Fei Lian: look up the year branch, back three places
Content version · · Sources & references
Fei Lian lands by a year-branch table: Rat year on Monkey, then three places back per group of three years. Checked row by row against the Xiejibianfang and kept apart from the Bo Shi ring's star of the same name.
The short version8 min read
Fei Lian is a minor star placed from a table by birth-year branch: Rat year on Monkey, Ox year on Rooster, Tiger year on Dog, then three places back for each next group of three years; the table equals the twelve-year table of the year spirit Fei Lian in the Xiejibianfang.
- Twelve year branches map to twelve landings, each used once, so knowing where Fei Lian sits tells you the year branch, which is the opposite of Po Sui, where four year branches share one landing.
- Group the year branches in threes and the group starts land on Monkey, Snake, Tiger and Pig, then advance one place within the group. The same rule explains the two step sizes, eight ahead and two ahead.
- A star of the same name sits on the Bo Shi ring, set by the birth-year stem through Lu Cun; among sixty year pillars only Jia Zi, Yi Chou, Geng Wu and Xin Wei put it on the same branch as the minor star.
Read first
What do Zi Wei's supporting, malefic and minor stars actually do? ↗
A twelve-row table read by year branch
In plain words first: Fei Lian (蜚廉) needs no counting, only a look-up. A Rat year puts it on Monkey, an Ox year on Rooster, a Tiger year on Dog, a Rabbit year on Snake, and the table runs on through Horse, Goat, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Pig, Rat and Ox.
Landings come from the site engine (iztro 2.6.0, default settings); "same spot as" in the third column follows the note in juan 3 of the Xiejibianfang.
Look at the second column. For Rat, Ox, Tiger, Horse, Goat and Monkey years Fei Lian sits eight places ahead of the year branch; for Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Rooster, Dog and Pig years it sits two places ahead. The third column is the note from juan 3 of the Xiejibianfang (协纪辨方书): the first kind "Fei Lian is the same as White Tiger (白虎)", the second "the same as Sang Men". The third section looks at that closely.
Each of the twelve landings is used exactly once: Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Snake, Horse, Goat, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Pig, Rat and Ox, with no repeats. So once you know the branch Fei Lian sits on, you can work back to the year branch, the opposite of Po Sui, where four year branches share one landing.
Three places back, one place forward
The twelve rows follow a single rule. Split the year branches into four groups of three. The groups start on Monkey, Snake, Tiger and Pig in turn, stepping back three places each time, and within a group the star advances one place per year.
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
As a formula: number the branches 0 to 11 from Rat to Pig and write the year branch as 3q + r, where q is the group and r the place in it; Fei Lian's position number is then 8 − 3q + r. Two checks: an Ox year has q=0 and r=1, giving 9, which is Rooster; a Goat year has q=2 and r=1, giving 8 − 6 + 1 = 3, which is Rabbit.
Look it up
Find the row of the year branch in the twelve-row table and read the landing in the second column.
Or compute it
Split the branch number into 3q + r, take 8 − 3q + r, and add twelve if it comes out negative (a Rooster year gives −1, which is Pig).
Or work backward
From the branch Fei Lian sits on, read the table in reverse; it returns exactly one year branch.
The same table in the Xiejibianfang
The table is not unique to Zi Wei Dou Shu. Juan 3 of the Xiejibianfang has an entry on Fei Lian, which opens with a line from the Shenshu jing (神枢经):
Fei Lian is the image of the year's inspecting envoy, and is also called the Great Sha.
It then quotes the Guangsheng li (广圣历) for the position in each of the twelve years: Rat year on Monkey, Ox year on Rooster, Tiger year on Dog, Rabbit year on Snake. Checked row by row against the engine's Fei Lian, all twelve agree. The book treats it as a year spirit used when choosing dates and directions; the do's and don'ts under it belong to date selection and are not repeated here.
The book's note also explains how the table was built, in terms of the stages of the trine: growth, peak and storage:
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
Read this way, a peak year steps back to a growth place, a storage year steps back to a peak place, and a growth year steps back to a storage place, which is the same thing as "three places back per group" from the previous section in another wording. The note adds that Fei Lian was the name of a strongman who served King Zhou and was known for speed, taken as the image of "relying on strength against virtue", and that the same spirit is called Fei Lian in the year and Great Sha in the month. Its last line gives the shared positions: in Rat, Ox, Tiger, Horse, Goat and Monkey years Fei Lian stands with White Tiger, and in the other six with Sang Men, which are the eight ahead and two ahead in the picture. How White Tiger and Sang Men are looked up among the BaZi spirits is covered in Sang Men.
The other star with this name: Fei Lian on the Bo Shi ring
Juan 2 of the Quan Shu has another verse that lays twelve stars in a ring: Bo Shi, Li Shi, Qing Long, Xiao Hao, Jiang Jun, Zou Shu, and the seventh is Fei Lian (written 飞廉 in the engine). The ring starts from Lu Cun; for a yang man or yin woman it runs forward, for a yin man or yang woman it runs backward. The seventh star is six steps from the start, the same place either way, which is the palace opposite Lu Cun. Lu Cun is set by the birth-year stem, so this Fei Lian follows the year stem, not the year branch.
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
One star is read from a twelve-row table by year branch, the other is found by taking the year stem to Lu Cun and counting six places, and they land on the same branch in just four year pillars by coincidence. When you meet Fei Lian, ask which one is meant.
Before reading, separate three layers
One name, three kinds of source
Program facts
- The minor star follows a year-branch table, each of twelve landings once
- The table equals the twelve-year table the Xiejibianfang quotes, year by year
- The Bo Shi star is another star; only four year pillars coincide
What the books say
- Xiejibianfang, juan 3: Fei Lian is a year spirit, also called Great Sha
- Its note: six year branches stand with White Tiger, six with Sang Men
- Quan Shu, juan 2: the seventh star on the Bo Shi ring is named Fei Lian
Source still to be checked
- The Zi Wei texts give no placing verse for the minor star
- Whether it was borrowed from date selection cannot be shown from the materials at hand
- No passage can be quoted for how to read it on a chart, so none is written here
Look up, then reverse
Born 20 August 2003: which branch holds Fei Lian?
That day is the twenty-third of the seventh lunar month in a Gui Wei (癸未) year. Goat is number 7, with q=2 and r=1, so the position number is 8 − 6 + 1 = 3, which is Rabbit.
Fei Lian is on Rooster: which year branch is it?
Rooster appears in one row only, the Ox year, such as 2009. The chart for 12 December 2009 at the Rooster hour has Life on Tiger and the Rooster spot is the Health palace.
The landing also has to be read against the Life palace: someone born at the Goat hour on 9 April 1979 (a Ji Wei year, 己未) has Fei Lian on Rabbit and Life on Rooster, so the Rabbit spot is the Travel palace. For another minor star that lands on one of three places by year branch, read Po Sui; for where the Bo Shi ring begins, see Lu Cun; for how minor stars are layered on a chart, see auxiliary, malefic and minor stars.
Questions readers ask next
Are the two Chinese spellings of Fei Lian one star?
In the site engine they are two: the minor star placed by year branch and the Bo Shi star carry different first characters. The verses of the Quan Shu itself use both spellings, so the way to tell them apart is to see which passage the name appears in, not to go by the character.
The Xiejibianfang is a date-selection book. Why compare it with a Zi Wei minor star?
Only the positions are compared: the twelve-year table it quotes equals the engine's landings year by year. The Zi Wei texts do not say whether the minor star was borrowed from date selection, so the claim is that the two tables are the same table, not that Fei Lian comes from date selection.
Does the palace holding Fei Lian in my birth year match that of someone else born that year?
The branch is the same; the palace name depends on each Life palace. In a Ji Chou year Fei Lian always sits on Rooster, which is the Health palace for someone whose Life palace is on Tiger and another palace for someone whose Life palace is elsewhere.
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Sources & references
Continue reading
Po Sui (破碎): Three Landings for Twelve Branches, as the Sanming Tonghui Counts Them ↗
Yin Sha (阴煞): Set by the Lunar Birth Month, Back Two Places a Month on a Six-Month Loop ↗