Using this site
Vermilion Seal is a reference site. It is published in good faith and checked carefully, but it is a scholarly effort by one person, not an institutional authority — read it as you would read any careful secondary source, and follow the citations when a point matters to you.
What you may reuse
Different parts of an entry have different owners, so the licence is stated per part rather than per page:
| Content | Licence | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| Classical Chinese source texts | Public domain | Use freely; they belong to everyone. |
| Citations, chapter references, deep links | CC BY 4.0 | Reuse freely, including commercially, with attribution to Vermilion Seal. |
| Verdicts and verification dates | CC BY 4.0 | Same terms as above. |
| English translations made for this site | © the author, all rights reserved | Read them freely here, and quote a line with attribution as you would any book. Republishing them in bulk, on another site or in a product, needs written permission — ask. |
| Essays, guides and page design | © the author | Quote normally with attribution; do not republish wholesale. |
| Images | Per the holding museum | Public-domain collection works, credited on the page; reuse follows the institution’s terms, which the credit links to. |
Why the translations are held back when everything else is open: they are the work that will fund this site, through the study editions. The facts — what the text says, where it says it, and whether a famous line is really in it — are given away. The craft of putting it into English is not.
No advice
Nothing on this site is medical, legal, financial or spiritual advice, and nothing here is a substitute for a qualified professional. Descriptions of traditional practice are historical and ethnographic, not recommendations.
Links out
Entries link to primary sources on other sites so you can check the work. Those sites are not under my control and their content may change.
Errors
If something here is wrong, the remedy is that I correct it publicly and promptly — see the corrections log. Please report it.
These terms describe the site as it stands today. They must be reviewed before any paid product is offered.
