In the November 1999 issue of Feng Shui for Modern Living there is a scant mention of the Ming Tang ("Reading of the Almanac," pp. 80-81).

The article states the following claims:

• The Ming Tang at a burial site should be wide and clear.
• The Ming Tang at a burial is always at the south.
• The Ming Tang also refers to the pool of water that Yang Sun Sung said should be placed at the front of a site.
• The Ming Tang concept is taken from the Liji.
• The Ming Tang may have referred to "a hall in the Emperor's palace used for religious rituals."
• In Feng Shui terms, the Ming Tang should contain an unobstructed view — "all things pointing to the sky."
• The Ming Tang at a burial is an ideal shape that consists of a semicircle with the curve side pointing away to the north, away from the burial site, and the straight edge is at the south.

We have seen at Puyang in Henan that, roughly 700 years before Yao's time, Chinese built their mandala (heaven-round, earth-square) into graves. The northern part of a grave is round and the southern part is square. The square is our world, shaped by our thoughts, and we leave it when we die. We return to heaven and the real world, the truth of nature, symbolized by the circle.

Human life is a cleared spot, marked off from the cosmos by symbols in animal form (the four celestial animals) that read clockwise and point south.

The Chinese cosmic order is reflected in a grave older than Yao and as new as the photo in a Feng Shui magazine. Yet lack of understanding of this orientation plagues glossy Feng Shui magazines, the latest books in your local bookstore, and the sales pitches of many Feng Shui practitioners. One reason is that people today tend to identify "place" primarily in terms of types of markets and institutional connections.

The eternal return

It is no accident that the "perfect point" (zhengxue) for the tomb shown in the article is perfectly located amid mountains that enfold it like a child emerging from the folds of a woman's vulva during birth. From the most ancient of times humans have sought to return their dead to the Great Mother of us all, to sleep for a short time in her womb and one day be born again.

For a soul to rest peacefully it has to be accurately oriented to the crossing of the cardinal directions on earth and aligned with the heavens. Burial at the crossroads of the four directions (in the center of the ya-shape) reflects the cosmic order, including the position of the Dao ("here") and the Emperor, the cardinal virtues, and the building-blocks of life. The center of the ya is the axis mundi and gateway to the Yellow Springs, to Earth, and to Heaven. This is why the figure of the household god was once placed under the central hole in the roof.

We see the same ideas echoed in the ideal Chinese city, built as a rectangular work of art and sacred science (orientation and light are its tokens). The city aligns precisely to the geomagnetic field with the main axes at cardinal directions. (Before the magnetic compass was invented, capital cities aligned with a constellation overhead around the time of the winter solstice.) Inside the city walls are the nine fang, "neighborhoods," and inside the fang are more cells, like pieces on a chessboard. The city and every building in it faces to the south. The "heart" of the city is at its center, with the ruler and his bureaucrats.

As you sit on your mat, meditating in your house in one of these neighborhoods, you are completely oriented to the cardinal points of the cosmos. This reminds you how great and impersonal the universe is, and that you are obliged to fit into its cycles. Our prosperity depends on our successful adjustment to these natural forces, and our characters are judged by how well we can appreciate them.

Astronomy manifested in the landscape

The ruler is at center because he is the pole star. (The Mandate of Heaven translates to the "numbers of the heavenly calendar," according to Granet. According to contemporary scholars, it is a certain type of planetary conjunction.) The Son of Heaven is a human magician who claims to command the powers of sky and call down rain by virtue of his Mandate. Likewise he is the "midmost stone" in a vaulted building or a megalithic henge, just as Aguieus, the "foursquare Apollo," was a herm.

The Emperor is also Everyman, for center is the province of human habitation. Center organizes space; it indicates the position and movement of humans in an architectural context. Center is also midpoint of the bagua oriented in time and space: the Dao ("here") and the Pool of Heaven (circumpolar region) that illustrates a principle of the universe.

A Ming Tang or Hall of Light is a sacred precinct brought down from heaven, a reduced plan of the universe accurately oriented to the cardinal directions and reflecting the circumpolar region. It is a building of the realized Earth, surrounded by the potential Earth. Its first floor is square and its second floor is round, topped by a thatched umbrella roof that signifies different stages of the heavens gliding around in space. It is a building of ritual observances, built with the aid of the Six Regulators (measuring instruments), though the level and marking-cord are its standards. Thus the Huainanzi says, "In the regulation of the Ming Tang be tranquil, taking the level as a pattern; be active, taking the marking-cord as a pattern."

No doubt the marking-cord was one method of determining its orientation, just as the "Thread of Brahma" in Tibetan mandala ceremonies performs the functions discharged by the cardo in Roman city orientation. Chinese officials erected a gnomon, observed sunrises and sunsets, and bisected this angle to achieve a perfect north and south orientation. Egyptian officials knew this as "stretching the cord," which determined the four angles of a temple; they performed this after sighting the circumpolar stars, which indicates that they also wanted a precise orientation according to a particular date.

Heaven and Earth must harmonize, and the job of verification falls to court experts who must use their celestial observations and calculations to determine what lies ahead. The Lingtai or Royal Observatory, sometimes identified as the top floor of a Ming Tang (but generally an elevated terrace), was built eight li west of Changan in 100 BCE. (In other traditions the upper chamber of the Ming Tang was called Skyward House, Skyward Lookout, Spirit Tower, and Bright Palace.)

Behave yourself

In the "Treatise of the Seasonal Rules" chapter of the Huainanzi, the Ming Tang is used to illustrate how the ruler behaves to retain harmony in the land for a year. This chapter is one of three versions of a Han text known as Yueling, or the "Monthly Ordinances," completed during the time of the Qin. The earliest edition of this material is Shiji, Monthly Records, found in the Lushi chunquiu (Spring and Autumn Annals of Mr. Lu). The version in the Liji (Record of Rites) is based on the version found in Lushi chunquiu.

All of these texts concern the calendar and how a ruler functions in resonance (ganying) with the universe and the rest of his species. This material forms part of Huang-Lao Daoism, it involves the use of a shi (prototype of the Luopan or Feng Shui compass), and the calendar it follows is the so-called "Xia count" which is older than the Shang (but not nearly as old as the Guanzi ritual calendar).

The calendar determines what symbolic acts must be performed for life on Earth to work in perfect harmony with the cosmos. The ruler announces the calendar in the Ming Tang in the first month of the year and also presents his plans for the year. The year begins in the northeast chamber (reflecting the civil calendar in use since 104 BCE), but only five chambers are given names. The corners are identified by the position of the chamber that is closest. A Ming Tang is constructed on a 3x3 grid and the ruler moves through the building in resonance with the months. Like the Luoshu, the even numbers are found in the corners, and the odd numbers are at the sides and center. All conform to the celestial calendar to prevent disasters.

• East — Bluegreen Yang Chamber
• South — Hall of Light or Bright Hall (how the building gets its name)
• Center — Central Palace
• West — Comprehensive Template
• North — Dark Hall

The Emperor's clothes and those of his court, along with their entertainments, judicial pronouncements, activities, meals — everything down to the accessories in each room — were arrayed to indicate the seasons. The Emperor always sat at the north facing south, the direction of the fullest sun — and because he was linked with the pole star (the unmoving enter on Earth), with the rest of the world revolving around him.

Emperor Wu (140-87 BCE) constructed a Ming Tang to create anachronistic Zhou traditions (Ming Tang was allegedly an administration building for the Zhou). Wang Mang also built a Ming Tang. In the Feng and Shan Sacrifices, it is noted that Liu Che of the Han built a Ming Tang before he performed the rites. The building is generally considered a Neo-Confucian structure, as are its ceremonies, which incorporated the latest Yin-Yang cosmology.

Because Ming Tang is a Han retelling of history, writers devised new names for the structure as it might have been used by earlier rulers. The Yellow Emperor had his Universal Palace, as Yao had his Hall of Passage and the Yin (Shang) their Hall of Yang. Only for the Zhou was it called the Bright Hall.

It all starts in the skies

Ming Tang links to the Great Plan (hongfan), the nine provinces of Yu, and to the fenye or well-field system (though the Liji has the Luoshu developing from the Ming Tang!). It has its origins in the heavens. At one time Huo (the Fire Star and the Heart of the Dragon) was also called Ming Tang, part of xiu sector Fang also called Ming Tang (inside xiu Xin), three stars outside the southwest corner of Tai Wei — the Bright Hall and the throne of the king of heaven. The celestial position of Ming Tang corresponded with 10 February, around the time that the Emperor announced the calendar for the new year (in the terrestrial Ming Tang). Lingtai, three stars to the west of Ming Tang, was identified as an elevated terrace on the ecliptic.

And is reflected in the society

Through the liuren astrolabe and the game liubo, the Ming Tang is linked with the development of spirit-chess. Arab legends speak of chess as an allegory of the heavens and identify the board as a school of government. They learned this in China.

Similarities between the Ming Tang and the layout of Tara have not gone unnoticed. Chessboards and Irish brandub boards, along with other board games, card games, and dice games, are all descendants of the Earth plate of a liuren astrolabe.