ELINA CHEN

Rituals, Spells, and Taboos: the Transmission of Sensorial Knowledge in Luban Jing

While Luban Jing contains practical instructions on the construction of houses, furniture, and tools, its magical-ritual elements—such as incantations, protective charms, and taboos—are not peripheral but central to its epistemology. As Klaas Ruitenbeek notes in the preface to his monograph, Carpentry and Building in Late Imperial China, “In the building field, technique, ritual and magic were linked closely from the beginning.” This inseparability reflects an ontological view in which the physical act of making is inseparable from the cosmological and moral order. Unlike bureaucratic manuals such as Yingzao Fashi, Luban Jing emerges from a pedagogical structure grounded in embodied apprenticeship and oral transmission. Knowledge is passed down through gesture, repetition, and bodily proximity, not solely through literacy or textual instruction.

As Ruitenbeek suggests, Luban Jing was treasured “at least as much by a carpenter who could not read as by a colleague who could,” because it encapsulated the accumulated wisdom of the trade, bound to the figure of Lu Ban, the patron saint of carpenters. Lu Ban’s mythic elevation to divine status reveals the syncretic nature of vernacular craft knowledge, where Taoist cosmology, folk ritual, and geomantic principles are indivisible with artisanal labor. In this worldview, carpentry is not merely a technical skill but a sacred mediation between the earthly and the divine.

Taoism, as developed in the Tao Te Ching by Laozi, offers a philosophical basis for this integration of building, dwelling, and ritual. Laozi’s verse on skillful living—“The good of work is skill, and of action, timing”—laid a foundation for the builders to understand and achieve a harmonious relationship with the natural world. In Taoist thought, building is an extension of wu wei (non-forcing action), a calibrated responsiveness to the flows of qi (vital energy), wind, and water. In Juan One section 31 the method of the water level, Luban Jing specifically referenced another Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi, quoting: “The night is tranquil, the water is level.” To construct a still-level stand on top of water, carpenters must find the right time during the night to put the wooden post upright and press the cross-shaped foot, making an explicit connection between the act of building with nature’s temporal rhythm.

Such attunement underlies the development of fengshui (geomancy), which, though traceable to early imperial times, gained increasing prominence in the Song and Yuan dynasties and has remained a guiding force in Chinese architectural practice. Geomancy, in this context, is not simply superstition but a ritualized form of environmental and spatial ethics. It reflects the human desire to align built form among the “Four Greats” of Dao, heaven, earth, and man. For the vernacular builder, measuring, cutting, and assembling timber were acts embedded in this order—tools might be inscribed with spells, and measurements need to be chosen according to cosmological tables. Thus, Luban Jing captures not only techniques of joinery but also functions as a living archive of sensorial knowledge involved in the execution process, standing in contrast to the rationalized, textually mediated system of Yingzao Fashi.

In Luban Jing, auspicious days for specific building activities—such as felling trees, laying foundations, constructing furniture, or installing doors—are meticulously detailed, reflecting a worldview in which construction is inextricably tied to cosmological cycles. These practices are not merely supplementary; they articulate an intentional, prescribed, and sacred order of gestures, words, and objects that together shape the ontology of building. For example, Section 29 of Juan One prescribes that before hoisting the right support-pole, the practitioner must present a prayer to the immortal master Lu Ban, hailed as the “Lord of the Earth, the Second of the Three Worlds.” The accompanying incantation reads:

“The day is favorable, the hour is fine.
Heaven and earth lay open and wide.
In a censer made of gold,
Five fragrant incense sticks are burning.
Therefore,
We reverently invite the messenger, provided with tally,
in charge of this hour, this day, this month, this year.
Humbly we hope for his arrival,
as we have a request concerning a certain affair.”

The prayer is followed by libations offered three times, accompanied by poetic recitation and music performance. This ritual underscores the multisensory nature of vernacular craftsmanship: it involves the taste of wine, the touch of the offering, and the sound of drums, zithers, and oral poetry. As one passage chants:

“Man and the gods rejoice
That favours are spread all around.
In order to enjoy riches and rank
We offer our wine cup for the second time.
Calamities will be exterminated forever,
A hundred blessings will be conferred from above.
We shall enjoy a long life without end.”

The multisensory rituals embedded in the carpentry prayers align with what Walter J. Ong describes the “additive, aggregative, and participatory” nature of oral cultures, where knowledge is not abstracted or decontextualized, but grounded in bodily repetition and communal resonance. The physical act of offering libations—handling vessels, pouring wine, striking drums—situates building practice within a haptic-sacral framework, where the hands are engaged not merely as instruments of labor but also medium for cosmological negotiation.

In the final chapter of Luban Jing, a series of secret charms and magical devices are both explained and illustrated, underscoring the significance of ritual in ensuring the success of construction practices. These incantations—particularly those directed at measuring tools—serve to ward off inaccuracy and misfortune, revealing the inseparable relationship between technical precision and spiritual belief. Mediating among body, tool, and material, such practices suggest that touch, as a mode of sensing and knowing, is not merely technical but cosmologically charged. One example is the use of a ritual amulet, or fu (符), a talisman typically inscribed with cinnabar ink and affixed to significant architectural elements for protection. Section 45 of Luban Jing describes the ritual process:

“This amulet must be written with cinnabar. It is pasted on the ridge-pole. In the black dot the name of the family is written. After it has been written it is covered up with ink. When pasting the amulet it is held in the left hand. At the moment of pasting, no chatting by outsiders is allowed. Only after the amulet has been pasted up and one has come down the ladder, are tea and rice arranged and paper money burnt, since then the Blue Dragon has been soothed. Next, the assembled deities of the family altar are dedicated, and the god of the soil and the kitchen god are invited to their respective seats. Thereupon the True Words to Dedicate the house altar are pronounced.”

Fig.1, illustration of the amulet inserted as part of the manuscript. Luban Jing, Secret Charms and Magical Devices, section 45.

The care and ritual sequence involved in this tactile-architectural procedure—such as holding the amulet in the left hand, maintaining silence during its placement, and offering food, incense, and music—demonstrates that building embodies layers of sensorial knowledge even before materials are assembled into physical form. The integration of orality and touch sustains an intimate relationship between the builder’s sensory agency and the tools and materials they manipulate. This dynamic process aligns with Tim Ingold’s notion of “thinking through making,” in which knowledge emerges through the active engagement between hand, material, and environment. Rather than following prescribed plans or detached blueprints, the maker responds in real time to the affordances and resistances of the material world.

Ordering Craft: Literati and Court Mediation in the Language of Yingzao Fashi

In contrast to the ritual spells, rhymes, and mnemonic chants documented in Luban Jing, Yingzao Fashi presents a formalized nomenclature and codified system for describing architectural components, particularly dougong (bracket arms). This shift reflects not merely a difference in medium—oral versus written—but a broader epistemological divergence between tactile, embodied knowledge and textual, bureaucratic abstraction. As Jiren Feng observes in Chinese Architecture and Metaphor: Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual, the compilation of Yingzao Fashi illustrates a close collaboration between architectural professionals and literati scholars. This partnership fosters a shared architectural vocabulary that aligns technical craft with the literary and administrative roles of the Song elite. Unlike Luban Jing, where the text encodes oral performance and bodily apprenticeship, Yingzao Fashi transforms experiential building into systematized, formalized language suitable for large-scale dissemination and state control.

The presence of ci 词, or lyric poetry, in the architectural vocabulary of Yingzao Fashi suggests a shared cultural terrain between craftsmen and literati during the Song dynasty, contrasting with the vernacular, magical-ritual worldview Luban Jing is centered around. As Jiren Feng notes, the naming of structural elements such as linggong 令栱 and mangong 慢栱 reflects not only their physical attributes but also the poetic classification of lyric forms—lingci (composed to shorter melodies with fewer characters) and manci (composed to longer melodies and contain more words). This poetic classification, Feng argues, permeates architectural terminology, where the structural form of linggong and mangong metaphorically mirror the short and long melodic forms. Such linguistic transference suggests that craftsmen were familiar with the literati conventions of their time, blurring the boundaries between the technical and literary expertise.

While it remains unclear whether craftsmen actively composed or recited ci in the act of construction, the linguistic sophistication in Yingzao Fashi that bridges elite and manual domains marks a departure from the embodied, oral transmission found in Luban Jing, where rhymed spells, chants, and taboos are direct instructional tools. In its preface, the compiler Li Jie emphasizes the scientific and moral order underlying architectural regulation:

“I have heard that erecting the upper beams and laying the lower foundations reflects the time of 'Great Strength' (as in the I Ching); establishing correct positions and orientations embodies the rites of Grand Peace. In ancient times, Gonggong was appointed under Emperor Shun, and the Grand Artificer originated in the Han dynasty—each having its official responsibilities, and each following procedural standards.

At present, when great building projects are undertaken, we aspire to construct grand, flying-eaved halls. Yet, the hands that hew the wheels sometimes fail to capture true form; and the officials supervising labor lack skill in multiple trades. They do not understand how to match materials to their appropriate proportions, and sometimes they double measurements to make things longer. Bad habits accumulate over time, standards become slack, and inspections are insufficient. Without the penetrating discernment required to manage the Three Palaces, how could one possibly renew the regulations appropriate for a new era?”

In Yingzao Fashi, architecture is framed as a domain of rational governance, divorced from geomancy, superstition, and folk ritual. By codifying construction practices into diagrams, measuring tables, and precise terminologies, the manual functions as a tool of statecraft that disciplines labor and inserts imperial authority into the built environment. The absence of sensory language in Yingzao Fashi is not a neutral stylistic choice but a political one. As Michel Foucault theorizes in Discipline and Punish, state power operates through standardization and normalization: “The power of normalization imposes homogeneity; but it individualizes by making it possible to measure gaps, to determine levels, to fix specialties and to render the differences useful by fitting them one to another.” In architectural terms, this entails eliminating deviations in measurement, inconsistencies in material quality, and improvisation in bodily technique. The manual’s formalized and bureaucratic language reinforces this agenda.

Dougong (bracket arms) in Yingzao Fashi are classified into five primary types—huagong 花栱, nidaogong 泥道栱, guazigong 瓜子栱, linggong 令栱, and mangong 慢栱—each named and valued according to its structural role and aesthetic function. Timber is graded by quality, and specific numbers of dougong units and precise measurements are prescribed for different architectural typologies, including palace halls, towers, pavilions, outer eaves, and intercolumniation spaces. For each change in timber grade, exact length adjustments are made to ensure uniform quality and performance. The formal naming of each bracket type allows craftsmen to identify structural components with accuracy, while the quantification of materials and labor serves to standardize construction across the empire.

In this system, the craftsman’s judgment is subordinated to the text; the body becomes a mechanical executor rather than a site of interpretive knowledge. This stands in stark contrast to the oral transmission of Luban Jing, which resists codification by embedding architectural knowledge in embodied gestures, oral chants, and ritual practices. While Yingzao Fashi enforces legibility and replication, Luban Jing maintains agency through the sensorium and the esoteric body, articulating an indigenous epistemology outside the realm of imperial control.


Joinery as a Site of Epistemological Contestation: Sensory Embodiment vs. Bureaucratic Codification

Wood joinery, a highly skilled and tactile domain of timber construction, mediates an intimate relationship between the body, tools, and the materiality of wood. As a visible marker of craftsmanship, joinery reveals not only the quality of materials and the trace of manual labor, but also encodes cultural values and epistemological frameworks specific to a building culture. Beyond its structural function that organizes parts into a whole, joinery serves as a site where technical precision intersects with symbolic meaning. Understanding how joinery is classified, illustrated, and represented in the texts of Luban Jing and Yingzao Fashi is therefore essential for uncovering the competing interests that inform two divergent epistemologies of building—one grounded in embodied, ritualized knowledge, the other in codified, bureaucratic abstraction. These contrasting frameworks expose the ideological stakes in how material practices are conceptualized, transmitted, and regulated.

In Luban Jing, joinery is embedded within a cosmological and ritual framework, presented not as an isolated technical object but through its integration with bodily orientation and material interaction. Certain joints must not be executed on inauspicious days, and specific tools require charms or incantations to prevent misfortune. In the text, the physical act of cutting and joining wood is depicted as illustration in tandem with textual instructions, emphasizing the sensorial engagement of construction. Unlike Yingzao Fashi, where joinery is rendered in isolation—categorized in rational orders and annotated with precise measurements—Luban Jing consistently includes the human figure in its illustrations. The craftsman's body serves as an interpretive site: chanting rhymes, manipulating tools, and performing rituals that ensure both the structural integrity and spiritual dimensions of building. Physical touch and oral performance are not incidental; they are central to the building culture, elevated through vivid depictions that reject the abstraction of purely functional diagrams.

An example of sensorial depiction appears in Juan One, section 76 of Luban Jing, where the construction of a princely palace is rendered through a combination of technical illustration and embodied action. In the lower right corner of the image, a craftsman is shown bent over a timber bench, meticulously engaged in the physical act of woodworking. His posture—bending forward while steadying the wood with one hand and staining it with a brush held in the other—reflects the intimate coordination between body, tool, and material. A basket nearby contains chisels, ink brushes, saws, and hammers, with additional tools scattered on the ground, emphasizing the tactile immediacy of tools that mediate between craftsmen’s hands and the construction product.

Fig. 2. Craftsman cutting and brushing wood for the princely palace. Luban Jing, juan 1, section 76.

Behind the craftsman, the palace itself rises in a sectional-axonometric view, revealing its skeletal framework and structural logic. The illustration exposes the joinery at key junctures: columns are shown emerging from the foundational cornerstones, demarcating the transition between earth and architecture—a moment of ontological significance in premodern Chinese construction. The grain of the wood is visually articulated in cross-section, highlighting not only material specificity but also the procedural layering of components, particularly within the complex dougong bracket system .

The architectural description provides further structural detail:

“The upper tier of the roof has five purlins, the subsidiary roof in front has three purlins. In the upper part of the building, sheng blocks, gong brackets and cofferings are fitted. The distance between the coffered ceiling and the floor is fifty-three chi. In the palace hall are seven times seven, or fourty-nine columns. The remaining need not be recorded again; they follow in accordance with the smaller or larger scale of the building. The two central columns are octagonal. They serve as supports for the ridge-pole. At the back are no doors; (instead,) large, thick boards are mortised into the jin columns. At the front are no doors, but vermilion curtains are suspended.”

As the text notes, “The remaining [columns] need not be recorded again; they follow in accordance with the smaller or larger scale of the building.” This formulaic modularity echoes the flexibility of oral-ritual instruction found in Luban Jing. Craftsmen modify their construction process according to different scales and sizes, instead of following a strict set of guidelines precise to decimals in Yingzao Fashi. By encoding the sensory into visual form, Luban Jing affirms touch and orality as medium of knowledge transformation, synthesizing architectural logic with bodily engagement. The juxtaposition of physical labor and their production of material structure preserves a distinctly haptic, intersubjective, and spiritual relationship among wood, human, and spatial product.

By contrast, Yingzao Fashi presents joinery as a standardized and abstracted system, drawn out of context from the ritual, cosmology, or sensory practice. Joinery is rendered not as a lived, embodied process but as a rationalized series of measurements, diagrams, and taxonomies designed for replication and regulation. The manual employs meticulously labeled diagrams and mathematical ratios to define each major joinery type, breaking down structures into modular units based on the cai-fen 材分 system—a proportional standard that governs all dimensions of architectural components. These measurements are highly precise, often extending to decimal increments, and are used to control every aspect of construction from the grade of timber to the width, depth, and placement of mortises and tenons.

The section on da mu zuo zhi du tu yang 大木作制度图样 (“Standardized Diagrams for Timber Framing Techniques”) includes a range of graphic representations to visualize the systematization of joinery. These illustrations use plan views, sectional drawings, and axonometric projections to convey material hierarchies and structural relationships. Through such visual languages, the manual classifies bracket sets, beam placements, and column joints with analytical clarity, aiming for reproducibility rather than intuitive engagement. Each component is not only named but also measured, calculated, and indexed to specific building types and timber qualities, ensuring architectural precision during assembling.

An example of this rational codification can be found in Diagram 14 of Yingzao Fashi, titled jiao ge pu zuo gong ang dou deng suo yong mao kou 绞割铺作栱昂抖等所用卯口 (“Mortise Types Used in Twisting, Cutting, and Assembling Components such as Brackets, Arms, and Struts”). This diagram presents a specialized taxonomy of joinery techniques essential to large-scale timber construction. It outlines a series of mortise-and-tenon joints used in assembling critical architectural elements within the dougong (bracket arms) system—specifically gong 栱 (the bracket arms), ang 昂 (inclined struts), and dou 抖 (diagonal braces). The 卯口 (maokou, mortise openings) are carefully designed to accommodate uniquely shaped and sloped components that require jiaoge 绞割—a method involving intricate cutting and twisting of timber at oblique angles.

Different categories of dougong, including variations of linggong令栱  and mangong慢栱 , are cataloged and illustrated with precise dimensional data. The layered arrangement of these members demands a high degree of craftsmanship to ensure accurate alignment and tight interlocking, especially where angled joints converge. By standardizing these mortise types through labeled diagrams and proportional measurements, Yingzao Fashi transforms what was once a tactile, interpretive craft into a bureaucratically regulated system—one where visual abstraction and mathematical calibrations prevail embodied knowledge and ritual performance.

Fig.3, da mu zuo zhi du tu yang 大木作制度图样 (“Standardized Diagrams for Timber Framing Techniques”) diagram 14 绞割铺作栱昂抖等所用卯口 (“Mortise Types Used in Twisting, Cutting, and Assembling Components such as Brackets, Arms, and Struts”).  Liang Sicheng, Annotated Yingzao Fashi by Li Jie, 391.

The epistemological shift from embodied and ritual practice, as reflected in Luban Jing, to the textualized and rationalized system of Yingzao Fashi points to a political tension between vernacular knowledge and institutional authority. The compilation of Luban Jing during the Ming dynasty—after centuries of oral transmission and in dialogue with earlier formalized texts like Yingzao Fashi—demonstrates that vernacular building traditions and magical-ritual practices continued to persist despite the growing influence of state-sponsored architectural codification. Rather than being completely overwritten by institutional authority, these practices found ways to adapt and endure, using the written word as a vessel for preserving the embodied knowledge of touch, gesture, and memory. In this way, Luban Jing stands as a testament to the resilience and adaptability of non-institutional knowledge systems within a context of increasing regulation and centralization.

Compiled under bureaucratic control, Yingzao Fashi functions as a tool of statecraft: its specific nomenclature borrowed from the literati, its standardized diagrams of architectural elements, and its precise annotated measurements all serve to regulate labor and disseminate royal architectural aesthetics across the empire. The manual is not merely a technical document but an instrument of state control. Labor is abstracted into a compliant set of architectural codes. Within this context, joinery becomes a mechanism for maintaining political order rather than a site of sensorial interpretation.

Luban Jing suggests an alternative epistemological model in which tactile and oral knowledge is not only preserved but also transmitted through textual means. Unlike Yingzao Fashi, which presents a rationalized and bureaucratically sanctioned building system, Luban Jing retains the sensorial, ritualistic, and vernacular dimensions of craftsmanship. Through blending practical techniques with symbolic meanings, ritual procedures, and body representations, Luban Jing reveals a world where architecture is entangled with cosmology.

In contemporary building culture, wooden joinery—such as the dougong (bracket arms)—is often treated as a scenographic symbol of Chinese architecture, reduced to a visual motif that evokes nostalgia for a pre-modern past. Yet, when examined through the senses—touch, vision, and orality—the dougong reveals itself not merely as an aesthetic element but as a manifestation of lived experience and embodied knowledge. This sensorial dimension of joinery calls for reevaluation, reimagination, and revival within contemporary architectural practice. Rather than reducing architecture to textual abstraction or visual spectacle under capitalist production, evaluating the sensorial knowledge embedded in texts such as Yingzao Fashi and Luban Jing invites a return to architecture as a tactile, performative, and materially engaged discipline—one once rooted in the body, in craft, and in sensory encounter.


Bibliography

Classen, Constance. The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.

Feng, Jiren. Chinese Architecture and Metaphor: Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2012.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Ingold, Tim. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London: Routledge, 2013.

Liang Sicheng, Annotated Yingzao Fashi by Li Jie. Beijing: Science Press, 1980.

Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Routledge, 1982.

Ruitenbeek, Klaas. Carpentry and Building in Late Imperial China: A Study of the Fifteenth-Century Carpenter’s Manual Lu Ban Jing. Sinica Leidensia 28. Leiden: Brill, 1993.


This research paper is conducted as part of seminar work on Theory of Senses taught by prof. Paize Keulemans.


Spring 2025.

Related pages:
Documentary film: From Timber to Touch: the Living Knowledge of Wood Joinery in China.
Design proposal: Space between Joints: Translating Timber Joinery into CLT Construction.