The Sui Chapter of the Zhoujiazhai Daybook

Abstract

The Sui 歲 chapter of the Zhoujiazhai 周家寨 Daybook (rishu 日書) is a type of divination text with a focus on “timing,” including the formation of heaven and earth, five elements 五行, five colors 五色, five sounds 五音, and their relationships. It develops the concepts of “five periods” 五時, “four seasons” 四時 and “the engagement (and disengagement) of four seasons” 四時結（解）, and tells of the seasonal ordinances and climate of the twelve months in sequence. This kind of literature first appeared in the Daybook from Kongjiapo 孔家坡, but the text was incomplete. The Sui chapter in the Daybook from Zhoujiazhai introduced in this paper was excavated from a site adjacent to the Kongjiapo tomb, and the two daybooks are akin in terms of dating and content. Through comparison and collation, this paper proposes a translation and annotation superior to that of the published brief report, and presents a preliminary study on some problems related to the text. The paper demonstrates that there was a rule of collocation among the twelve branches in the second part of the chapter. The paper further suggests that texts like Sui ought to be classified as “theories of day selection,” and that a daybook should be classified as a combination of the techniques and the theories of day selection.