The purple white theory of feng shui is a branch that grew out of the Xuan Kong system of feng shui.
It mostly originate from the classical writings contained in the purple white script (玄空紫白訣). Even though this compilation of writings was from the 1700s, early references of it were found in feng shui classics in even earlier times.
To avoid confusion, it must be stated that xuan kong purple white is not flying stars feng shui. But the fundamentals behind it’s mechanism is the same.
It’s like using the same spare parts to create two different beautiful objects.
The most common application of purple white concepts in modern feng shui is in it’s teachings of replacement stars.
There are essentially 4 basic types of replacement star concepts.
- Year replacement
- Month replacement
- Floor replacement
- Door replacement
Here’s how the replacement charts are generated.
Year replacement (年替)
The year replacement method is used to generate an annual star chart that would affect a property during that particular year.
It uses the annual flying star as an earth star and by referencing the grand duke, the star associated with it is identified as the starting point to fly the heaven stars.
For example, in the year 2020, the annual flying star would be 7. This gives us the 9 star positions for 2020 as the earth stars.
Because 2020 is a rat year, zi water of the 24 mountains indicate that the grand duke lies at the south. By looking at the annual flying stars table above, we can observe that the star 3 takes up position at the south.
Therefore the star 3 takes up position as the heaven star at the center grid. Then the star flies in a forward sequence according to the movement of luo shu to generate the rest of the chart.
With the heaven and earth stars now identified, with the heaven star on top and earth star at bottom, trigams associated with the star numbers are sometimes erected to form a hexagram to represent the deeper meaning of the grids.
For example, the center grid with the combination of 3-7 would put the Tui trigram on top and Chen trigram below. This creates the hexagram #54 (歸妹) which can be referred to the Yi Jing for it’s meanings.
However, it must be said that this is an application for Xuan Kong Da Gua (玄空大卦) which strays away from purple stars.
Month replacement (月替)
While the year replacement method uses the annual flying stars as the earth star, the month replacement method uses the monthly star as the base earth star.
Then the earthly branch of the month itself is the grand duke which is the basis of generating the heaven stars.
For example, if we take the date of 15th April 2020, the monthly star would be 6. Then we can draw up the monthly stars in a grid as below.
Because it is a Chen (E5) month, we refer to the 24 mountains which shows that E5 is associated with the direction southeast. Referring to the grid table of monthly stars above, we can see that star 5 occupies the southeast. 5 is then inserted into the center as the heaven star and the luoshu flying sequence is applied again to generate the whole purple white chart for the month.
The hexagram created could then also be referenced to the Yi Jing.
Floor replacement (層替)
The floor replacement method basically uses the annual flying star chart as the set of earth stars. This is used for the ground floor.
For plotting the heaven stars, every level upwards the would add 1 to the annual star.
For example, if we are looking at a level 4 unit during 2020, the base of earth stars would follow the annual flying stars with 7 at the center. Since level 4 is 3 levels above the first floor, we take 7 and move forward 3 numbers, which leads us to number 1.
1 is then used as the heaven star at the center grid and flies in a forward sequence according to the luo shu sequence.
We then end up with the whole purple star chart and hexagram.
Door replacement (门替)
The door replacement methods uses the finalized floor replacement charts as it’s base. But this time, an additional door star is added into the mix.
The sector in which the front door is identified, and referred to the heaven star as determine in the floor location chart.
The heaven star in the floor replacement chart is used for the center grid and flown in the sequence of luo shu to generate a new set of stars.
For example, if we use the previous floor replacement chart and the main door is located in the northeast, then the final chart generated with door replacement is as below.
Finally, it must be said that purple white methodolgy is considered by most feng shui masters as a micro concept.
In the general feng shui audit of a property it is seldom used except under extraordinary circumstances.
