{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Buddhism","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_bud_bit_bit20_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_bud_bit_bit20_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_bud_bit_bit20_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/bit/bit20.htm","summary":"This is a 19th-century Western ethnographic study \u2014 likely a chapter from a larger academic work on Tibet \u2014 cataloguing and describing the astrological and divinatory tables used by Tibetan Lamas, situated within the scholarly tradition of European orientalism. The central argument is that Tibetan religious practice assigns enormous weight to astrological calculation in governing everyday decisions, from auspicious travel directions to marriage compatibility and illness prognosis, with specialist \"astrologer Lamas\" consulted for high-stakes matters and ordinary Lamas handling minor questions. The text provides unusually granular detail: it transcribes the actual structure of divinatory scrolls, including the five elements (iron, fire, wood, earth, water) mapped to colors and symbolic figures, the twelve cyclic animals in human-headed robes, and the \"nine blots\" (Meba gu) numeral system used to identify years dangerous to a person's life. A distinctive and recurrent claim is that Tibetan astrologers maintain strict secrecy around their interpretive methods \u2014 keeping the logic of their calculations hidden even from fellow Tibetans across different provinces \u2014 which the author candidly acknowledges as a major obstacle to producing a complete account. The author also notes regional variation in divinatory practice, undermining any notion of a unified Tibetan system, and points out that even their primary Lama informant, Gombojew, encountered unfamiliar material when asked to transcribe certain diagrams.","tags":["19th Century Buddhology","Buddhist Iconography","Tibetan Buddhism"],"text":null,"title":"Chapter XVII. Description of Various Tables used for Astrological Purposes","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Buddhism","translated_text":null,"word_count":9245}