Conclusions Inheriting the Wind
In: Dice and Gods on the Silk RoadSearch for other papers by Brandon Dotson in
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Abstract
The conclusions explore the main actors of dice divination’s relational network one by one. They demonstrate how dice and books encode cosmologies, but at the same time inject randomization and play into these cosmologies and frustrate divination users’ attempts to impose any rigid order. The conclusions also reflect on gods and poetics and their shifting roles within dice divination’s oracular responses. This also returns to the question of the relationship between a given god and a given mantic figure created by the roll of the dice, and whether this mantic figure should be taken as a sign, a symbol, or even as a god itself with the power to protect or to harm. Turning to divination users, there is a similar variability ranging from the “tricky” Tibetan oracular gambler who steals from the goddess to the Chinese divination user who fully adopts the pose of sincerity prescribed by the text. Arguing that the gods of the wind and sky, as well as devouring mother goddesses like Hārītī, are leitmotivs for the innate flux and variability of dice divination, the conclusion sees dice divination’s opposition to order and control as a force that dignifies the human, divine, and material actors in its relational network.