Explaining the Ancient (Gu Ren)

Those familiar with qin (divination slips) obtainable after offering prayers at temples of Daoist deities and celestial immortals know that the Ancient (Gu Ren), incorporated onto the slip, helps explain the divination.

The ancient named, more often than not, would be someone popular or exemplary in Chinese history and/or folklore. However at times to get an ominous message across, the ancient can be someone quite obscure and only known to those who are well read or knowledgeable of things Chinese.

In line with tradition, one had included an ancient to help explain the Yi prognostication for the last two seasons of 2009 if readers could not decipher the messages of Autumn rain rockets and Winter drum beats in the distance. The ancient coined and proffered was: ‘Guan Lo advises Cao Cao not to move.’

Most Yi aficionados would have heard of Guan Lo, one of the best Yi diviners, par excellence, during the Three Kingdoms era. There was a poem praising Guan Lo which read like this:

Guan Lo was a seer of old,
Stars to him their secrets told.
Mysteries, occult and dim,
Were as daylight unto him.
His so subtle intellect
Could the shade of death detect,
But the secrets of his skill
Died with him, - are secrets still.

Readers of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms would certainly know about the exploits of Cao Cao the wily and skilled general whose sons forced the abdication of the last late Han emperor and founded the Wei Dynasty. In the chapter dedicated to Guan Lo and the Book of Changes, is where he advised Cao Cao not to move.

In addition he said, “In the coming spring there will be a conflagration in Hsutu.”

'Having been witness of the verification of Guan Lo’s words, Cao Cao was in no mood to neglect the warning. He stayed on in his palace, but he sent Cao Hung with five legions to assist in the defence of East Chuan, while Hsiahou Tun, with three legions, went to Hsutu to keep careful watch and be ready against any surprises. ……..

In spring, five co conspirators started fires in Hsutu and tried to kill Cao Cao with their small band of men and restore the Han emperor to his rightful place. With the forewarning from Guan Lo, Cao Cao had prepared for it and therefore the ‘surprised’ uprising failed.'

The forewarning by the seer and further actions by the ‘client’ averted the omen.

Do the more experienced Yi diviners see the similarity with the amenable actions of the US, Russia and China during Autumn 2009 which have deferred or may have averted the raining of rockets in the south east region?

One would say the particular omen looks more like deferred instead of averted since some leaders and/or states prefer to stir up trouble again. Read the past week’s political news. People and global investors may suffer as a result.

They shoot horses, don’t they? But troublemakers do not give a damn, since they either have power or powerful backings.

It looks like Heaven is still not below Earth, this Spring.