The practice of Feng Shui dates back 4000 years, almost to the origin of the Chinese civilization and can be divided into 5 periods. Sometimes referred to as ‘ art of Qin niao tse’, as Qin niao tse, an officer in the court of Yellow Emperor was regarded as the originator of the art of FengShui. Unfortunately the books written by him were all lost.

Formative period – The Chinese have regarded the earth as living organism and earth contains similar channels called the veins of dragon in FengShui literature. Auspicious sites are those that lie at the point where channels converge, bringing with them an abundance of natural energy for the earth as Qi/ chi or lie at points where mountains merge with water. They used FengShui to select burial sites. They also believed that FengShui could have supernatural power in shaping the human fate.

During the heyday period, FengShui was accepted by people from all walks of life. This period witnessed the division of geomantic thinking into 2 schools namely situation and direction school. Taoism formed the basis of both schools. While the direction school focuses on the accurate alignment of the site and the building with the stars, which is based on the theory of 5 elements, 8 characters of birth and 8 trigrams of I ching, the focus of the situation school is on the topography and environmental elements around a site, dealing the importance of shapes, height of mountains, speed and curves of the water bodies. It is during this period that FengShui and other aspects of Chinese culture was exported to other south-east asian countries.

FollowUp Period – During this period, the Chinese realized that the luck of individual lands and grounds shift and change with time. This idea gave an additional dimension to FengShui – the Dimension of timing. The structure and layout of the forbidden city uses this principle of FengShui. Equal importance was given to selecting the burial sites for Chinese emperors, in order to prolong their dynasties. One such masterpiece is the Ming tombs of Peking.

Declining period – FengShui was banned as a superstitious practice and fared badly. This was the destructive period in china’s history, where people witnessed great upheaval. Only few had the courage to delve into the theory of FengShui.

Resurgent Period – The period we are currently in, is the resurgent period. After a long period of hibernation, enthusiasm for everything traditional, from foods, acupuncture, astrology to FengShui could be heard in the air. It is gaining popularity because it offers a way to improve one’s fate and overcome the bad influence in the environment.