Lo-pan

Chinese Occultism, by Paul Carus, [1907], at sacred-texts.com

p. 58

LO-PAN.

Collectors of curios may have seen in Chinese stores the instrument called lo-pan ^* (net-tablet), or lo-king ^† (net-standard), or pan-shih ^‡ (disk-norm). This is the geomancer's compass which incorporates

Click to enlarge
LO-PAN OR NET TABLET.

[The original is in the possession of Prof. Friedrich Hirth.]

the sum-total of feng-shui. The Chinese salesman who showed the instrument at my request, a man who must have lived half his life or more in the United States, expressed great respect for it and tried to impress me with the fact that it contained the deepest wisdom of the ages.

The lo-pan is a disk of lacquered wood, mostly of yellow color,

p. 59

carrying in its center under glass, a small mariner's compass. Some of the characters written in the surrounding circles are red, and some are black. Different copies differ in details, but all are practically the same in their general and most characteristic features. The concentric circles of the net tablet are called ts‘eng, ^* i.e., "tiers," "stories," or "strata."

The mariner's compass in the center represents t‘ai chih, ^† "the great origin." The first circle contains the eight trigrams in the arrangement of Fuh-Hi, which denote the eight directions of the compass and the virtues and properties attributed to them.

The second circle contains the numerals from one to nine in the arrangement of the magic square, the five being omitted as it belongs in the center. Accordingly the sum of each two opposite figures always makes ten.

The third row represents twenty-four celestial constellations, each expressed in two characters, so that three names are registered in each octant.

The fourth circle represents in occult terms twenty-four divisions of the compass. Southeast, southwest, northeast, and northwest are written in their kwa names, while the rest are designated alternately by the ten stems and twelve branches; two of the stems are omitted, however, because referring to the element earth, they are supposed to belong in the center. If we write the ten stems as numerals from one to ten, the twelve branches in italic letters from a to m, and the four kwa names in Roman capitals A to D, we have the following arrangement, beginning in the southeast: A f 3 g 4 h B i 7 k 8 l C m 9 a 10 b D c 1 d 2 e. This arrangement is ancient for it is quoted as an established part of the divining method by Sze-Ma Ch‘ien in the twenty-fifth chapter of his Historical Records, which is devoted to the art of divination.

The fifth circle is divided into seventy-two parts each containing two characters of the sexagenary cycle, written one above the other, and arranged in groups of five divided by blank spaces. If we again express the ten stems in figures and the twelve branches

p. 60

in italics, the scheme (starting with the first branch a standing in the north) reads as follows:

In the sixth row each octant is divided into three sections, each having five compartments in the second and fourth of which appear two characters of the sexagenary cycle. Accordingly they are arranged in the following order, the blanks being expressed by zeros:

[paragraph continues] The third and fourth stems refer to fire and the seventh and eighth to metal.

The seventh row is devoted to the eight stars of the Dipper, which in Chinese folklore is regarded with much awe, because this most conspicuous constellation revolves around the polar star and seems to resemble the hand of a watch on the great celestial dial of the universe. We must remember that the seventh star is double, its luminous satellite being visible even without the assistance of a telescope. If we represent the names of the eight stars by numbers from one to eight, their arrangement beginning with the southwest is as follows: 1 8 5 7 4 4 6 2 3 1 5 7 8 1 3 2 6 6 4 7 5 8 3 2.

Beyond the seventh circle we have a double line which divides the seven inner rows from the nine outer ones. The first of these, the eighth circle, is divided into twelve sections each having three characters, the central ones written in red being the sun and moon

p. 61

together with the five elements twice repeated. Beginning in the south with the character sun, and turning toward the left, they read as follows: sun, moon, water, metal, fire, wood, earth, earth, wood, fire, metal, water.

The ninth row, consisting of twelve sections, represents the twelve branches in regular succession, beginning in the north with the first and turning toward the right. They coincide in position with the twelve branches as they appear in the fourth row.

The tenth row is a repetition of the fifth, with the exception that here the characters are distributed evenly over the whole circle.

The eleventh row consists of numerals only. The circle is divided into twelve sections, each being subdivided into five compartments which contain the following scheme repeated twelve times: | 37 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 73 |.

The twelfth row is inscribed with the names of the sub-divisions of the four seasons, beginning with early spring above the unalloyed yin and turning toward the right.

p. 62

The thirteenth row is divided into seventy-two equal parts, which are left blank.

The fifteenth row is divided into three hundred and sixty equal blanks representing the degrees of a circle which method of division the Chinese as well as we of the Occident have inherited from the Babylonians.

The sixteenth row contains the names of the twenty-eight constellations together with the number of degrees which each covers. These degrees are specifically marked in the fourteenth circle in which the odd numbers only are expressed. The series starting in the southeast and turning toward the right, is as follows:

p. 63

Footnotes

58:*

58:†

58:‡

59:*

59:†

62:19 The Chinese term mao does not possess any other significance except the name of this constellation. This character is unfortunately misprinted in Mayers, Chinese Reader's Manual. It is correct in the enumeration of Professor De Groot, loc. cit., p. 972.