Guo Pu

Guo Pu (Chinese: 郭璞; Wade–Giles: Kuo P'u; AD 276 – 324), courtesy name Jingchun (景純), was a Chinese writer and scholar of the Eastern Jin period, and is best known as one of China's foremost commentators on ancient texts. Guo was a Taoist mystic, geomancer, collector of strange tales, editor of old texts, and erudite commentator. He was the first commentator of the Shan Hai Jing and so probably, with the noted Han bibliographer Liu Xin, was instrumental in preserving this valuable mythological and religious text. Guo Pu was the well educated son of a governor. He was a natural historian and a prolific writer of the Jin dynasty. He is the author of The Book of Burial, the first-ever and the most authoritative source of fengshui doctrine and the first book to address the concept of Fengshui in the history of China, making Guo Pu the first person historically to define Fengshui, and therefore, Guo Pu is usually called as the father of Fengshui in China.

Life

A native of Wenxi County, in what is now southwest Shanxi Province, Guo studied Daoist occultism and prognostication in his youth, and mainly worked as a prognosticator for various local officials and leaders, interpreting omens and portents in order to predict the success or failure of various endeavors. In AD 307 a Xiongnu clan invaded the area and Guo's family relocated south of the Yangtze River, reaching Xuancheng and eventually settling in Jiankang (modern Nanjing). Guo served as an omen-interpreter to military leaders and Eastern Jin chancellor Wang Dao before being appointed to official court positions in 318 and 320. Guo's mother died in 322, which caused Guo to resign his position and spend a year in mourning. In 323 Guo joined the staff of warlord Wang Dun, who controlled much of the modern Hunan and Hubei area, but was executed in 324 after he failed to produce a favorable omen toward Wang's planned usurpation of the Eastern Jin throne.