Tian Guan: by the year stem, ten stems on nine branches

Ten stems, nine landing points

A small question first: do ten year stems give ten landing points? Tian Guan (天官) follows the stem of the birth year, and its table holds only nine different branches, because Yin Earth (己) and Yin Metal (辛) both land on the Rooster.

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Comparison sketch: the landing points of Tian Guan follow this site's engine (iztro 2.6.0) and agree with the three examples for heavenly officer noble in juan 5 of the Sanming Tonghui; the other seven stems are not worked in that passage.

The two rows are Yang stem years and Yin stem years, and each column is a pair of stems of one element. The Yang stems are Yang Wood, Yang Fire, Yang Earth, Yang Metal and Yang Water; the Yin stems are the five partners. Lined up in stem order, the ten landing points are Goat, Dragon, Snake, Tiger, Rabbit, Rooster, Pig, Rooster, Dog and Horse. The step from one entry to the next jumps back and forth, so there is no "count so many steps" rule to find; it is a lookup.

On the ring, nine places are colored. Rat, Ox and Monkey stay empty: whatever the stem of the birth year, Tian Guan never lands there.

BaZi has an entry of the same name: heavenly officer noble

Juan 5 of the Sanming Tonghui (三命通会) has an entry called "heavenly officer noble", and its first lines give the method:

It means the place where the official star dwells, found by hiding it within its own decade: for a Yang Wood person the official star is Yin Metal, and within the decade it shows as Yin Metal on Goat; for Yin Wood it is Yang Metal on Dragon; for Yang Fire, Yin Water on Snake.

The book first picks one official star for each of the three stems (Yin Metal, Yang Metal, Yin Water), then looks for that stem inside the decade and reads off the branch it sits on, a step called hiding: Yin Metal over Goat gives Goat, Yang Metal over Dragon gives Dragon, Yin Water over Snake gives Snake. How an official star is chosen is explained in the article on the adjective star Tian Fu (天福). Checked against the engine's table, entry by entry:

All three examples agree. For the other seven stems this passage gives no examples, so the engine's table is used as it stands and no derivation is added here.

The new-year rule changes the stem

Tian Guan reads the stem of the year, so the line where one year turns into the next moves the stem. In 2003 the lunar new year fell on 1 February and the Start of Spring on 4 February. Here are three dates, each worked out under both rules by one engine:

On 2 February, Yin Water (癸) and Yang Water (壬) are different stems, so the cells found differ: Yin Water gives Horse and Yang Water gives Dog. By default the site turns the year at the lunar new year; when you check the birth-year pillar, see first whether the date sits between the lunar new year and the Start of Spring.

Which palace: count from Life

The lookup gives a branch, and the palace name has to be counted from Life. Two charts, two year stems:

Both Tian Guan and Tian Cai end up as "count some steps from Life", but they differ in what the year fixes. For Tian Guan the year stem gives the branch directly and the palace name has to be counted; for Tian Cai the year branch gives the palace name directly and the branch has to be found.

1. 1

   Settle the year stem first

   Check whether the birth date is before or after the lunar new year, then take that year's stem.

2. 2

   Then look up the branch

   Read the branch off the table above; the table has no formula, so do not extrapolate from a pattern.

3. 3

   Count from Life last

   Count along the branches from the Life palace to that branch and read off the palace name.

Another lookup by year stem is the birth-year four transformations; the neighboring year-stem star is Tian Fu, and the Sanming Tonghui derives both of its noble entries from the official star.