Feng-shui: its modern interpretation

Abstract

Feng-shui, an old Chinese architectural theory, comprises rules for site selection and orientation of dwellings for the living and the dead. This paper will explore into the fundamentals of the old Chinese cosmology as well as offeng-dui, and relate them to Eliade and Jung in search of feng-shui’s diachronic meaning, and hopefully bring it closer to a modern understanding. It has already been known that feng-shui is rooted in the old Chinese cosmology. The starting logic is very simple: The Heavenly order rules that of the Earthly. Men of ancient China had sought into the nature of Cosmos and elucidated what they comprehended into a ‘practical’ theory applicable to human habitats of all scales. Cities, villages, buildings, dwellings, and even the tombs were sited and erected according to fengshui. Eliade’s erudite writings on ‘the mythical geography’ certainly can throw light on a modem interpretation of feng-shui. Jung’s psychology is another likely key to the mysteries of feng-shui, for he truly delved into the irrationality of the human psyche, especially of the unconsciousness. The spatial structure of a feng-shui site is analogous to Eliade’s ‘Symbolism of the Centre’, and its symbolic meaning to Jung’s ‘Individuation Process’.