Dr.Ong's research has undercovered several scientific aspects of the Luopan ill-understood by modern practitioners. Modern practitioners are blissfully unaware of that almost all the Luopan markings are affected by the precession of the equinoxes.

There are evidence, as presented below, that Jiang Da Hong corrected for the precession of the equinoxes in his simple Luopan. The San Yuan Luopan has not corrected for the precession of the equinoxes since Jiang Da Hong's time! Practically all these modern Luopans, expensive as they may be, are out of date, as they have not corrected for the effects of the precession of the equinoxes!

We have noted in the previous article "Riddle of Lai Bu Yi's Ren Pan":

• Although practitioners like to tout the Luopan as the most important instrument in Feng Shui, a number of rings remain mysteries to them. Almost every Feng Shui so-called master pretends to know the Luopan - he will lose face to his students if he admits he does not know! The truth is that there are a lot of things these people do not know about the Luopan.

There are several types of Luopans of the San He, San Yuan or combined Zhong He versions. The ancient Ming grandmaster Jiang Da Hong's Luopan has only 4 rings, but modern ones can have up to 30 or more rings. The normal practitioners seldom use a number of rings carved into the Luopans, as they do not know how to use them.

The mystery and lack of understanding of the rings of the Luopans have caused gullible practitioners to treat the Luopan as a special near-talisman-like item. Makers of the Luopans have been able to take advantage of this to sell Luopans at high prices.

Some masters like to show off by creating special Luopans. They will add strange rings like those pertaining to the "12 Officers", "Five Ghosts Carry Treasures", "Great Sun Formula", etc. However, they do not really know the rationale to many of the rings, e.g.

• 28 Lunar Constellations

  The 28 Lunar Constellations are prominently marked usually on one of the outermost rings of the Luopan. Do you know how to use them? Likely not, as your master would not have taught you, as he himself would not know!

  One well known San Yuan master admits that hardly anyone really know how to use the 28 Lunar Constellations ring. The ring appears in danger of being just a decorative feature. Many San Yuan Luopans just drop it, as their creators do not know how to use the 28 Lunar Constellations.

  The lack of use of the prominent ring of 28 Lunar Constellations in both the San He and San Yuan Luopans is a signal that some thing very important is missing in the current knowhow and usage of the Luopan.
  
  
  

• Lai Bu Yi's Ren Pan.

  Another mystery is the Ren Pan of the San He Luopan. Some, e.g. the Yang Gong school, do not accept Lai Bu Yi's Ren Pan:

  • Right up to Yang Jun Sung's time and thereafter, but before a latter day famous Yang Gong Fengshui practitioner called Lai Bu Yi, the Luopan had only Di Pan and Tian Pan. Nothing else. The Ren Pan was actually invented by Lai Bu Yi, who is an expert in Bazi, and observed the movements of the stars and determined that since the Stars affect human luck, he decided to include a Ren Pan to track the stars. But we all know that mountains and waters are NOT AFFECTED by star movements. There is no theoretical basis to do that. Therefore this practice of using Ren Pan to audit mountain and waters is also unacceptable in Yang Gong Fengshui.
  
  
  

  The Yang Gong argument is merely a move to cover up for their ignorance of how the Ren Pan was meant to be used.

  As explained in the previous article, Lai Bu Yi's Ren Pan was meant to track the 28 Lunar Constellations in the Sung dynasty through adjusting for a 7.5o shift caused by the precession of the equinoxes! Later, in the Ming dynasty, a further adjustment had to be made and was indeed made by Jiang Da Hong, as explained below.

Lai Bu Yi wrote a document called "Cui Guan Pian" (Induce the Government Positions). This Sung dynasty text contains fantastic revelations of how Lai Bu Yi used the astronomical stars to foster Feng Shui. Keep with us to learn his secrets!

The outermost ring of the 28 Lunar Constellations is critically important, as it is the means to track and re-mark the effects of the precession of the equinoxes!

The founder of the San Yuan Feng Shui is reputed to be Jiang Da Hong, the Ming Feng Shui grandmaster. He reputedly created Xuan Kong Fei Xing Feng Shui, i.e. Flying Star Feng Shui.

Jiang Da Hong had a Luopan as illustrated at the bottom.

It has only 4 rings, which include the innermost ring as the Bagua in the form of the Luo Shu numbers. It has the outermost ring as the 28 Lunar Constellations. Thus, even at that time, Jiang Da Hong knew that the 28 Lunar Constellations were important in the workings of the Luopan.

• If Jiang Da Hong had to use the 28 Lunar Constellations what make you think you can without them?

Compare this Luopan with the San He Luopan rings of Di Pan, Tian Pan and Ren Pan. Jiang Da Hong's 28 Lunar Constellations ring shows the Lunar Constellations as corresponding with a ring of 24 Mountains which have shifted some 22.5o anti-clockwise, as compared to the alignment of the 28 Lunar Constellations with the Di Pan.

He did realise that, due to the precession of the equinoxes, he had to shift the 24 Mountains 22.5o to get the current Mountain sign to use to accurately mark Time.

• Jiang Da Hong must have used the 28 Lunar Constellation to mark Time as they were there on his Luopan. To mark Time, he had adopted a principle like Lai Bu Yi's Ren Pan, which was shifted 7.5o anti-clockwise to adjust for the precession of the eqiuinoxes.

• But modern practitioners have not adjusted their San Yuan Luopans for the precession of the equinoxes. They are using outdated Luopans!

  Read about how the precession of the equinoxes affect astrological dates and that modern astrologers are using wrong dates.

Conclusion

Creators and designers may delight in the beauty of the rings they put into the Luopan. But it seldom occurs to them to analyse the rationale of the rings.

Many learn so-called secretive formulas. They transform the formulas into markings on rings of the Luopan, but they do not know how the formulas come about. The Luopan rings should reflect serious principles with far ranging large effects. If the founders are wrong, practitioners would just perpetuate the errors, which can cause expensive losses.

After analysing the many rings of several types of Luopans, I realise that considerable knowledge of astronomy is required to understand the workings of the rings and also to spot the massive errors perpetuated by some rings. My advice is that those who lack knowledge of astronomy should refrain from creating dubious Luopans.

There are other startling implications in Jiang Da Hong's Luopan! There are some aspects of the modern San Yuan Luopan which have mistakenly deviated from Jiang Da Hong's Luopan.

Basically, there are significant astronomical reasons for the different rings in the Luopans. These major aspects of the Luopan are ill-understood by current practitioners, including those who think they know and have ventured to create their own Luopans, which are unfortunately erratic.

Modern Luopans are in error and have to re-calibrate for the precession of the equinoxes!

Other related articles:

• Riddle of Lai Bu Yi's Ren Pan
• 1. Issue of Precession of the Equinoxes. 2008 is not Year of Rat but Ox!
• 2. Issue of 20 Years Yun and Saturn Jupiter Conjunction. 2004 is not Period 8 but Period 1!