The Classic of How Do We Know (He Zhi Jing)

Reading a Household from the Land

Twenty-nine couplets, all beginning with the same question — how do we know? Each answers with one feature of hill or water: hills that run away, a hill that darts across the bright hall, dragon and tiger hills that fight or stand open-mouthed, water leaving like a winnowing basket, a censer-shaped peak. Poverty, wealth, rank, widowhood, hanging, fire, robbers and priests are all read off the ground, and the chapter closes by saying the whole art is nothing but this classic.