Kamekara

Tortoise shells occupy two registers in the book: they are an ancient instrument for divination, paired with plant stalks in the examination of doubts, and a symbolic measure of generosity in several hexagram line texts. The author describes their ritual use while rejecting the idea that such objects could disclose future events outright; their role was to help judge whether contemplated plans and circumstances would prove fortunate.

Divination and Its Instruments

The account places tortoise-shell divination among practices known from very early Chinese history. A passage attributed to the era of the Xia dynasty describes doubts being examined by means of the shell and divining stalks. The author also points to a document in the Book of Documents that purports to belong to the twenty-third century BC and mentions divination by tortoise shell; later practice used both shells and stalks, with the stalks manipulated to produce lineal figures.

The shell and the stalks are presented as complementary means of consultation, not as independent revelations of a fixed future. The book’s account of the procedure for forming hexagrams focuses on forty-nine stalks, manipulated three times for each line; the resulting figure was interpreted through the hexagram texts and line statements. Tortoise-shell consultation belongs to the broader practice of examining doubts, in which the outcome could counsel stillness or action rather than supply certain foreknowledge.

What Divination Was Meant to Establish

The author explicitly limits the purpose of divination: it was not intended to discover future events absolutely, as though they were already knowable. It was used to assess whether schemes or contemplated conditions were likely to turn out well or badly. This distinction matters to his account of the I Ching: its oracular language may sound mysterious, but he argues that the practical question concerned the advisability of courses under consideration.

The text preserves a warning against treating the instruments as sources of unquestionable knowledge. In the cited examination of doubts, when both the tortoise shell and the stalks oppose people’s views, stillness is said to bring good fortune, while active undertakings are unlucky. The shell’s authority is thus framed within a decision-making practice: its result can restrain a proposed action, but it does not amount to an unrestricted prediction of what must happen.

Material Objects and Claims of Efficacy

The appendical account described by the author assigns the tortoise and the divining plant a spirit-like quality, treating them as specially fitted for consultation. He contrasts that belief with his own skeptical judgment, calling divination vain and rejecting the notion that a shell and a handful of dried stalks can disclose the character of the future. The book therefore records both the ritual standing attributed to tortoise shells and the author’s criticism of that standing.

A story cited in a footnote sharpens the contrast. A diviner tells a former marquis who asks whether his prospects will improve that Heaven loves the virtuous, while spirits are intelligent only through their connection with people. He dismisses the divining stalks as withered grass and the tortoise shell as a withered bone, urging the man to listen to himself instead of seeking knowledge from objects. In this anecdote the shell remains materially present, but its supposed authority is reversed: human judgment, rather than the instrument, is declared more intelligent.

Tortoise Shells in the Hexagram Texts

The shell also appears in line statements as a sign of valuable, accepted assistance. In one passage, parties give the subject ten pairs of tortoise shells and refuse to take no for an answer; the result is great good fortune. The accompanying commentary reads the gifts as benefit bestowed by other people and connects their abundance with favorable divinatory support. Here the shell is not being used as an instrument in a consultation: it is an emblem of substantial aid received.

A related line describes ten pairs of shells whose oracles cannot be opposed, followed by an instruction to persevere in firmness and correctness. It adds that the king may employ the virtues represented in presenting offerings to God, again with good fortune. The commentary interprets the gifts as people benefiting the recipient and the oracles as spirits benefiting him, culminating in divine favor. Across these passages, tortoise shells connect consultation, social support, and ritual offering, while their meaning remains dependent on the setting in which the texts place them.