Hello everybody, good evening. Thank you Dr. Zhang, thank you for your very kind introduction.

Professor Luckner, Professor Foya and ladies and gentlemen, my name is Zheng Wanjun from

China Medical University in Taiwan. It is a pleasure to be here to share with you about

my research findings. Today I'm going to talk about orientation and avoidance, prenatal

space divination during the Tang and Song dynasties. This is my outline for today's

speech. My research focuses on the day wandering god and the monthly delivery chart. My research

method applies archival studies to analyze historical materials including the medical

books of Tang and Song dynasties. For example, medical secrets of an official, white and

Mi Yang, peaceful holy benevolent prescriptions, Tai Ping Sheng Hui Fang, Yi Xin Fang, Yi Xin

Bo and so on. And Dong Huang manuscripts are also utilized such as Dong Huang calendars,

Stein 276, Plato 2973 and so on. Moreover, I also use classical classics, for example

Huang Bi Long Shou Jing, the yellow emperor dragon head, Khenong and Wu Xing Da Yi to

analyze Liu Ren divination. The health and survival rates of mothers and their newborn

children is one of the major criteria for assessing the standard of health care in any

nation. In the Han shu, the history of former Han dynasties, we can see that women face

a major obstacle in childbearing that only one in ten will survive.

The Chan Jin, classic of childbirth of the Sui dynasty, is the earliest extant medical

text to mention preparing a birth quarter for the pregnant women. Chan Jin quoted by

Yi Xin Bo, the author of the book is Tanpa No Yasuri, Dan Bo Kang Lai. Many of the texts

cited in Yi Xin Bo have been lost in China and have only survived to present through

their inclusion in that work. The Chan Jin says,

Pregnant women should follow the creativeness of the heaven, absorb the chi of the earth,

obtain the vacuity of the heaven, and avoid evil spirits before birth delivery.

My curiosity was aroused and I wanted to know more about these questions. What kinds of

spirits should pregnant women avoid? Who provided a prediction to know the orientation of evil

spirits? In recent decades, many scholars have approached

the issue of gender and medicine, especially pregnancy and childbirth. As far as the issue

of gender and medicine in early and medieval China is concerned, several articles have

been devoted to the study of pregnancy and childbirth with many different views.

Writing about childbirth is an important issue in this field, whether in medical writings

or religious discourses. Gender Lee has explored pregnancy and childbirth from Han dynasty

to Tang dynasty. She first noticed that the delivery room arrangement should follow the

monthly delivery chart, whether setting up a birth tent or arranging a birth hut.

In my article, Orientation and Avoidance, Prenatal Space Divination during the Tang

and Song dynasties, I tried to answer the following questions. What things should pregnant

women avoid? How to prepare a place for childbirth? Who provided a prediction?

In order to understand heaven, ancient people from different periods tried all sorts of

ways to create the mud of the universe in their mind. They invented tools, devices,

and even machines to measure changes of nature, so the rotation of the universe could be interpreted.

The great playwriter Shakespeare recognized earth, universe, all creatures and spirits

as simultaneous and consistent with a higher principle. This concept of order, which originated

from the medieval period, was actually similar to the ancient Chinese philosophy of man and

nature. Under the command of heaven, every order is connected and predictable.

The Shi Ji mentions star divination and weather divination to interpret spontaneous natural

phenomena. Wei Ping, 乃圆事而起,仰天而是月之光,观斗所至,定日

楚香,规矩为符,复以权衡,思维以定八卦相望,是其极

胸,既从先见。 Wei Ping stood up, adjusting the mantis astral

diviner's board with his hands. Raising his eyes to heaven, he gazed at the light of

the moon. He looked to see where the deeper was pointing and determined the position where

the sun was situated. As at, he used a compass and square along with a weight and scales.