An Introduction to 《玉照定真经》: An Important Text on Ancient Three Destinies Methods and Early Fate Calculation

Yuzhao Dingzhen Jing (《玉照定真经》) is a short stem-and-branch fate text. The one-juan Siku edition carries the traditional attribution to Guo Pu, with commentary by Zhang Yong. Attribution is not established authorship.

Attribution and recovery

The Siku notice questions Guo Pu’s authorship because the work is absent from his official biography and several earlier bibliographies. It also suggests that Zhang Yong may have written both text and commentary. That is the Qing editors’ hypothesis, not a settled finding. Siku notice and text.

The notice says its text was recovered from the Yongle Dadian. The one-juan description therefore refers to this recovered textual tradition, not a surviving Guo Pu-era original.

Contents and reading

Short statements and notes discuss birth-time categories, stems and branches and fortunes. The notice both values the material and criticizes strained extensions to relatives. Neither opinion is modern scientific validation.

Distinguish the main text, Zhang’s notes and the Siku notice. Read technical terms in their immediate context rather than inserting later standard definitions.

2026-10-24: separated traditional attribution from editorial conjecture, specified the recovered text, and removed unchecked terminology explanations and sweeping early dating.

Sources

• 《玉照定真经》四库本提要与正文