Abstract (from the Catalogue of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, Masters Division, Arts of Calculation)

《青囊奧語》一卷、《青囊序》一卷，《青囊奧語》舊本題唐楊筠松撰。其序則題筠松弟子曾文遄所作。相傳文遄贛水人。其父求己，先奔江南，節制李司空闢行南康軍事，文遄因得筠松之術，後傳於陳摶。是書即其所授師說也。

The Esoteric Words of the Green Satchel, one juan, with the Preface to the Green Satchel, one juan, appended. Older printed copies of the Esoteric Words of the Green Satchel ascribe it to Yang Yunsong of the Tang; the Preface at the head of the volume is ascribed to Zeng Wenchuan, a disciple of Yang Yunsong. Tradition holds that Zeng Wenchuan was a man of the Gan River (the Ganjiang basin of present-day Jiangxi). His father Zeng Qiuji fled south to Jiangnan in his early years to escape disorder; Li, who then held the rank of Sikong and commanded a region, summoned him to take charge of military affairs in Nankang. Through this connection Zeng Wenchuan received Yang Yunsong's art of geomancy, and later transmitted the learning to the Daoist Chen Tuan. What this book records is precisely the master's oral formulae as Zeng transmitted them.

案趙希弁《讀書後志》有《青囊本旨》一卷，雲不記撰人，演郭璞《相墓經》。陳氏《書錄解題》有《楊公遺訣曜金歌並三十六圖象》一卷，注云楊即筠松也。今是書以陰陽順逆九星化曜辨山水之貴賤吉凶，未審與《曜金歌》為一為二。惟鄭樵《通志·藝文略》別載有曾氏《青囊子歌》一卷，又楊、曾二家《青囊經》一卷，或即是書之原名歟？

A survey of successive bibliographies: Zhao Xibian's Later Record of Books Read at the Junzhai Studio, of the Southern Song, lists one juan of the Essential Purport of the Green Satchel, saying the author is unknown and that the work elaborates Guo Pu's Classic of Siting Tombs, of the Jin; Chen Zhensun's Annotated Catalogue of the Zhizhai Studio lists one juan of Yang Gong's Bequeathed Formulae: the Song of Shining Gold, with Thirty-Six Diagrams, and a note of his own that the "Yang Gong" in question is Yang Yunsong. The book that has come down to us today judges the nobility or meanness, the auspicious or inauspicious character, of mountains, rivers and water methods by the forward and reverse courses of yin and yang and by the transforming radiances of the Nine Stars; there is simply no way to decide whether it and that Song of Shining Gold are one book or two. In addition, Zheng Qiao's Outline of Arts and Letters in the Comprehensive Treatises separately lists one juan of Zeng's Song of the Green Satchel Master, and again one juan of the Green Satchel Classic ascribed jointly to the Yang and Zeng houses—might these have been the book's original titles?

其中多引而不發之語。如「坤壬乙巨門從頭出」一節，歷來注家罕能詳其起例。

Most of the book's wording "draws the bow and does not loose the arrow": it throws out the conclusion and will not say how the calculation is done. Take, for instance, the opening formula of sequential starring, "Kun, Ren, Yi: Ju Men comes out from the head." Among those who have annotated it through the ages, few have been able to explain its "opening rule"—that is, by what rule the Nine Stars are in fact assigned in sequence to the Twenty-Four Mountains (二十四山).

至序內「二十四山分順逆」一條，則大旨以木火金水分屬甲丙庚壬乙丁辛癸，互起長生。如甲木生於亥，庫於未，乙木生於午，庫於戌之類。因以亥卯未寅午戌巳酉丑申子辰為四局，反覆衍之，得四十八局。陽用左旋，陰從右轉，蓋本之《說卦》「陽順陰逆」之例，為地學理氣家之權輿。

As for the article "The Twenty-Four Mountains divided into forward and reverse" in the Preface to the Green Satchel, its general sense is to assign the four phases Wood, Fire, Metal and Water respectively to the four yang stems Jia, Bing, Geng and Ren and the four yin stems Yi, Ding, Xin and Gui, so that the two roads of yin and yang each start their changsheng (長生, the stage of birth) from the other: thus Jia Wood is born at Hai and enters the tomb-store at Wei; Yi Wood is born at Wu and enters the tomb-store at Xu; and the remaining stems follow the same pattern. One then takes the four groups of triple combinations—Hai-Mao-Wei, Yin-Wu-Xu, Si-You-Chou and Shen-Zi-Chen—as the "four configurations" and, working them back and forth, obtains forty-eight configurations in all. Yang stems turn leftward in the forward direction; yin stems turn rightward in reverse. This is probably based on the established rule in the Remarks on the Trigrams of the Book of Changes that "yang goes forward and yin goes reverse." The method is the founding beginning of the later geomantic school of liqi (理氣, patterning of qi).

明人偽造之吳公《教子書》、劉秉忠《玉尺經》，蓋即竊其緒餘，衍為圖局。逮僧徹瑩作《直指元真》，專以三元水口隨地可以定向，於是談地學者舍形法而言理氣。剽竊傅會，俱以是編為口實。然不以流派多岐，並咎其創法之始也。

The Book for Teaching One's Son ascribed to Wu Gong and the Jade Foot Classic ascribed to Liu Bingzhong, both forged by men of the Ming under the names of earlier worthies, for the most part picked up the leftover threads of this book and spun them out into all manner of diagrams and configurations. When the monk Cheying wrote the Direct Pointer to the Primordial Truth, he taught exclusively that by the water-mouth of the Three Cycles one may fix the orientation and establish the point (穴) anywhere at all; thereafter those who discussed geomancy set aside the method of mountain-and-river form and talked only of liqi. They plagiarised one another and forced strained analogies, yet all took this Esoteric Words of the Green Satchel as their pretext. The compilers of the Four Treasuries held, however, that one must not, because later schools have branched out in confusion, lay the blame as well upon this source-book that first established the method.

舊本有注，託名劉基。李國木復加潤色，蕪蔓殊甚。又妄據偽《玉尺經》竄改原文，尤為誕妄。今據舊本更正，並削去其注，以無滋淆惑焉。

Older printed copies originally carried a commentary, falsely ascribed to Liu Ji of the early Ming; later Li Guomu further polished it, making it rambling and overgrown to the last degree. He also wantonly altered the book's main text on the authority of that forged Jade Foot Classic, which is still more preposterous. Therefore, in receiving the work into the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries this time, everything has been corrected against the older copies, and those notes have been struck out in full, lest they breed further confusion and doubt.

坤壬乙，巨門從頭出；艮丙心，位位是破星；巽辰亥，盡是武曲位；甲癸申，貪狼一路行。

These four lines are the master formula of sequential starring (挨星) in xuankong (玄空) liqi, telling how the Nine Stars of the Northern Dipper are allotted upon the Twenty-Four Mountains of the luopan (羅盤) compass. The group Kun mountain, Ren mountain and Yi mountain, when starred from the head, takes Two Black Ju Men; the group Gen mountain, Bing mountain and Xin mountain has Seven Red Po Jun at every position; the group Xun mountain, Chen mountain and Hai mountain all fall at the place of Six White Wu Qu; the group Jia mountain, Gui mountain and Shen mountain, starred along the way, are all One White Tan Lang. The original text reads "Gen, Bing, xin"; here xin (心) must be a corruption of Xin (辛)—there is no "Heart" mountain among the Twenty-Four Mountains; the three mountains under the Dui (兌) palace in the west are Geng, You and Xin, and this line refers precisely to Xin mountain among them. This formula is Yang Gong's first key to liqi: only when one has first determined which stars occupy the sitting mountain and the incoming water can one distinguish the cycle that is due from the cycle that has lapsed, and prosperous qi (氣) from declining qi. Precisely because it gives only the result and not the method of derivation, annotators have wrangled over it through the ages; the school of Jiang Dahong goes further and asserts that without oral transmission from a master one cannot obtain its truth.

左為陽，子癸至亥仁；右為陰，午丁至巳丙。

The Twenty-Four Mountains of the luopan are further divided into a left-hand and a right-hand road. The leftward-turning road is yang: one counts forward from Zi mountain and Gui mountain as far as Hai mountain and Ren mountain. The rightward-turning road is yin: one counts in reverse from Wu mountain and Ding mountain as far as Si mountain and Bing mountain. The original text reads "Hai ren"; here ren (仁) must be a corruption of Ren (壬)—there is no "Benevolence" mountain among the Twenty-Four Mountains, and the mountain adjacent to Hai and belonging to the side of the Qian (乾) palace is precisely Ren mountain. These two lines say that a yang dragon and a yang facing must proceed forward from the left, and a yin dragon and a yin facing must proceed in reverse from the right. Before sequential starring and the ranking of dragons, this layer of left and right, yin and yang, must first be made clear; once forward and reverse are mistaken, the whole plate goes wrong with them.

雌與雄，交會合玄空；雄與雌，玄空卦內推。

"Female" and "male" are Yang Gong's veiled names for the two leaves of yin and yang: the mountain is still and belongs to the female; water is moving and belongs to the male. The incoming dragon is one leaf, the sitting orientation another. Female and male must couple and meet, in accord with the circulating principle of xuankong, before the site can be counted a true formation. Conversely, when one matches male to female, one must likewise rank and seek them within the hexagram positions of xuankong. In other words, siting a place is not a matter of looking at the mountain alone, nor at the water alone; one must set the yin and yang of the mountain and the yin and yang of the water together upon the xuankong plate, and see whether they can couple as yin and yang and join into one qi.

山與水，須要明此理；水與山，禍福盡相關。

In discussing mountains one must understand the principle of female-and-male coupling set out above; in discussing water one uses the same principle. The mountain governs descendants; water governs wealth and emolument. The two are the two faces of one body: the good and ill fortune on this side are wholly bound up with that side, and one must never pull mountain and water apart and look at each by itself.

明玄空，只在五行中；知此法，不須尋納甲。

To master xuankong, the key falls only upon generation, overcoming, restraint and transformation among the Five Phases—and what xuankong uses is not the rigid Regular Five Phases, but the living Five Phases that move with the flying stars of the Nine Palaces (九宮) and circulate with the cycle-periods. Once this method is understood, there is no further need to resort to the set of najia (納甲)—the older method that pairs each of the eight trigrams with a Heavenly Stem and judges good and ill by the stem the trigram takes. Here Yang Gong draws a clear line: what his school teaches is xuankong sequential starring, not najia.

顛顛倒，二十四山有珠寶；順逆行，二十四山有火坑。

If in sequential starring and ranking the plate one understands "inversion upon inversion"—that is, turning yin and yang, forward and reverse, about with the cycle-period and starring them flexibly—then jewels can be starred out of every one of the Twenty-Four Mountains, and every mountain is auspicious. If one only clings to a single fixed forward or reverse course and ranks them mechanically, the same Twenty-Four Mountains become fire-pits at every place, and every mountain is inauspicious. Thus good and ill do not lie in the mountain itself, but in whether the method of sequential ranking is used correctly.

認金龍，一經一緯義不窮；動不動，直待高人施妙用。

The "Golden Dragon" (金龍) is Yang Gong's veiled name for flowing vital qi; it refers to qi, not to the bodily form of a mountain. To recognise the Golden Dragon one must look at "one warp and one weft": the warp is the vertical, the weft the horizontal—that is, the layer of qi-mechanism woven by mountain and water, stillness and movement, crossing lengthwise and crosswise, whose meaning may be pressed without end. The Golden Dragon may move or not move. When it moves, qi has already stirred and may be taken and used; when it does not move, qi still lies latent and there is no profit in taking it. Whether it moves or not, only a truly accomplished man who has received the formulae can see through it, and only he can bring its subtle use into play.

第一義，要識龍身行與止。

The first essential meaning is that one must first recognise where the dragon's body is travelling and where it comes to rest. While the dragon is still travelling, qi follows the vein on the road and one must not site the point; only when the dragon stops does qi gather and form the point. If travel and rest are not told apart, the nine articles that follow cannot even be discussed.

第二言，來脈明堂不可偏。

The second thing to be said is that neither the incoming vein at the head nor the Bright Hall (明堂) before the point may be askew. Once the incoming vein is askew, the point does not receive qi squarely; once the Bright Hall is askew, the hall's qi does not gather truly. Both must stand square opposite the site of the point before they count as sound.

第三法，傳送功曹不高壓。

The third rule is that the flanking sands that escort and protect the point must not be so high as to press down upon the site. "Transmission" (傳送) and "Merit Officer" (功曹) are originally the names of the spirits at Shen and Yin in the art of Liuren; geomancers borrow them for the sands that escort and guard to left and right of the site. Protective sands are prized when they arch and embrace with feeling; if they tower and press close, the image is rather of sand bullying the host, of servant bullying lord.

第四奇，明堂十字有玄微。

The fourth marvel lies in the "cross" of the Bright Hall. By the "cross" is meant the two centre-lines, lengthwise and crosswise, set up from the site of the point, by which one sees whether incoming and outgoing water, left sand and right sand, answer to these two lines. Only when the cross is fixed accurately do the height and left-and-right of the point have somewhere to rest; the subtlety in this is the truest skill of siting.

第五妙，前後青龍兩相照。

The fifth marvel is that the protective sands before and behind, left and right, must answer one another in pairs. The four beasts—Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird and Dark Warrior—must look to one another and respond; there must be a facing illumination in front and a supporting rest behind. When sand and water interweave with feeling, the qi within the point can be shut in and made to stay.

第六秘，八國城門鎖正氣。

The sixth secret is Yang Gong's famous "City Gate formula." The "Eight Realms" (八國) means the configuration formed by the enclosure of the site on all four sides and eight directions; the "City Gate" (城門) means the pass among those eight directions where water flows in or out. If at the City Gate there are sands that lock and bar the way, the true qi within the point is locked in and does not leak; once the City Gate is wide open and unscreened, qi goes out with the water, and even a fine dragon and a fine point cannot hold it. Which position the City Gate falls in, and which star occupies it, is precisely the crux of setting the facing and gathering qi.

第七奧，要向天心尋十道。

The seventh profundity is to seek the "Ten Roads" (十道) upon the "Heavenly Heart" (天心). The Heavenly Heart is that point at the exact centre of the site where vital qi gathers; the Ten Roads are that peaks on all four sides—front, back, left and right—answer and face it, crossing lengthwise and crosswise to form precisely a cross. Only when the Heavenly Heart has its due correctness and the Ten Roads are each complete can the point stand firm.

第八裁，屈曲流神認來去。

The eighth thing to be weighed is winding water. Water is here called the "Flowing Spirit" (流神); what it most abhors is coming and going in a straight line. Water must wind with feeling, and within the winding one must further tell from which quarter it comes and toward which quarter it goes. Once the quarters of coming and going are determined, gathering the mountain, sending out the sha, setting the facing and releasing the water all have a basis.

第九神，任他平地與青雲。

The ninth divine subtlety is that this method applies without hindrance: whether the point forms on low, level ground stretching away as a flat expanse, or on a steep ridge that towers into the clouds, so long as one recognises the dragon, distinguishes qi and sets the facing by the methods above, the principle is the same, and it does not change with the height or lowness of the terrain.

第十真，若有一缺非真情。

The tenth article is the true purport: the nine items above must all be present. If any one of them is lacking, the site cannot be counted a true formation, and sand and water cannot be counted as truly having feeling.

明倒杖，卦坐陰陽何必想。

First one must master "inverting the staff" (倒杖). Inverting the staff is the method of fixing the point transmitted by Yang Gong: one follows the staff along the incoming vein's urgency or ease, its bends or straights, its fullness or hunger, to mark the heart of the point, distinguishing twelve forms such as the compliant staff, the reverse staff, the withdrawn staff, the attached staff, the separated staff and the submerged staff. Once inverting the staff is clear, which hexagram the point should sit in, and whether it belongs to yin or to yang, is naturally settled by the incoming vein; there is no need to sit there straining after it in the void.

識掌模，太極分明必有圖。

Next one must know the "palm model"—the palm formula that ranks the Twenty-Four Mountains and the stars of the Nine Palaces upon the hand for calculation. One circuit of the palm, and the coming and going of mountain-stars and facing-stars are clear in the mind; the faint, half-hidden "Taiji halo" at the site of the point can then be told apart with perfect clarity, its halo-shadow and outline as if already a finished diagram.

知化氣，生剋制化須熟記。

One must further understand "transforming qi"—the conversion of the Five Phases' qi as the dragon vein travels its course, and the new Five Phases produced when stems and branches combine (as when Jia and Ji combine and transform into Earth, or Zi and Chou combine and transform into Earth). Once qi has transformed, the original relations of generation and overcoming change with it; therefore the coming and going of generation, overcoming, restraint and transformation must be thoroughly familiar, so that one is not confused when facing the plate.

說五星，方圓尖秀要分明。

When one speaks of the "Five Stars," one classifies mountain forms by the Five Phases into five kinds: a Metal star has a round head; a Wood star has a straight body; a Water star has wave-like bends; a Fire star has a pointed peak; an Earth star is square in form. The several shapes—square, round, pointed, elegant—must be told apart at a glance before one can decide whether this mountain and the point generate or overcome each other, and whether they may be used.

曉高低，星峰須辨得玄微。

One must also understand the height and distance of peaks. The same star-peak, a fraction higher, oppresses the site; a fraction lower, fails to answer and illuminate it. Between far and near, facing and turning away, the thickness of qi changes; the subtlety of the measure is all a matter of the eye distinguishing it finely.

鬼與曜，生死來去真要妙。

"Ghost" means the leftover branch trailing out behind the point, used to prop up the point's qi; a point formed on a transverse dragon especially cannot be without a ghost. "Ray" (曜) means the sharp leftover qi flying out beyond the feet of the dragon-and-tiger sands, the token that a true dragon's noble qi is showing itself. The life and death, the coming and going, of these two things most of all verify whether dragon and point are genuine, and are most crucial and subtle: ghost and ray used according to the rule govern nobility; ghost and ray turned away govern ruin.

向放水，生旺有吉休囚否。

Last come setting the facing and releasing the water. The facing one sets and the water one releases must both be brought to the generating quarter and the prosperous quarter; obtaining the qi of generation and prosperity is then auspicious. If they fall in the quarters of rest, imprisonment, death or extinction, that is inauspicious. The "fou" at the end of the line is not to be read as a question-word; it means blockage and inauspicious harm, the same as the "Fou" of hexagram Pi in the Book of Changes, and stands opposite the "auspicious" of the line before.

二十四山分五行，知得榮枯死與生。

Each of the Twenty-Four Mountains on the luopan is assigned to one of the Five Phases; once this assignment is clearly distinguished, one can know of each mountain whether it is at present flourishing or withered, dead or alive—that is, whether in the present cycle-period it is due and prosperous, or has already withdrawn its qi.

翻天倒地對不同，其中密秘在玄空。

"Overturning heaven and inverting earth" means that sequential starring must turn the heavenly plate and the earthly plate upside down and pair them against each other in ranking; the same Twenty-Four Mountains do not then face the same stars at one time as at another. The secret of it all lies in the two words xuankong: xuan means changing with the time; kong means there is nothing fixed to cling to. Once the cycle-period turns, the star-positions overturn with it.

認龍立穴要分明，在人仔細辨天心。

Recognising the incoming dragon and establishing the point must both be distinguished clearly; and whether they are clear depends entirely on whether a person will carefully distinguish that "Heavenly Heart"—the palace that currently governs the cycle, which is also the point at which the site receives qi.

天心既辨穴何難，但把向中放水看。

Once the Heavenly Heart has been distinguished, what difficulty remains in marking the point? What is left is only, from the facing one has set, to examine from which quarter the water comes and by which quarter it goes. When facing and water are paired according to the rule, the good and ill of the point are settled.

從外出入名為進，家內財寶積如山。

When prosperous generating qi from without flows in through the water-mouth into the hall configuration and is gathered by us, this is called the "advancing spirit," and it governs household treasure piled up like a mountain. The "chu" in the original "from without, chu and in" must be a corruption of "sheng" (generate); the line was originally "from without, generating in"—only when qi comes from without inward to generate us does it deserve the word "advance."

從內生出名為退，家內錢財皆盡費。

Conversely, when prosperous qi within the hall configuration leaks outward along the current, this is called the "retreating spirit," and it governs household wealth being spent away step by step. The difference between "advance" and "retreat" lies only in whether qi is gathered in or goes out.

出入克入名為旺，子孫高官盡富貴。

When incoming qi both generates us and overcomes inward so as to be of use to us, due and in command in the present cycle, this is called "prosperity," and it governs descendants rising to high office, rich and noble together. The "chu ru" in the original "chu ru overcoming in" must be a corruption of "generating in"; the line was originally "generating in, overcoming in," the same "generate" as in "from without, generating in" above. Generating in and overcoming in are both qi coming from without toward us, the exact opposite of the leakage of "generating out" and "overcoming out."

脈息生旺要知因，龍歇脈寒災禍侵。

Whether the breath of the dragon vein is generating or prosperous, one must know the reason why it is so; if the dragon's body has already come to rest and the vein's qi is cold and broken, not continuing, disaster will invade hard upon it.

縱有他山來救助，空勞祿馬護龍行。

Once the dragon has rested and the vein is cold, even if other peaks come from the side to rescue and answer, even if the noble sands of the Emolument star and the Horse star escort the dragon all along the way, it is wasted effort: they cannot restore a vein-qi that is itself already dead.

勸君再把星辰辨，吉凶禍福如神現。

Therefore the student is urged to turn back and distinguish once more, carefully, the quarters upon which the Nine Stars have alighted; once the stars are distinguished accurately, the good and ill fortune of a site appear as if a spirit were pointing them out, clearly before the eyes.

識得此篇真微妙，又見郭璞再出現。

Whoever can truly see through the subtlety of this chapter is no different from Guo Pu of the Jin, author of the Book of Burial, born again into the world.