dried Gourd), from whom he obtained closely guarded secrets of judgment. He then expanded and revised the original work into ninety chapters, titling it Yi Mao.
However, the editors of the Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries) held this work in low regard, considering its discussions to be mostly common talk current among practitioners of the arts, lacking any particularly refined or original insight. Their specific criticisms concentrated on the following points:
This abstract epitomizes the examination standards that Qing Dynasty official academia applied to folk divination literature. The Siku editors' criticism did not entail wholesale rejection of the Liuyao Najia technique; rather, they raised methodological objections on three levels:
First, logical self-consistency. Taking the example of "when the Father line flourishes, it overcomes the Son" from the Households chapter—within the Six Lines system, the Father line and the Son line do indeed have an overcoming relationship (the Father overcomes the Son). However, the direct deduction that "flourishing necessarily leads to overcoming" overlooks the integrated judgment involving selection of the Yong Deity and the relationship between Shi (Self) and Ying (Other). Reducing Five Element generation and control to a one-way causal chain is indeed hasty and crude in logic.
Second, systematic coherence. In Six Lines practice, the star deity system has always been a supplementary consideration. If given its own separate chapter with excessive weight in determining fortune, it easily results in a proliferation of judgment criteria without proper hierarchy. The Siku editors' dismissal of it as "far-fetched and fragmented" essentially calls for a return to the rational track centered on Five Element generation and control with proper checks and balances.
Third, methodological foundations. In the Marriage chapter, not examining the flourishing or decline of the Yong Deity while relying solely on the favorable or unfavorable meanings of hexagram names represents a typical error of taking things at face value. Hexagram names hold only limited reference value within the Najia system; the core lies in the flourishing, decline, movement, generation, control, clash, and union of the Yong Deity (specifically, the Wife's Wealth and the Officer lines).
The Siku editors' criticisms contain elements of sectarian bias, but they indeed point to certain methodological laxities in Yi Mao. Viewed from today's perspective:
On the "Households chapter" controversy — Interpretations such as "brother line flourishes, therefore loss of wealth" or "father line flourishes, therefore harm to the son" are not entirely groundless within traditional Six Lines practice. In the Liuyao system, pairing the Six Relatives with the Six Spirits for analyzing family member relationships does include experiential summaries such as "the Brother line holding the Shi position indicates financial loss" and "the Father line moving portends disadvantage to the Son." The problem is that these conclusions must be established within an overall framework where the Yong Deity is clearly determined, Shi-Ying relationships are unambiguous, and movement and transformation are well substantiated—not deduced simply from the flourishing or decline of a single line. The Siku editors' criticism in effect emphasizes the necessity of systematic thinking.
On the "Marriage chapter" criticism — If Yi Mao indeed follows the approach described in the abstract—"judging solely by the beauty or ugliness of the hexagram names"—that does constitute a significant methodological flaw. The core of marriage divination lies in: the flourishing or decline status of the Wife's Wealth and Officer lines, the generation, control, clash, and union relationships between Shi and Ying, and the beneficial or harmful effects of moving lines upon the Yong Deity. Hexagram names such as "Xian" (mutual stimulation), "Heng" (endurance), and "Tai" (peace) certainly carry auspicious connotations in terms of principle and meaning—but if the Yong Deity is resting and declining while being subjected to control, no amount of beauty in the hexagram name can warrant an auspicious judgment. This reminds us: any divination system must be grounded in its core analytical framework and must not abandon fundamental concerns in favor of trivialities.
For those who study Liuyao Najia, the criticisms of Yi Mao in the Siku Quanshu Synopsis offer several significant methodological warnings:
| Warning Point | Specific Meaning | Practical Principle |
|---|---|---|
| Do not judge the whole by a single line | One must not directly deduce an event's outcome from the flourishing or decline of only one line | Comprehensively examine the Yong Deity, Shi-Ying, movement and transformation, and day/month construction |
| Star deities are auxiliary, not primary | Star omens and spiritual influences serve only as supplemental references—they must not become the main basis for judgment | Let Five Element generation and control serve as the trunk while star deities serve as the branches |
| Hexagram names are not criteria for fortune | The favorable or unfavorable meaning of a hexagram name has no necessary causal link to divination results | The core concern is the Yong Deity's flourishing or decline, and its generation, control, clash, and union |
| Logic must be self-sufficient | Any judgment should be rationally derivable within the system | Cultivate a habit of analysis based on "condition—deduction—verification" |
In modern decision-support scenarios, the corresponding way of thinking these principles indicate is: establish a clearly prioritized analytical framework, avoid basing decisions on a single signal, and eliminate superficial or label-based judgments.
This synopsis reflects a deeper question: How should "principle" (li) and "image" (xiang) be coordinated within a divination system?
The Siku editors, from the standpoint of the school of principle and meaning, criticized the image-and-number approach of Yi Mao, holding that judging solely by line images, star deities, and hexagram names lacked theoretical foundation. But Liuyao Najia is itself a highly symbolically structured decision-support system, whose value lies not in conforming to some external "principle" but in whether it can help users organize information, clarify thoughts, and arrive at judgments through a stable system of symbol-mapping rules.
From the perspective of modern cognitive science, Six Lines divination resembles a heuristic decision framework: it translates complex social life situations into the language of hexagram imagery, then derives likelihood-based conclusions through routinized deductive reasoning. The effectiveness of this framework depends on the internal consistency of its rules and the interpretive competence of its users, not on whether it corresponds to some metaphysical "truth."
The Siku editors' critique reminds us that any divination system that is internally inconsistent or remains at the surface level loses its value as a thinking tool. Maintaining logical rigor and methodological self-awareness is precisely what confers a lasting vitality upon such a system.