Storage: who lives in each storehouse

Storage, also the storehouse: putting finished things away

Storage (墓) comes ninth in the sequence, right after Death. The Sanming Tiyao (三命提要), preserved in the Sanming Tonghui (三命通会), gives it two names:

Storage, also called the storehouse: it is where all things that have succeeded are stored away, as a person at the end of life returns to the grave. Having returned to the grave, one again receives qi, is conceived and is born.

"Storehouse" says that things are finished and put in the barn; "Storage" says that a cycle ends here. The last sentence already hooks up the next cell: after the grave, the cycle begins again with receiving qi and conception.

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Position sketch: the positions come from the site engine's twelve-stage table; Yin Wood, Yang Fire and Yang Earth share Dog, Yin Fire, Yin Earth and Yang Metal share Ox; the arrows run inside each triad from its corner branch to the storehouse.

Four storehouses, four triads

Why these four branches, and why these stems? The answer is in the three-harmony triads. Taking every fourth branch around the circle gives groups of three: Monkey, Rat and Dragon belong to Water; Pig, Rabbit and Goat to Wood; Tiger, Horse and Dog to Fire; Snake, Rooster and Ox to Metal (see six harmony, three harmony and directional). The last branch of each triad is the storehouse of that element.

The rule is that a Day Master's Storage is the storehouse of the triad that holds its Growth. Yang Water is born on Monkey, Monkey is in the Water triad, and the storehouse of the Water triad is Dragon, so its Storage is Dragon. Yin Wood is born on Horse, Horse is in the Fire triad, and the storehouse of the Fire triad is Dog, so its Storage is Dog. The reason is that Growth to Storage is eight steps, two thirds of a circle, and neighboring branches of a triad are exactly four steps apart, so eight steps leave you inside the same triad.

Dragon, Dog, Ox, Goat: what the book says of each

In its notes on the twelve branches, the Sanming Tonghui (juan 2) spends a line or two on each storehouse. Start with Dragon:

Dragon governs late spring, the muddy wetness in which the roots of all things are nourished. Yang Wood arriving here is in decline, yet there is the leftover qi of Yin Wood; Yang Water arriving here is in storage, yet there is the returning soul of Yin Water.

Yang Wood reaches Dragon at Decline, Yang Water reaches it at Storage, and the book says Dragon still holds the leftover qi of Yin Wood and the returning soul of Yin Water, so Storage is not an empty room. The four storehouses side by side:

The Dog entry says that for a Fire life, meeting Dog counts as "entering the grave". That line speaks of the element: Fire is stored on Dog. The site engine counts by stem, Yang forward and Yin backward, so the stems whose Storage is Dog are Yang Fire, Yang Earth and Yin Wood, while Yin Fire's Storage is Ox; when a book says Fire enters the grave, first check whether it means the element or one stem. The four entries stress different things, but none treats a storehouse as an empty barn: Dragon has Yin Water, Dog has a furnace, Ox has a Metal triad, and Goat has Yin Wood and Yin Fire inside.

A storehouse should be opened

Several books bring up the clash when they talk about storehouses. The Di Tian Sui (滴天髓), in its chapter on the branches, has one line:

On a birth branch beware of agitation, a storehouse should be opened; on a ruin branch that meets a clash, weigh it carefully.

The commentary sorts the branches into three groups: Tiger, Monkey, Snake and Pig are the "four births" and fear agitation; Dragon, Dog, Ox and Goat are the "four storehouses" and should be clashed open; Rat, Horse, Rabbit and Rooster are the "four ruins" and depend on the case. It adds that a ruin branch may welcome a clash when it meets a combination, or welcome a combination when it meets a clash, but neither is as fixed as a birth branch that "must not be clashed" or a storehouse that "must not be shut". The Sanming Tonghui is more specific about Dragon: "Dog is the key and can open what is in the storehouse; if three Dogs clash it, the door is broken, which is not auspicious." The four storehouses clash in pairs, Dragon with Dog and Ox with Goat (the clash rules are in clash, punishment, harm and destruction):

"Should be clashed open" is how these books read a storehouse, and opening has limits: three clashes break the door, and the book puts that boundary in the same place.

How Storage got into Na Yin names

Storage shows up not only in look-up tables. When it names the Na Yin, juan 1 of the Sanming Tonghui uses it directly. Ren Wu (壬午) and Gui Wei (癸未) are called Willow Wood because Wood dies on Horse and is stored on Goat, the leaves fall in high summer and the branches are slight, which the book takes as the softness of wood; Jia Zi and Yi Chou are called Gold in the Sea, and the reasoning includes Metal dying on Rat and being stored on Ox.

What is looked up here is the Na Yin element: Wood reaches Goat and Metal reaches Ox, each falling into its own element's storehouse. The full reasoning for the name is in Gold in the Sea.

After the storehouse a cycle closes and Severance follows; to see where the four storehouses sit on the whole circle, compare the twelve life stages and void branches.