What It Is

The Xieji Bianfang Shu (協紀辨方書) is a 36-volume work completed in 1739, commissioned by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty. The title translates roughly as "Treatise on the Harmonization of Times and Distinction of Directions." It was compiled by court scholars including Prince Yunlu (允祿), Mei Gu (梅榖), and He Guozong (何國宗), with the explicit purpose of standardizing almanac practice across China.

By the 18th century, Chinese almanac traditions had accumulated centuries of conflicting rules, regional variations, and folk additions. Different almanac makers produced different calendars. Merchants, farmers, officials, and families all relied on almanac guidance for timing important activities, but the lack of standardization meant contradictory advice was common. The emperor ordered a definitive compilation.

What It Contains

The Xieji Bianfang Shu is organized into sections covering the theoretical foundations of Chinese calendrical science and the practical rules for evaluating dates and directions. It draws on the Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches, lunar mansions (二十八宿), solar terms (二十四節氣), and various derived factors including the Twelve Day Officers (建除十二神) and the Yellow and Black Road star systems.

The text does not simply list rules. It evaluates them. The compilers reviewed existing almanac traditions and explicitly rejected rules they found unreliable or unsupported. This critical approach makes the Xieji Bianfang Shu unusual among almanac texts. It is not a collection of everything anyone ever believed about date selection. It is a curated, argued, and justified system.

Each activity type has its own evaluation criteria. Marriage ceremonies, construction, travel, planting, burial, taking office, signing agreements. The text specifies which celestial factors apply to each activity and how to weigh them. The rules are transparent and traceable.

Why It Matters

The Xieji Bianfang Shu remains the standard reference for serious almanac practice. When professional date selectors (择日师) in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asian Chinese communities evaluate dates for weddings, business openings, or construction projects, the Xieji Bianfang Shu is their primary text.

Its authority comes from its methodology. The compilers did not invent new rules. They collected existing traditions, tested them against the theoretical framework of stems and branches, and retained only what could be justified. Rules that contradicted each other were resolved. Rules that had no clear basis were noted and set aside. The result is a system that is internally consistent.

This is a significant distinction. Many almanac apps and printed almanacs circulate rules that the Xieji Bianfang Shu explicitly rejected. Folk additions, regional customs, and simplified heuristics have re-entered popular practice despite having been filtered out by the imperial compilation. Following the Xieji Bianfang Shu means following the most carefully vetted version of the tradition.

Generic Ratings vs. Activity-Specific Assessment

One of the most important points in the Xieji Bianfang Shu is its stance on generic day ratings. The text makes clear that a day cannot be meaningfully rated as universally "good" or "bad." A day's quality depends entirely on what you intend to do on that day.

This is a direct challenge to the most common format in popular almanacs and modern almanac apps, which tend to assign each day a single rating. The imperial compilers understood the appeal of simplicity but rejected it as misleading. The system was designed for per-activity evaluation. Using it otherwise produces unreliable results.

The terms yi (宜, suitable) and ji (忌, to be avoided) in a classical almanac always appear next to specific activities. "Suitable for: marriage, planting. To be avoided: travel, litigation." The day is not good or bad. It is good for some things and not for others. This is the classical position, and the Xieji Bianfang Shu is its clearest articulation.

How Six Lines Implements This

Six Lines follows the Xieji Bianfang Shu methodology for its almanac feature. Each day is evaluated per-activity, with the applicable classical factors shown alongside the assessment. There is no single day score. The reasoning is transparent.

This is a deliberate choice to follow the source text rather than simplify for convenience. When you check a date in Six Lines, you see which activities are favorable and which are not, with references to the specific classical factors at work. The evaluation follows the imperial compilation, not a simplified scoring algorithm.

The difference between following source texts and inventing rating systems is the difference between reference and opinion. A reference tool shows you what the tradition says and why. An opinion tool shows you what someone decided the tradition means. Six Lines is a reference tool. The Xieji Bianfang Shu is its foundation.