Guo Pu

Guo Pu, styled Jingchun, was a celebrated Eastern Jin dynasty scholar whose erudition spanned astronomy, divination, and geomancy. His Book of Burial introduced the term 'fengshui' for the first time, advocating the principle of 'riding the vital qi'—that is, harnessing and gathering life-sustaining qi by sheltering from wind and retaining water—thereby laying the theoretical foundation for the Form School of fengshui; subsequent generations of geomancers have revered him as their patriarch. He also produced authoritative commentaries on the Erya (a classical lexicon), Fangyan (a treatise on regional dialects), and Shanhai Jing (The Classic of Mountains and Seas). Legend holds that he personally selected the site and oversaw the layout of Wenzhou City, aligning its construction with the natural topography and excavating wells accordingly; in gratitude, the people of Wenzhou erected the Guo Gong Shrine in his honour. The Guo Pu Mound beside Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing remains a site of enduring pilgrimage for scholars and literati.