Rishu


is a genre of hemerological texts that circulated widely in China from the late Warring States Period to the Western Han dynasty. This term finds its first evident presence dated back to 217 BCE in China.

Historical significance

China

In Mainland China, the "Day Book" is one of the pieces of literature discovered in late Warring States period tomb libraries which has confirmed the description of Yubu as a series of three steps. It has great cultural significance in ancient and medieval China. It is an almanac or hemerology which is one of the Shuihudi Qin bamboo texts recovered in 1975 in Shuihudi, Hubei, from a tomb dated 217 BCE. Donald Harper believes that for describing texts like the 日書, which determine lucky and unlucky days on sexagenary cycle numerology without reference to astrology, "hemerology" is a more accurate translation than "almanac".

The Steps of Yu

The has one occurrence of, and one of . This is consistent with the descriptions of in terms of "three steps" and where each "step" was composed of three separate steps. Andersen notes that the term was later used synonymously with.
Yu is closely associated with travel in the. The section titled 禹須臾 "Promptuary/Instant of Yu" begins by listing the stem and branch sexagenary cycle in five groups of twelve signs each, and gives, for the days in each group, a certain lucky time of day to safely begin a journey. This section concludes with a ritual to be performed before going out of the city gate.
Isabelle Robinet says this text lets us reconstruct the connection between "exorcistic practices intended to ward off harmful demons, and therapeutic practices intended to ensure good hygiene and good physical balance", in other words, "the evolution of exorcism toward medicine, a shift from conceiving sickness as caused by demons to seeing sickness as the result of an imbalance".

Contemporary world significance