Jie Shen: a minor star that moves every two months

A name collision: the book's Jie Shen is the chart's Nian Jie

Volume 2 of the Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu (紫微斗数全书), in the section on placing Tian De, Yue De and Jie Shen, gives one rule for Jie Shen: start from the Dog palace, call it the Rat, and count backward to the Tai Sui branch of the birth year. Yet the site's chart page has two similar stars, one called Nian Jie and one called Jie Shen. Which of them is the book's?

Nian Jie. The site's engine implements the volume 2 verse as Nian Jie and adds a separate month-based Jie Shen. The English labels on the site are Nian Jie (Year Relief) and Jie Shen (Untangler). The month verse was not found in the three volumes of the book; it appears only in a comment inside iztro, so its source is still to be checked. Nian Jie's own table is in Nian Jie: a mirror table for twelve year branches.

Two months a spot, once around the yang branches

The month version is written as a short poem, copied from the comment on the month-based stars in iztro. Our translation:

Months one and two on the Monkey, three and four on the Dog; five and six on the Rat, seven and eight on the Tiger; months nine and ten sit in the Dragon palace, eleven and twelve on the Horse.

Open the full-size diagram

Sketch: the six spots are taken from the site engine for all twelve months, and the numbers on the arcs are the two lunar months that enter each spot.

The poem pairs the twelve months: one and two on the Monkey, three and four on the Dog, five and six on the Rat, seven and eight on the Tiger, nine and ten on the Dragon, and eleven and twelve on the Horse.

The six spots are the Rat, Tiger, Dragon, Horse, Monkey and Dog, all yang branches. Every two months the star advances two branches, twelve months complete one turn, and the next first month is back on the Monkey.

1. 1

   Find the lunar month

   Work out which lunar month the birthday falls in first; a leap month follows the site setting.

2. 2

   Pair the months

   Months 1 and 2 form the first group, 3 and 4 the second, and so on, six groups in all.

3. 3

   Turn the group into a branch

   The first group is the Monkey; each later group moves two branches on: Dog, Rat, Tiger, Dragon, Horse.

When Nian Jie and Jie Shen share a palace

Nian Jie follows the year branch and Jie Shen follows the month; laid over each other, the two tables sometimes land on one branch. The pattern is tidy: only people born in a yang-branch year ever have such months, and they are always two neighboring months.

The reason lies in the shape of the tables. Nian Jie's spot is ten minus the number of the year branch (counting the Rat as 0 and adding 12 to a negative result), so a yang year gives a yang spot; Jie Shen only ever visits yang branches, so a yang year gives it a chance to meet Nian Jie and a yin year never does. Checking the chart for the tenth day of the third lunar month in 1984, a Rat year, both stars sit on the Dog, matching the Rat-year row.

Jie Shen also meets Tian Wu in two months: both are on the Monkey in month two and on the Tiger in month seven. Tian Wu's own pattern is in Tian Wu: a minor star that cycles with the lunar month.

Remarks beyond the verse are only leads

A further comment in iztro adds that Jie Shen splits into a yearly and a monthly kind, that the monthly one acts more directly and quickly, and that the yearly one is slower and weaker. This site did not find a source for that remark and does not adopt it; it is recorded here only as a lead.

How the other minor stars are placed is laid out in the minor-star entry overview.