Coming of Age: the capping cell

Coming of Age: the day the cap goes on and the sash is tied

In the old rite of capping (冠礼), a young man reaching adulthood had a cap put on his head and a sash tied at his waist, and from then on appeared in an adult's dress. The third cell of the twelve life stages is named after that moment: Coming of Age (冠带), literally "cap and sash".

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Position sketch: the positions come from the site engine's twelve-stage table; the arcs show only the last step for four Day Masters, and the rest work the same way.

The Sanming Tiyao (三命提要), quoted in juan 2 of the Sanming Tonghui (三命通会), writes it like this:

Coming of Age: things gradually come into flower and beauty, like a person fully dressed in cap and robe.

Things are slowly coming into flower, like a person with cap and robe in order. Compared with the "softness and fragility" of Bath, this cell is a step on: the form has grown, but not yet to the cell of taking office and running a household, which is the next one, Establishment (临官).

One more step from Bath, onto Ox, Dragon, Goat and Dog

The look-up continues the first two cells: a Yang stem counts forward to the third cell from Growth, and a Yin stem counts back to the third. The arcs in the figure draw four examples: Yang Wood steps forward from Rat to Ox and Yang Metal from Horse to Goat; Yin Wood steps back from Snake to Dragon and Yin Metal from Pig to Dog.

It is easier to look up in reverse: start with the branch and ask which Day Masters have Coming of Age there.

Take Goat: Yin Fire, Yin Earth and Yang Metal all have Coming of Age here. Yang Metal steps forward from Horse; Yin Fire and Yin Earth step back from Monkey. Three Day Masters stand on one Goat, each having come by its own route and direction.

One Dragon, two tables: the stage and the hidden stems

Dragon, Dog, Ox and Goat are the four storehouses of Earth, and each stores several stems. By the site's hidden-stems table, Dragon holds Yang Earth with Yin Wood and Yin Water, Dog holds Yang Earth with Yin Metal and Yin Fire, Ox holds Yin Earth first and then Yin Water and Yin Metal, and Goat holds Yin Earth with Yin Fire and Yin Wood. Coming of Age is the stage a Day Master is in on this branch; the hidden stems say what the branch contains. The two tables answer separately.

Check the ten Day Masters one by one and it is plain: Yin Wood, Yang Earth, Yin Fire, Yin Earth, Yin Metal and Yin Water happen to find themselves hidden in their own Coming of Age branch, while Yang Wood, Yang Fire, Yang Metal and Yang Water do not. So hidden stems cannot verify a stage, and a stage position cannot tell you what the branch holds.

Three texts, three tones

Is Coming of Age good or not? Open three passages and the tone is not the same:

The tones differ, but nobody is wrong. The first two both describe a Luck Pillar reaching each stage. The Yuanhai Ziping, in an "alternative method" in its section on Luck Pillars, has only two sides, lucky and unlucky; Coming of Age is on the lucky side, followed at once by "if void, unlucky". Juan 2 of the Sanming Tonghui grades more finely, with separate words for Growth, Establishment and Peak, Decline and Weakening, Death and Severance, and the ruin stages, and puts Coming of Age with Conception, Storage and Taking Shape in the "things stay middling" band. The third, from Luluzi, speaks only of the moment a Luck Pillar changes. Before quoting a verdict on Coming of Age, check which passage it comes from and what that passage was asking.

Just arrived at Coming of Age: why "some misfortune lingers"

The last passage deserves a slow read. The line from Luluzi (珞琭子) is:

Even when the year meets Coming of Age, some misfortune still lingers.

A commentator named Wang explains it as a matter of handover: luck has just left a place of sudden ruin like Bath and moved on to Coming of Age, and one should not take it at once for good fortune, because the tail of the previous step's decline is still there. The book goes on: "that is why luck has the saying of five years before and after". It does not spell out how the five years are counted; in context it means that around the change, the previous step's momentum has not yet run out.

This is one reading in the book, a reminder not to treat the year of change as a clean cut. For how Luck Pillars are derived, see how Luck Pillars are derived.

The cell before is Bath and the next is Establishment; the whole table of twelve is laid out in the twelve life stages and void branches.