Site Divination in Premodern East Asia

This project is an investigation into how practices related to site divination (also called geomancy, fengshui 風水, kanyu 堪輿, or shijin sōō 四神相応) changed over time and space and how these concepts became part of other religious traditions during their transmission throughout East Asia. The original goals of the project were three-fold: (1) to arrive at a better understanding of various forms of site divination in East Asia in general and in Japan in particular; (2) to differentiate between various types of site divination (for tombs, for private residences, for cities, for military camps, etc.); and (3) to investigate the transmission of theoretical and practical knowledge both geographically (from China to Korea and Japan) and temporally (ca. 3000 BCE–800 CE).