Correcting the old, adapting the new Baba Nobutake and the (relative) rejuvenation of divination in the seventeenth century

Abstract

The end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century in Japan saw transformations in divination techniques similar to those in other fields of knowledge and belief. These transformations were made possible by the growth of the book market and the emergence of a new intelligentsia willing to share its knowledge with a broader public. To be more precise, we can observe a change in paradigm regarding mantic practices and a gradual shift from a "medieval" and a quite heterogeneous method based on calendrical parameters, the eight trigrams (hakke) technique, to more focused and homogeneous techniques such as shin'eki and dan'eki. These techniques derive from the mantic uses of the Book of Changes, and are based on hexagrams. At the center of the introduction of these new methods was Baba Nobutake, a member of the literati whose extensive publications influenced this shift in divination theory and techniques. © 2013 Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.