Short answer: what is in the Dunhuang manuscripts?
The Dunhuang manuscripts are a trove of handwritten documents discovered in a cave at Dunhuang, in northwest China, dated mainly to around the 9th and 10th centuries. Among them is a group of texts devoted to divination, including day-selection calendars, dream-interpretation books, physiognomy, and home feng shui. Marc Kalinowski, editor of a collective research work on these manuscripts, analyzed them and showed that many divination methods still used in Vietnam today appeared in recognizable form in those texts.
In other words, the day good-or-bad lookup tools, dream interpretation, or house-direction guides that readers use today are not products of recent decades. They have predecessors recorded a thousand years ago. But two things must be kept apart: the long history of a divination method is a historical fact, while whether it works is a different question, belonging to the domain of verification.
Table: Types of Dunhuang divination books and their modern counterparts
| Type of book in the Dunhuang manuscripts | Main content | Corresponding section in today's perpetual calendar or lookup tools |
|---|---|---|
| Day-selection calendar | Records good days, bad days, activities to do and avoid | Perpetual calendar, sections on "good and bad days," "auspicious hours" |
| Dream-interpretation book | Lists dreams and their corresponding omens | Dream lookup tools, folk dream-interpretation books |
| Physiognomy | Describes bodily features and faces linked to personality, fortune | Physiognomy sections, astrology combined with physiognomy |
| Home feng shui | Principles for choosing directions, arranging the house, avoiding bad omens | House-direction guides, home feng shui sections |
This table does not mean the four types of books form a unified block. They differ in origin, compilation, and popularity. What they share is that all appear in the Dunhuang manuscript trove and all have descendants in today's divination practice.
Linking to day-selection books in Qin and Han tombs
To understand the Dunhuang manuscripts, one must look earlier. Archaeologists have excavated day-selection books from tombs of the Warring States, Qin, and Han periods. Marc Kalinowski analyzed Group A of the Shuihudi daybook, dated around 217 BCE, and showed how people in the past arranged the sections of the book according to a certain editorial logic. Donald Harper and Marc Kalinowski edited a collective research work on these daybook manuscripts, placing them in the context of early Chinese popular culture and comparing them with day-selection books from Babylon and medieval Europe.
Thus the line of development can be imagined as follows: from Qin and Han daybooks, through medieval Dunhuang manuscripts, to today's perpetual calendars and day-lookup tools. This is a continuous flow in form and demand, though specific content changes over time and place.
The article on when good-and-bad day selection began stopped at the Qin and Han period. This article continues to Dunhuang, that is, to around the 9th and 10th centuries, to see what those divination methods had developed into during the medieval period. Readers who want to review the Qin and Han part can read When did good-and-bad day selection begin?.
Specific divination methods in the Dunhuang manuscripts
Day-selection calendar
The day-selection calendar is the most common type in the Dunhuang divination texts. It records which days are good for what, which are bad, and what to avoid. The presentation is close to today's perpetual calendar: each day has a line, with heavenly stems and earthly branches, presiding stars, and activities to do and avoid. This shows that the need to look up good and bad days was stable and systematized very early.
Dream-interpretation book
The dream-interpretation book in the Dunhuang manuscripts lists dreams and their corresponding omens. The structure is usually: dreaming of what animal, doing what, where, corresponds to what. This resembles Vietnamese folk dream-interpretation books still in circulation. Readers interested in dream interpretation in Vietnamese folk tradition can see Dream interpretation in Vietnamese folk tradition.
Physiognomy
Physiognomy in the Dunhuang manuscripts describes bodily features, faces, gait, and voice, and links them to personality or fortune. This is a separate branch, related to ancient medicine and to the era's conventional way of viewing people. Note that physiognomy is an interpretive system, not a measuring science.
Home feng shui
Home feng shui in the Dunhuang manuscripts discusses choosing house direction, arranging doors, kitchen, bed, and avoiding positions considered unfavorable. These principles rest on concepts of qi, yin and yang, the five phases, and heavenly stems and earthly branches. This is one of the longest-influential branches, as it ties to the human need for settled dwelling.
What this article does not say: age does not prove efficacy
Two questions must be clearly distinguished. First: how old are these divination methods, and how were they recorded? Second: do they predict correctly? This article answers the first. The second requires evidence of a different kind: controlled trials, reproducible data, comparison with a control group.
The fact that a divination method has existed for thousands of years only proves it was believed in and passed down. It does not automatically prove that the method yields correct results. This must be said plainly, not to deny the cultural or historical value of the manuscripts, but to keep the two kinds of questions from being mixed.
There is a real effect to note: belief can change behavior, and behavior changes results. If a person believes today is a good day to start something, they may be more confident, prepare more carefully, and thus results may be better. This is a psychological effect, not evidence that the divination predicts correctly. In other words, belief changes behavior, behavior changes results, but that does not make the divination a verified predictive tool.
From Dunhuang to today's perpetual calendar: flow and breaks
Not everything in the Dunhuang manuscripts passed straight to today. Some entries disappeared, some were replaced, some were added. For example, some medieval feng shui principles based on the stem-branch and five-phase systems differ from common applications today. Similarly, modern dream-interpretation books draw on many sources, not just one line.
What is notable is that the structure of demand is fairly stable: people want to know what to do on which day, what a dream portends, what a face says about a person, and how a house should be arranged. These four needs appear in the Dunhuang manuscripts and still appear in today's lookup tools. That is the connection between a thousand years ago and now.
How to read the Dunhuang manuscripts today
When reading about the Dunhuang manuscripts, keep a few principles. First, distinguish description from evaluation: the manuscripts tell what people in the past said, not whether what they said is true. Second, pay attention to context: the manuscripts were written for a specific society, with specific problems, not for modern society. Third, do not overgeneralize: a divination method popular in Dunhuang does not automatically mean it was popular everywhere, at all times.
Researchers such as Kalinowski, Harper, and colleagues have done important work classifying, translating, and analyzing these manuscripts. Their work shows this is a rich trove on the spiritual life and cultural practices of people in the past. Reading them is reading history, not reading a table of verified results.
Conclusion: long history, the verification question remains open
The divination methods still used in Vietnam today, from day selection, dream interpretation, and physiognomy to home feng shui, all have predecessors recorded around the 9th and 10th centuries in the Dunhuang manuscripts, and further back in Qin and Han daybooks. This is a long historical flow, worth knowing as part of humanity's knowledge heritage.
But a long history does not equal verification. The question of whether a divination method works still needs to be answered by other methods: trials, data, comparison. This article stops at the historical part and leaves verification to other articles.
