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Lingqijing (or Ling Ch'i Ching; 靈棋經 lit. "Classic of the Divine Chess") is a Chinese book of divination. It is not known when, nor by whom, it was written, though a legend has spread that strategist Zhang Liang received the book from Huang Shigong (黃石公), a semi-mythological figure in Chinese history. The first commented edition of the work appeared in the Jin Dynasty.

As its name suggests, the work concerns "divining" with tokens, such as Chinese chess (xiangqi i.e.象棋) pieces (instead of with the more traditional turtle shells or yarrow stalks used in I Ching divination).

Twelve Xiangqi pieces are used; each piece is a disc with a character on one side, and the other side unmarked. Four have the character for "up" (上, pronounced shang), four have the character for "middle" (中, zhong), and four have the character for "down" (下, xia), representing respectively the Three Realms: Heaven (天, tian), Humanity (人, ren), and Earth (地, di).

These pieces are cast onto a surface, and the text of the Lingqijing the resulting combination is in for what fortune the combination means.

The text of the Lingqijing has an entry for all 125 combinations (i.e., three kinds of pieces, times the five possibilities for each kind: one through four pieces landing face up, or none).

Notes

1. As can be seen in entry "Xiangqi", none of the characters 下, 中, or 上 occur actually as characters on Xiangqi pieces. The pieces for Lingqijing look like Xiangqi pieces, except for bearing these special characters.

See also

• I Ching - the most famous Chinese oracle, much more complex than the Lingqijing
• Taixuanjing - similar to the I Ching
• Xiangqi - the board game that is commonly called Chinese chess
• Qi Men Dun Jia - a divination/astrology
• Zhang Liang - a purported author of the Lingqijing
• Three Strategies of Huang Shigong - another work by another purported author/editor of the Lingqijing.

References

• Sawyer, Ralph D.; Sawyer, Mei-chün Lee (2004). Ling Ch'i Ching: A Classic Chinese Oracle. Westview Press. ISBN 9780813341743.
• Kashiwa, Ivan (October 1997). Spirit Tokens of the Ling Qi Jing (1 ed.). Weatherhill. ISBN 978-0834804005.
• 东方朔 ; 刘基军 (2004). 靈棋經 (in Chinese). 山东画报出版社. ISBN 7806038337. OCLC 56926286.

External links

• The dictionary definition of Lingqijing at Wiktionary

• Divination
• Chinese books of divination