Chen prophecy (original) (raw)

Chen 讖 is the Chinese term for 'prophecy'. It is also written chan or, in the Wade–Giles transliteration as "ch'an": "The Ch'an, couched in enigmatic language, predicted luck and disaster, and constituted oracle books." These prophecies could derive from a dream, be brought from overseas, be discovered in excavated inscriptions, or be revealed in "an ecstatic trance". These prophetic texts were much used by the emperors.