Dragon Head Classic Of Yellow Emperor 黄帝龙首经

Author unknown.

It was roughly compiled during the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties period.

The Baopuzi · Chapter on Far Sight has already recorded The Dragon Head Classic.

Dragon Head Classic Of Yellow Emperor

The Book of Sui · Bibliography as well as the Old and New Book of Tang Bibliographies all listed "The Yellow Emperor's Dragon Head Classic, in two volumes".

The existing edition in The Daozang is also in two volumes, included in the Divination category of the The Dongzhen Section.

There is a preface at the beginning of the classic, stating that the Yellow Emperor, about to ride a dragon to ascend to heaven, summoned his three sons and imparted the classic and its esoteric instructions to them. As the three sons bowed to receive the teachings and rose, the dragon suddenly soared into the sky. Looking up, they could still see the dragon's head, hence the classic was named The Dragon Head Classic. This is an ancient divination book, containing seventy-two divination methods for predicting good and bad fortune, with thirty-six divination practices in each of the upper and lower volumes. Its divination subjects include: divining the auspiciousness and inauspiciousness of favorable paths for years and months, divining auspicious days for marriage and sacrificial rituals, divining good and bad luck for the household, divining the presence or absence of bandits in various commanderies and counties, divining the life and death of the sick, divining the fortune of long journeys, divining the good or poor harvest of farmland, sericulture and the five grains, divining the loss of livestock while herding, divining whether servants and maids are auspicious for their masters, divining the fortune of feuding and fighting with enemies, divining the gender of an unborn child, divining evil omens and bad dreams, and so on. Its divination methods belong to the Liuren and Dunjia school, which combines the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches of the year, month and day with the corresponding constellations, and judges the good and bad fortune of human affairs based on the mutual opposition, harmony, generation and restriction of Yin and Yang within them. The book contains annotations that cite ancient divination works such as The Divine Pivot, The Golden Coffer, The Bright Talisman, The Classic of Diagrams and Records of Assembling Spirits.