Bwa3-bui 跋杯 (II) (Custom)

When visiting Taiwan’s temples, you’ll see by the altar a bucket with dozens of bamboo sticks inside it. The bucket is called籤筒(qian tong2) and each of the stick is with a number on it.

 (from sunshine莊信賢影像世界... flickr.com)

One of the hearsays about the origin of this divine system 抽籤(chou qian), lot-drawing, was from a tribal witchcraft in Tung Dynasty. This is another way to consult the deity. Sometimes you may not have a definite yes-no question to ask, but just want to know your luck of the year in general. You may do this.

For example, you’d like to know what it will be like with your career for the coming year, you may do the Bwa3-bui process, i.e. burning the incense, taking the bui, and telling your name. You ask the deity about your luck in your career and tell him if he’s answering your question, please give you a shing bui 聖杯. You throw the pair onto the ground. If you get a “yes,” go on with the process. If no, you can do it again, but altogether three times at most.

You draw out a stick from the bucket after you get a yes from Bwa3-bui. You check out the number on the bamboo stick, then go find the corresponsive 籤詩(qian shi), the lottery poem, from籤詩櫃(qian shi gui4), the closet with all lottery poems in it. 

(from veela-viva flickr.com)

籤詩, lottery poetry, is the deity’s answer to your question, which is put in rhymed lines in classical poetic form on a stripe of thin paper. Lots of the poems seen at earlier times were written by elite scholars or officials. The prevalent sets used in Taiwan consist of poems ranging from 6o to several hundreds. It is said a temple in Xin-zhu County has a set that has the most lottery poems, which is 366.

 (from tw.knowledge.yahoo.com)

Since the poems are written in classical Chinese poetic form, it’s not so easy for the ordinary public to understand exactly what they mean. When they draw a lot and get the lottery poem, they can go to the解籤人(jie3 qian ren2), who will explain the meaning of the lottery poem for them.

(from lavie.somode.com)

A modern way to do this is to put the explanation by the peom, which saves the manpower. And each of the poem has a conclusive phrase such as 上吉(shang4 ji2), top auspicious, 10-point auspicious, 中吉(zhong ji2), medium auspicious, 下吉(xia4 ji2), minor auspicious, and 兇(xong), inauspicious to give you a general idea about the lottery. Today you can even find websites helping you interpret those poems.

It occurred to me just now: is there any relationship between the “fortune cookies” practiced at the Chinese restaurant in the US and the籤詩I’ve mentioned above? Since we don’t have such a custom in our restaurant, is it possible that it was some early Chinese immigrant, who came up with the idea to put this into his restaurant as a gimmick to boost his business?

As I said earlier, Bwa3-bui is not limited to the communication with the deities, but also used with the deceased. I think I’ll leave this until later.  

(TO BE CONTINUED)

籤詩櫃=籤詩柜