EsoteriaA library of sacred & hidden knowledge
Liber VII · Divination

Liber VII · Divination · Chapter II: Chinese Astrology

The Tong Shu: History of the Chinese Almanac and Lucky Days

The Tong Shu or Chinese almanac explained: daybooks, the imperial calendar, the twelve day officers, lucky and unlucky days, date selection and its history.

7 min read 1,629 words Updated

The Tong Shu (通書, "book of all things"), known in Cantonese as the Tung Shing and on the mainland often as the huangli ("imperial calendar"), is the traditional Chinese almanac. Alongside the lunar calendar and the solar terms it lists, for every day of the year, the activities that are favourable or should be avoided, and it gathers a miscellany of divination, charms and practical lore. Its roots lie in the "daybooks" of the third century BCE, and it is still printed and consulted, now also in apps, across the Chinese-speaking world.

From the Qin Daybooks to Dunhuang§

The idea that days have qualities, and that actions should be fitted to them, is very old in China. Oracle-bone inscriptions of the late Shang dynasty already ask whether a given day is suitable for a sacrifice or a hunt. The clearest ancestors of the almanac, however, are the manuscripts that modern scholars call "daybooks" (rishu, 日書). The best known were found in 1975 in a tomb at Shuihudi in Hubei province, belonging to a Qin official who died around 217 BCE. Written on bamboo slips, they tell the reader which days are good for marrying, building, travelling, buying slaves or livestock, and which bring illness or death, and they include methods for interpreting dreams and for driving away demons.

Similar daybooks have since been excavated from many other tombs. They show that the classification of days by cyclical signs was common knowledge among officials and probably wider society by the late Warring States period. Among the Dunhuang manuscripts of the ninth and tenth centuries are many calendars and almanacs, including fragments of printed calendars from the late ninth century, which are among the earliest printed documents of any kind. By then the almanac had taken a recognisable form: a calendar of days annotated with spirits, directions and suitable activities.

The Imperial Calendar and Its Bureau§

In imperial China the calendar was an attribute of sovereignty. Each dynasty issued its own, and accepting the calendar of a ruler meant acknowledging his authority. The court maintained an astronomical bureau, under the Ming and Qing called the Qintianjian (欽天監), which calculated eclipses and the calendar and also selected auspicious dates for state ceremonies, imperial weddings and burials. Private calendar-making was in principle forbidden. The commercial almanacs sold to the public were based on the official annual calendar and expanded with popular material, a relationship examined in detail by the historian Richard J. Smith.

The political weight of date selection is shown by an episode of the 1660s. The German Jesuit Johann Adam Schall von Bell had become head of the Qing astronomical bureau and introduced a reformed calendar based on European astronomy. In 1664 the scholar Yang Guangxian accused him, among other charges, of choosing an inauspicious time for the burial of an imperial infant. Schall was condemned to death and then released, though several Chinese astronomers of the bureau were executed; the case showed that calculation and divination were inseparable in the work of the bureau. The Jesuits regained the bureau a few years later under the Kangxi emperor.

What the Almanac Contains§

The calendar and its cycles§

The core of the Tong Shu is the calendar itself. It is lunisolar: months follow the Moon, but the year is kept in step with the Sun by intercalary months and is divided by the twenty-four solar terms (jieqi), such as the Beginning of Spring (lichun) and Clear and Bright (qingming). Each year, month, day and two-hour period is named by a pair of signs from the ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches, forming the sixty-fold cycle on which Chinese astrology is based. Each branch corresponds to one of the twelve animals, so the almanac can note the animal that "clashes" with a given day: people born in that animal's year are advised to avoid important undertakings then. The animals themselves are described on our Chinese zodiac pages.

The twelve officers and the lists of suitable activities§

Each day is assigned one of the twelve "officers" (jianchu, 建除), a cycle already found in the Qin daybooks: Establish, Remove, Full, Balance, Settle, Hold, Destruction, Danger, Success, Receive, Open and Close. Each carries its own character. A day of Destruction is generally poor for beginnings; a day of Success or Opening is good for many undertakings. Combined with the twenty-eight lunar lodges (xiu), the five phases and many named spirits and baleful influences, the officers determine the two lists printed for every day: yi (宜), activities that are suitable, and ji (忌), those to be avoided. Typical entries include marrying, moving house, opening a business, signing contracts, travelling, building, cutting cloth, burial and even bathing or cutting the hair.

The miscellany§

Beyond the calendar, a popular almanac is a compendium. Its frontispiece traditionally shows the Spring Ox with its herdsman, Mangshen, whose clothes, posture and position relative to the ox were read as signs of the year's weather and harvest. Other pages give the directions of the gods of joy and wealth, the location of the Tai Sui (the "Grand Year" spirit associated with Jupiter's cycle) to be avoided in building, protective charms (fu), methods of physiognomy and palmistry, the dream book attributed to the Duke of Zhou, the "weighing the bones" method of fortune-telling, moral tales such as the twenty-four exemplars of filial piety, and household remedies. Some Hong Kong editions added lists of English phrases for travellers and traders.

Date Selection in Practice§

The main use of the almanac is zeri (擇日), the choosing of days. Families consult it, or a professional date-selector, before a wedding, a move, the opening of a shop, the laying of foundations or a funeral. For a simple matter a person may only check whether the day is marked suitable for the activity and does not clash with their birth animal. For major occasions specialists combine the almanac's general indications with the birth data of the people concerned, and often with feng shui considerations of direction and site. Popular sayings about numbers, such as the avoidance of four, reinforce the same concern with auspiciousness discussed in our article on lucky and unlucky days.

The same logic spread across East Asia. In Japan, the calendar lore of the court diviners of Onmyōdō produced directional taboos and lucky and unlucky days that still survive in the six-day rokuyō cycle printed on many Japanese calendars. Korea and Vietnam had their own almanacs on the Chinese model.

Reform, Suppression and Revival§

When the Republic of China adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1912, the almanac lost its official basis. Reformers regarded its lucky and unlucky days as superstition, and in the late 1920s and early 1930s the Nationalist government campaigned to abolish the old calendar and to stop the printing of almanacs with divinatory content. The campaigns had limited effect; people continued to buy almanacs and to observe the lunar festivals. After 1949 the People's Republic discouraged the almanac as feudal superstition, while publishers in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia kept it alive.

Since the 1980s the almanac has revived in mainland China as well, often in a reduced form listing lucky and unlucky activities beside the Western date, and it is now widely consulted through websites and phone apps. Wedding dates cluster on days the almanac marks as favourable, and businesses still choose opening days with care. For many users the almanac is a matter of custom and reassurance rather than firm belief, but it remains one of the most widely used divinatory texts in the world.

Frequently asked questions§

What is the Tong Shu?§

The Tong Shu is the traditional Chinese almanac. It combines the lunar calendar and solar terms with daily lists of favourable and unfavourable activities, and adds charms, fortune-telling methods and other lore. It is also called the Tung Shing in Cantonese and the huangli in Mandarin.

Why is it called Tung Shing in Cantonese?§

In Cantonese the word shu (書, "book") sounds like the word for "to lose," an unlucky association. Publishers therefore replaced it with sing (勝), meaning "to win," giving Tung Shing.

How do people use the Chinese almanac to choose a date?§

They look up the activity they plan, such as a wedding or move, and check whether the day lists it as suitable and whether the day clashes with their birth animal. For important events many families consult a professional, who also takes the people's birth data into account.

How old is the Chinese almanac?§

Its direct ancestors, the daybooks, are known from tombs of the third century BCE. Printed calendars survive from the late ninth century, and the almanac has been printed continuously, in many forms, since at least the Song dynasty.

Sources and further reading§