2016 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Site Divination Practices in Premodern East Asia
Project/Area Number |
15H05376
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Research Institution | Kyushu University |
Principal Investigator |
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Project Period (FY) |
2015-04-01 – 2019-03-31
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Keywords | Religious Studies / Historiography / Tradition / Cultural Studies / Cultural Transmission |
Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Site divination practices are part of the much larger category of beliefs and practices known as geomancy or fengshui. They originate in ancient China where the first written evidence of site divination appeared around the 4th century CE. In this fiscal year, I arrived at a better understanding of ancient site divination practices for private residences in Korea based on a study of the Sallim Gyeongje; differentiated between various divinatory models; and started to investigate the transmission of theoretical and practical knowledge of site divination both temporally (ca. 3000 BCE-800 CE) and geographically (from China to Korea and Japan). I presented the results at national and international conferences (Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference in Toronto, March 2017) and workshops (IMAP in Japanese Humanities Symposium in Premodern Japanese Culture, December 2016), was invited to give lectures on the topic (UCLA and UCSB), and to contribute a chapter to two books which will be forthcoming with Bloomsbury in 2017 or 2018. I also further developed two side projects which will be come the focus of future research.
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Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
1: Research has progressed more than it was originally planned.
Reason
So far I have attained all the goals set in my original plan. Moreover, during this research period, I was able to spend two months in the United States at the University of California, Santa Barbara. While there, I presented a paper on the importance of fengshui in contemporary Japan and its relationship to Japanese architecture. I was thus able to broaden the scope of my research to include not only premodern divinatory practices, but also how the tradition still lives on in the present day. Moreover, in this past year two new, related research projects have developed from my original plan: one on the history of Heian jingu, the other on the self-identification of five Kyoto shrines as the guardians of the city who make the site "befit the four gods" (四神相応).
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Strategy for Future Research Activity |
I will continue my research on developments in site divination practices in East Asia, and for the next fiscal year the focus will be mainly on developments in Japan. I plan to do research on site divination and manifestations of the four divine beasts there. I will first try to find out which books on site divination were transmitted; then I will investigate if these books underwent any changes or transformations. I will buy additional primary and secondary sources on site divination and contact relevant scholars and libraries. At the end of the fiscal year, I intend to present preliminary results at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference (Seattle, March 2018).
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Research Products
(6 results)