734 pamela d. winfield
Figure 9. Diamond World diagram (ten Grotenhuis 1999, 36).framework recalls the Zhou dynasty’s well-field system (jingtian zhi
), which later informed the ward system of block measurements
(lifang ) at capital cities such as Tang dynasty Chang’an where
Huiguo and Kūkai resided (Guo 2002, 55; Steinhardt 2002, 96–97,
132). It also can be associated with eighth-century Daoist rituals such
as Taiyi cult initiations, which were structured along a nine-roomed
configuration (Orzech 1996a). It further echoes the nine sections of
the luoshu “magic square,” which was an ancient divinatory grid that
mapped out the nine cardinal, ordinal, and central provinces of the
idealized Middle Kingdom (ten Grotenhuis 1999, 53). And it also finds
its echo in ritual structures such as the Ming Tang “Bright Hall” in
Han dynasty Chang’an, whose nine province-rooms microcosmically
represented the kingdom through which Wang Mang (r. 9–23 C.E.)