Heavenly Nobleman: the branches of a day stem

One day stem, two branches

The basis of the Heavenly Nobleman (天乙贵人) is the Day Master stem, the character on top of the day pillar. The look-up returns two branches, and those are searched for among the branches of the four pillars.

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Look-up sketch: each row gives the Day Master stems of one group and the two branches to find among the four pillars. Data from the site engine's Heavenly Nobleman table.

The picture splits the stems into five groups. Yang Wood, Yang Earth and Yang Metal share Ox and Goat. Yin Wood and Yin Earth share Rat and Monkey. Yang Fire and Yin Fire share Rooster and Pig. Yang Water and Yin Water share Rabbit and Snake. Yin Metal stands alone with Tiger and Horse. In a chart, the year, month, day and hour branches are all checked, every match counts, and the branch of the day pillar itself is included.

Two charts, finding the Nobleman each time

The first chart has a Yang Fire Day Master, which looks up Rooster and Pig. Its four branches are Rooster, Rabbit, Dragon and Pig, so the year pillar and the hour pillar each match once. The second chart has a Yin Water Day Master, which looks up Rabbit and Snake. Its branches are Rat, Rabbit, Snake and Dog: the month pillar matches Rabbit, and the day pillar's own Snake matches too. Only four of the sixty day pillars hit the Nobleman on their own branch, Yin Fire Rooster, Yin Fire Pig, Yin Water Rabbit and Yin Water Snake: for the other eight day stems the noble branches have the opposite polarity, so the stem can never sit on them.

For the site's Symbolic Stars based on the day branch (Traveling Horse, Peach Blossom, Canopy Star, General Star), the day pillar's own branch is left out. The Heavenly Nobleman and the Literary Star that follows it use the day stem as the basis and treat all four branches alike. That small difference is worth remembering when comparing tools.

Three set-ups in the old text

Juan 3 of the Ming-dynasty Sanming Tonghui (三命通会) devotes a chapter to the Heavenly Nobleman. It first presents Tian Yi as a god in the sky and gives his position:

His home is at the Ox, in the Dipper and Ox lodge; he comes out at the Goat, in the Well and Ghost lodge.

Ox and Goat are exactly the noble positions of the Wood, Earth and Metal Yang stems. The same chapter then sets three ways of deriving the table side by side:

On Hu Zhong Zi, the book is explicit:

It is better simply to split Yin and Yang at Tiger and Monkey: use the Yang noble after the winter solstice and the Yin noble after the summer solstice.

On that reading, a Yang Wood Day Master looks at one branch after the winter solstice and at the other after the summer solstice. The site is more generous: both branches of every stem are listed, with no day and night split and no solstice split, so for a Yang Wood Day Master both Ox and Goat count as hits. The Qing-dynasty Xieji Bianfang Shu (协纪辨方书), juan 7, quoting the Lihai Ji, also gives two sets, Yang nobles and Yin nobles; put together, the two branches it assigns to each of the ten stems match the site's table item for item. Which set counts as "Yang" is another matter: Cao Zhengui and the Tong Shu, both quoted in the same juan, say exactly opposite things.

Why these pairs

The Guang Lu (广录), quoted in the same chapter, gives a reason for each of the five groups.

Two ideas run through the five reasons: the earth positions together with places of strength and growth, and the Kui Gang ground at Dragon and Dog where the noble "does not come". They explain why the table is paired this way, as imagery the old authors found for the table, and not as a result counted from a batch of charts.

The book's conditions, which the site's table leaves out

The chapter also quotes the Zhu Shen Jing (烛神经) on where a noble must sit to be effective:

Wherever the noble stands, it generally likes strength, no clash or break, ... and no fall into the void.

Another source adds that "a noble with no qi is as good as none". So in the old books, finding the noble is only the first step: one also asks whether its branch is strong, whether it is clashed or broken, and whether it falls into a void (more in the stage table and voids). The site's look-up does not judge these.

The compiler of the chapter also adds a rebuttal: to say a noble dislikes Death and Severance forgets that for the Fire and Water stems the noble spots already lie at Death and Severance. Checked against the site's twelve-stage table, the Yang Fire stem has Death at Rooster and Severance at Pig, and Yang Water has Death at Rabbit and Severance at Snake, which matches the remark.

1. 1

   Write down the day stem and the pillar that matched

   For example "Yang Fire Day Master, Rooster in the year pillar, Pig in the hour pillar". That is a fact anyone can check.

2. 2

   Then compare the book's conditions

   Look at the strength of the branch, whether it is clashed or broken, whether it is void, and name which of the set-ups is being followed.

3. 3

   Finally return to the whole chart

   The weight a Symbolic Star carries next to the month, pattern and Useful God is a separate step; the article on placing Symbolic Stars covers it.

The next Symbolic Star, which also takes the day stem as its basis but maps each stem to a single branch, is the Literary Star.