Qimen Dunjia

奇门遁甲

Verse 259

Eight gates divide the eight positions
Nine stars announce the nine regions
Green, red, yellow, white and black
Five colors of brocade costumes
Crossing swords ready for battle, both sides similar in strength

Luopan, Chinese Geomantic Compass, 1760. National Maritime Museum

There are 'Three Styles of divination': Da Liu Ren, Qimen Dunjia and Taiyi Shenshu.

The Taiyi Shenshu is not the Zhuge Liang Shenshu. Taiyi Shenshu is one of the three quite complicated Styles of Divination. For those three one needs a board or other tool, in order to find palaces, colors, gates, stars, magical numbers and so on. The board for the Qimen Dunjia is a bit like the Luopan of Fengshui.
Both have "8 gates", in the Luopan above the 8 trigrams around the compass in the center.

Originally devised to help form military strategy and tactics, Qimen Dunjia was in use as long ago as the period of Chinese history known as the Warring States, and is believed by Chinese scholars to have been used at the Battle of Red Cliffs in the defeat of Cao Cao's ship-borne army.
Liu Bowen is believed to have secured the throne for the Ming dynasty's Hongwu Emperor by applying Qimen Dunjia to his strategic planning.

Modern Qimen Dunjia set

Over the centuries of Chinese history, Qimen Dunjia grew in popularity and was expanded to include a number of other types of divination, including medical divination, matchmaking, childbirth, travel, personal fortunes, and today includes contemporary applications, most notably that of business and finance. Today Qimen Dunjia is especially popular in Singapore and other nations of Southeast Asia.
Wikipedia Qimen Dunjia

The Qimen Dunjia cosmic board consists of a 3 × 3 magic square of nine palaces, which includes a Heaven and Earth plate, a spirit plate, eight gates and a star plate. The various symbols rotate around the palaces with each double-hour of the day, making a total of 1,080 different configurations of the Qimen Dunjia cosmic board. These situations are recycled four times per year, and are divided between the Yin and Yang halves of the year.

An example of a Qimen Dunjia divination. See Wikivisually Qimen Dunjia for more information.

  From one of the commentaries on the Shenshu verse 295: "Eight doors are rotated clockwise on the middle plate of the Qimen Luopan, which is arranged in such a way; Rest, Health, Injury, Money (?), Scene, Death, Shock, and Start (?)". The nine stars have associated colors.
  Qimen Dunjia is time-sensitive. The analyst makes reference to the configuration of the cosmic board at the time when a question is posed, or for birth times of individuals or corporate entities, such as businesses or nations.
  Each type of Qimen Dunjia divination carries its unique set of Use Spirits (用神; yòngshén). For example, medical divination relies mainly upon the star plate.

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