FENGS SHUI. — The term f. s. (literally “wind and water”) denotes in China a “pseudo-scientific system which should teach how and where to build tombs, temples, and buildings, so that the dead, the gods, and the living may be placed wholly or as far as possible under the beneficial influence of nature.”
The system, which dates back to the most remote antiquity, proceeds from the conception that all the inhabitants of the world live subject to the alternation of influences. If human acts conflict with the all-powerful Tao, or course of nature, a fatal conflict will result in which man will come off worse. It is therefore necessary, as far as possible, to obey and follow the course of nature. In every locality there are believed to exist certain topographical features (natural or artificial) which indicate or modify the course of the universal spirit (Ch'i), such as the shape of the mountains, the course of the rivers, the height and form of buildings, the direction of roads and bridges, and the arrangement of the shadows of the sun and moon. Beneficial influences prefer winding and twisting paths, low, single-story houses with curved roofs, with the main façade facing south; tombs are preferably built on the southern slopes of a mountain, at points where they can be set back into its hollows, because the dead are “particularly affected by the cosmic currents and can use them to benefit the living”; roofs should be adorned with dragons and other symbolic figures; mountain peaks become centers of beneficial influences if pagodas are raised upon them; the doors of houses can ward off evil spirits if covered with inscriptions on paper. The master of the art of F. S. (called F. S. Sien Sheng or Yin Yang Sien Sheng) uses the Lo King, a kind of astrolabe with a compass, to observe the direction of the celestial harmonies and to determine the places most suitable for exploiting beneficial influences.