Astrological Fate Calculation Canon 称星灵台秘要经

Author unknown. According to the preface at the beginning of the scroll, the author should have been a person living during the Qianning reign of Emperor Zhaozong of the Tang Dynasty (894–897). Bibliographical Outline of General Records lists “Ling Tai Mi Bao Fu Shu, one volume, by Dou Zitong” under the Taoist category; History of the Song Dynasty · Bibliography records “Tong You Zi Ling Tai Yin Mi Bao Fu, one volume, by a hermit of Fufeng” under the Miscellaneous category—both are suspected to be this work.

The extant edition is one volume, included in the Zhengyi Section of The Daozang.

Astrological Fate Calculation Canon

This book deals with the arts of disaster appeasement and fortune-telling. Its content can be divided into two parts. The first half discusses the generation and restriction of the Five Elements, and records various methods for averting disasters, such as the method to avert inauspicious stars, the method to avert fire disasters, the method to avert earth offenses, the method to avert wood offenses, the method to avert dark luminaries, and so on. The second half presents astrological and calendrical arts for fate calculation, including two ballads: The first, Ballad of Subtle Limits, calculates good and bad fortune based on the celestial fate endowed at one’s birth. The second, Ballad of Subtle Great Numbers on Auspicious and Inauspicious Outcomes, calculates one’s fate based on the Five Elements of one’s birth date.