[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":12},["ShallowReactive",2],{"metaeast_metapost_en-qi-meng-dj-01":3},{"slug":4,"date_created":5,"date_updated":6,"title":7,"content1":8,"seotitle":9,"seodescription":10,"seo_keywords":11,"og_title":7,"og_description":10},"qi-meng-dj-01","2026-08-11T00:05:59.945Z","2026-07-04T14:35:19.000Z","Introduction to Qimen Dunjia","Qimen Dunjia is an ancient Chinese work on divination arts. It is also the foremost secret art among the Three Great Treasures of Qimen, Liuren, and Taiyi, the foremost of the Three Styles, and the most systematic in principle and method. \u003Cbr> \n When Qimen Dunjia was first established, it had four thousand three hundred and twenty configurations; Feng Hou refined it into one thousand and eighty configurations. This shows that Qimen Dunjia was the result of collective study by many generations of people in ancient China. It incorporates astronomy, calendrical science, military science, strategy, philosophy, and more. Today Qimen Dunjia is also commonly abbreviated as “Qimen,” “Qimendun,” or “Dunjia.” A folk saying goes: “Once you master Qimendun, you need not ask when someone comes.” \u003Cbr> \n  \u003Cbr> \n Qimen Dunjia was originally an ancient Chinese divination art. It is often considered a tool for divination. One view holds that Qimen Dunjia was a valuable traditional cultural heritage developed by the ancient Chinese through long observation and repeated verification in their struggle with nature. Functionally, Qimen Dunjia is divided into “Principled Qimen” and “Magical Qimen.” \u003Cbr> \n The basic configurations of Qimen Dunjia reflect the human affairs, daily life, and social systems of that era, as well as astronomy, geography, seasonal phenomena, and many other aspects. \u003Cbr> \n Qimen Dunjia originated in perceptual thinking. During its development, it comprehensively employed such methods as the associative power of using images and drawing analogies, the intuitive thinking of observing things and taking their images, the logical thinking of classifying and grouping, and the image-number thinking of exhausting numbers to understand transformation. The art of Qimen Dunjia is sometimes said to have been created by Feng Hou at the command of the Yellow Emperor when he campaigned against Chiyou. Its method uses the Luo River Writing and the Later Heaven Eight Trigrams, establishing Qimen according to the heavenly stems and earthly branches of the solar terms, dates, and times in order to select auspicious days. [2] \u003Cbr> \n The history of Qimen Dunjia’s development crystallized the wisdom of ancient Chinese social elites and outstanding working people in understanding and transforming nature. During the Zhou and Qin periods it was called “Yinfu”; during the Han and Wei periods it was renamed “Liujia”; during the Sui, Tang, Song, and Yuan periods it was called “Dunjia”; only after the Ming and Qing periods did it come to be collectively called “Qimen Dunjia.” \u003Cbr> \n Regarding the origin of Qimen Dunjia, the general story is that Chiyou caused disorder, the Yellow Emperor repeatedly fought but could not defeat him, and the Nine Heavens Xuannü transmitted Qimen Dunjia to Xuanyuan Huangdi, helping him destroy Chiyou. By this account, Qimen Dunjia has a history of more than five thousand years. It is called the highest-level predictive art, known as the learning of emperors or the highest predictive art; tradition says its founder was the Nine Heavens Xuannü. \u003Cbr> \n The Yellow Emperor can be called the first primitive-society leader in Chinese history to unify the Central Plains by force. “Descendants of Yan and Huang” and “Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors” both include the Yellow Emperor. The war between the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou is recorded in Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian: “All the feudal lords submitted to Xuanyuan. Chiyou caused disorder and would not obey the emperor’s commands, so the Yellow Emperor mobilized the armies of the feudal lords and fought Chiyou in the wilderness of Zhuolu, eventually capturing and killing him. Afterward, whenever there was anyone under Heaven who did not submit, the Yellow Emperor went and conquered them; once they were pacified, he removed them.”” Sima Qian was a historian, but he also had a strong interest in astrology, divination arts, and the worship and ritual offerings to gods. \u003Cbr> \n In the Records of the Grand Historian, he devoted two separate chapters to the study of divination arts: “Biographies of the Astrologers” and “Biographies of the Tortoise and Milfoil.” Yet when recounting the war between the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou, he used not the slightest mythological tone. The Yellow Emperor unified the Central Plains through warfare and can be called the first military commander in Chinese history. Later generations attributed the invention of Qimen Dunjia to the illustrious Yellow Emperor in order to elevate it into an art of governing the state, securing peace, and arranging troops in battle.Typical representative figures in antiquity included the Yellow Emperor, Feng Hou, Jiang Shang, Zhang Liang, Zhuge Liang, and Liu Bowen. \u003Cbr> \n These historical records and legends show that Qimen Dunjia was not created by one person, but was the result of joint creation by several or even many generations. It contains the philosophical wisdom of the nation, calendrical science, views of the cosmos and society, astronomical knowledge, military science, strategy, and more. These records and legends also tell us that, because of the rule of ancient feudal imperial power, Qimen Dunjia remained in the hands of only a very small number of people for a considerable period after its emergence. \u003Cbr> \n  \u003Cbr> \n In modern society, the elementary application of Qimen Dunjia is mainly prediction; advanced applications are resolution and strategic planning. \u003Cbr> \n When Xuanyuan Huangdi fought a great battle against Chiyou, our ancestor Huangdi and Chiyou engaged in an unprecedented battle at Zhuolu. Chiyou was seven chi tall, with an iron head and bronze body impervious to blades and spears, and he could summon wind and rain. On the battlefield he created a dense fog, causing Huangdi’s troops to lose their direction. \u003Cbr> \n In traditional Chinese culture, Qimen Dunjia is based on the I Ching’s Eight Trigrams and combines astrological calendrics, astronomy and geography, the Eight Gates and Nine Stars, yin-yang and the five phases, and the Three Wonders and Six Instruments. It is the culmination of Chinese predictive arts and the highest level of prediction within the I Ching, which is why Qimen Dunjia has been called the learning of emperors since ancient times. Most sages who used Qimen Dunjia in antiquity were military advisers who governed the state and pacified the realm, such as Jiang Taigong, Fan Li, Zhang Liang, Zhuge Liang, and Liu Bowen. \u003Cbr> \n In ancient China, Qimen Dunjia was mainly used for state affairs and military strategy. \u003Cbr> \n Through its unique system of thought and logical procedures, the divination art of Qimen Dunjia reveals humanity’s flexible instinct to shift between different fixed patterns of thought across different cognitive spaces and times. For this reason, it has been greatly esteemed by imperial households for thousands of years. Qimen Dunjia cannot be separated from the thinking of the I Ching; it analyzes underlying patterns comprehensively, from multiple angles, and at different levels. [1]","Introduction to Qimen Dunjia_An Introduction to Charting Principles_Eastern Metaphysics Library","A basic introduction to Qimen Dunjia: the origins and structural principles of this ancient Chinese divination art, helping beginners develop an overall understanding of Qimen Dunjia.","Qimen Dunjia, charting, Three Styles, Chinese divination arts, beginner’s guide",1787044934880]