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This consists of a representation of the twelve terrestrial branches or stems, ti chih> and the ten celestial trunks, t'ien kan, indicating the cardinal points and the intermediate points, north-east, north-west, south-east, and south-west. The four cardinal points are further verified with the aid of the Five Elements, the Five Colours, and the Eight Trigrams.
Finding no means of conquering them, Yang Chien, Chiang Tzu-ya, and Li Ching took counsel together and decided to have recourse to Fu Hsi's trigrams, and by smearing them with the blood of a fowl and a dog to destroy their spiritual power. But the two brothers were fully informed of what was designed.
The latter replied that there was nothing surprising about it, seeing that the knave had eaten the peaches of life in the garden of Heaven and the pills of immortality which he had composed. "Hand him over to me," he added. "I will distil him in my furnace of the Eight Trigrams, and extract from his composition the elements which render him immortal."
It is on the strength of these trigrams that Fu Hsi is regarded as the chief god of medicine, since it is by their mystical power that the Chinese physicians influence the minds and maladies of their patients. He is represented as holding in front of him a disk on which the signs are painted. The Ministry of Exorcism
Wen Wang, being versed in divination and the science of the pa kua, Eight Trigrams, knew that these rissoles contained the flesh of his son, and to avoid the snare spread for him he ate three of the rissoles in the presence of the royal envoys. On their return the latter reported this to the King, who found himself helpless on learning of Wen Wang's conduct.
A dignified Chinaman, too, armed with letters of introduction, had presented him with a wonderful book painted upon ivory of the Trigrams of Fo-Hi.
Subsequently this device was abandoned in favour of the Chinese method, heating a tortoise-shell; and ultimately the latter, in turn, gave way to the Eight Trigrams of Fuhi. The use of auguries seems to have come at a later date.
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