Sha (煞)

Hostile qi — the unfavourable condition, usually produced by form or by direction. Sha is the counter-term to sheng qi: the condition of a place that works against what happens there. The tradition attributes it to specific causes — a sharp angle pointed at a door, a road aimed at a building, a beam overhead — rather than to a general atmosphere.

It belongs to the classical vocabulary of the tradition. Hostile qi — the unfavourable condition, usually produced by form or by direction. Sha is the part of the tradition most often exaggerated in popular use; the classical sources treat it as a list of specific structural situations rather than as a general menace.

The classical sources catalogue sha by shape and by source, and their remedies are correspondingly specific: block it, deflect it, or move what is exposed to it. The texts are notably practical here, treating most sha as a problem of form. It is grouped under Metal (金) in the five-element system.