Guan Di lot 29 of 100
Ancestors' stored goodness
Highest (上上, 丙壬). Grades differ between editions, and many Taiwanese temples print none. Shown as Wikisource gives it. Wikisource prints no stem pair for this lot, so 丙壬 is from manekineko.com.tw.
祖宗積德幾多年
源遠流長慶自然
若更操修無倦已
天須還汝舊青氈
Your ancestors stored up goodness for many years.
The source is far and the stream long, and blessing comes naturally.
If you keep up your practice and never tire,
Heaven will give back your old blue felt.
What this lot says
This is a lot about inheritance and steadiness. The verse says what earlier generations built is still working for you, and asks you to carry on without tiring.
The blue felt is an old image for a family's ancestral standing. Read it as encouragement to restore something of the family's name through your own conduct.
A lot is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
The story behind it
Sima Wengong sighs over the people's hardship (司馬溫公嗟困)
According to the account on Wikisource, Sima Guang of the Song dynasty wrote a memorial against the new laws because of the people's hardship and, after the next emperor took the throne, was recalled as a senior minister and stopped one of those laws.
Source: Wikisource, 關聖帝君靈籤/29, the 故事及記載 section
Where this text comes from
This verse is a traditional temple text with no known author. We read it from two named web transcriptions, Chinese Wikisource (the base text) and manekineko.com.tw. Neither is a scan of a printing, the edition behind them is mixed, and we could not establish whether the two are independent of each other.
Wikisource (關聖帝君靈籤) (the text shown above)
祖宗積德幾多年 / 源遠流長慶自然 / 若更操修無倦已 / 天須還汝舊青氈
Retrieved 2026-11-09. Transcription licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
manekineko.com.tw (富貴轉運站)
祖宗積德幾多年 / 源遠流長慶自然 / 若更操修無倦已 / 天須還汝舊青氈
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Where the sources differ
- Line 3: Wikisource's commentary says 操修 is also written 修為.
English translation, meaning and story summaries are by Cast & Chart.