ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to show that a divination method involving the eight trigrams, known as hakke uranai, was among the most popular techniques used in Japan from the end of the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth century. This chapter attempts, by paying particular attention to a peculiar divination method involving divinatory figures commonly known as the eight trigrams. First, it describes the technique, pointing out its importance in early modern Japan, before giving a brief overview of its origins, characteristics, and media of diffusion. Then it considers evidence of its use from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, portraying its users by quoting testimonies from contemporaneous sources. Finally, it presents what the mechanics and structure of this method reveal about the preoccupations and representations of the clients of the diviners. This chapter reviews on mantic knowledge, derived in part from Daoist traditions transmitted from China, was passed on through a specific kind of manual while undergoing several transformations.
