Abstract：The lamp divination is a type of miscellaneous divination in the ancient Chinese numerology system. It is based on the signs of the lamp: shining or looming, twinkling or extinguishing of the light, the shapes of flames, snuffs and ashes, to predict the abundance or poor harvest of the year, rain or shine, good or ill luck, the fate and the lifespan. The origin of the lamp divination can be traced back to the Han Dynasty. From the Tang and Song Dynasties, the lamp divination used for telling fortunes of distant travelers has become a great theme expressed in poems. The famous poetry and literature are very popular, and the magical art itself has been buried in history. The unearthed documents give us a glimpse into the mystery of the lamp divination, and provide a new landscape for repainting the world image of fangshu.The fragmented document Ch 1634 excavated in Turfan is now kept at the collection of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. It analyzes the textual structure and specific techniques of “the method of lamp divination for auspicious and inauspicious”, restores and verifies the lamp divination in the Tang Dynasty, which has been obscured in history for a long time. It is a kind of “Zhouyi-miscellaneous divination” that combines the divination of number, miscellaneous, yin-yang and five elements, and prediction of a person’s fate and luck according to the state of the corresponding lamp on the rotating lamp wheel. The efficacies of the divination originated from the belief in Medicine Buddha, and the ritual and instrument borrowed from the Buddhist lamp wheel. The structure of the lamp wheel is to install the wheel-shaped discs layer by layer with the central column as the axis. The wheel diameter is gradually indented, and the entire lamp is in the shape of a conical spire, like the phase wheel and spire of a stupa. The method of obtaining a number or a group of numbers by the state of the lamp can be regarded as an application of numerology. From the technical principle of divination, this method of obtaining lucky and ominous numbers by rotating the lamp wheel is similar to the modern roulette to a certain extent. “Homology of divination and gambling” has once again been perfectly interpreted here.After the Song Dynasty, the method of lamp divination gradually developed into observing the flames and snuffs to divine the weather or good or ill luck of conduct. Although The Divination of Lamp Snuffs came out relatively late, it has homology with the rhetoric of Dunhuang documents in terminology and practice, indicating that the knowledge and technical structure inherited the pedigree of the Tang Dynasty. During the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, it entered the Taoist lamp ceremony and became a part of Taoist art.The analysis of manuscript culture and the text and image of the omen of the lamp in the Manichaean divination document M556 written in middle Persian confirmed that the use of the lamp wheel for divination, and at the same time reveal that this divination practice was also circulated in the Turfan Manichean group in the Tang Dynasty. It is very likely that the scribe of Ch 1634 was a Sogdian Manichaean who was very interested in Chinese divination, or studied for religious purpose, but still kept the Sogdian writing habit and was not familiar with Chinese writing.There were copper lamps specially made for the lamp divination and were brought to Japan in the Song Dynasty. Onmyōdō texts compiled in the 15th Century and encyclopedias of everyday life published in the Edo Period and even Meiji Period, demonstrate that it was descended and transformed in Japan for almost a thousand years. Newly discovered translations of lamp snuff divination in different languages show it was also widespread in Tibet, Mongolia, Kalmykia, and other regions.The rediscovery of lamp divination not only helps to reconstruct the long-duration, multi-dimensional cultural history of Chinese numerology, but also provides new thinking for understanding the role of the Silk Road in the process of human history from the perspective of knowledge and belief.
余欣. 占灯术源流考：德藏吐鲁番出土文献Ch 1634发微[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2022, 52(7): 90-105.
Yu Xin. The Original and Development of Lamp Divination: A Study on the Turfan Document Ch 1634 in the Berlin Collection. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2022, 52(7): 90-105.
2022, Vol. 52 
