Ancestral Graves

Since ancient times, feng shui has been used to bury ancestors so that their descendants prosper. A grave site is read as a house site is, by its incoming dragon, its water, its bright hall and its soil, and also by what is found in the pit when it is dug. The lair's hexagram shows which son's line of the family prospers.

Burial at a grave site

The Chinese hold to honoring the dead and remembering their forebears, and making offerings to the ancestors is part of filial duty; since ancient times, the burial of ancestors has followed feng shui. In feng shui terms, an ancestral grave (祖坟) is a grave site (阴宅), and a home is a house site.

The dead and the living compete for land

With the world's population as large as it now is, the dead and the living compete for land. A plot of land is hard enough to find; to find a true lair as well, to bury one's ancestors in, is next to impossible.

So the study of feng shui calls for flexibility: one must not cling to set methods or apply old rules without understanding them. The layouts of feng shui are to be applied with judgment, never fixed. As in the Book of Changes' treatment of images, each image appears only once, and the same layout never appears a second time; only by grasping it deeply can one find how to adapt. Pitching an army camp follows the same principle; see Introduction: Graves and Army Camps.

A bare, crumbling mountain takes no grave

A range bare of trees, crumbling everywhere, with rocks tumbling down, is a dead range. Feng shui masters say that a bare, crumbling mountain takes no grave, and this dead range is what they mean: no one may be buried on such a mountain.

A range that is thin and bony, lacking flesh, lacks energy, and is not a favorable range either.

A range covered all over in gravel and sand counts all the more as a hostile range, with sand blowing and stones rolling. Nothing grows in such a place; it is ground where the family line dies out and the livestock die.

Rules shared with house sites

The following hold for house sites and grave sites alike.

The size of the lair: a large, strong incoming dragon surely forms a large lair, and the bright hall in front of it can stretch a hundred miles or more; a small incoming dragon forms a small lair, and its bright hall is small too. A small lair can hold a house, and it can hold a grave.

Setting the facing: feng shui masters set the facing by the incoming dragon. For a house site and a grave site alike, a yang dragon must take a yang facing and a yin dragon a yin facing; the two are never mixed.

Table and facing mountains: feng shui masters often set the facing by the table mountain. Here a house's facing and a lair's facing are judged together: with a table mountain shaped like a brush rest, a house or a lair that faces it will surely produce scholars and the top scholar of the imperial examinations. So when the table mountain is favorable, the people fare well; when it is ill-fated, they fare ill, and a grave site is no exception. The facing mountain in front of the lair is read as well: the best facing mountains rise one layer above another, and each generation surpasses the last; with no facing mountain, the dragon vein may take effect for no more than three generations.

The soil of the lair: the color of the soil in the lair must match the soil at the narrow pass where the ridge runs between two large mountains; only then is the true vein kept. The best soil is red or yellow, glossy and moist; the best texture is neither too hard nor too soft, with a warm, moist feel. For telling soils apart, see Locating the Lair.

When the pit is dug

Once the lair is fixed and its soil examined, what is found in the pit when it is dug must be read as well.

If living creatures such as fish are found in the pit, it is surely where natural vital energy gathers: a fine lair. If snakes, rats, insects or ants are found in it, it is surely an ill-fated lair.

Which son's line prospers

The family's lines are counted by son: the eldest son's line, the middle son's line and the youngest son's line, that is, the lines of the first, second and third sons.

Reading the water: water from the birth and peak directions should come toward the lair; water at the storage direction should leave. Where water that should come leaves instead, or water that should leave comes instead, decline falls on one of the lines: when water flows away from the birth or nurture position, the eldest son's line declines; when water flows away from the peak position, the middle son's line declines; when water comes in from the dormant or stored position, the youngest son's line declines. See The Eight Yellow Springs.

Reading the hexagram: the direction the water mouth faces is the outer trigram and the lair's sitting mountain the inner trigram; together they make the lair's own hexagram. With the round and square charts one can tell when the lair takes effect and whom it protects, and list the lair's annual phases and what comes to each son's line. Setting the facing from the lair shows, across the generations of the clan, which line the lair affects: which line prospers, who carries it on, for how long, and down to which generation. For the method and a worked example, see Casting a Site's Hexagram: Family Lines and Years.

All this can already be known when the dead are laid in the grave.

Source: The Way of the Earth's Veins (天纪：地脉道)