Tian Xi: the minor star opposite Hong Luan

Wherever Hong Luan sits, Tian Xi is across from it

Tian Xi has no count of its own. After giving Hong Luan's position, the placement verse adds one clause: Tian Xi is in the opposite palace, not a step off. How the same clause is used on the BaZi side is in Tian Xi: the palace opposite Hong Luan; here the question is which palace names it lands on in a Zi Wei chart.

Open the full-size diagram

Comparison sketch: each row is a pair of palace names that face each other; with Hong Luan in one, Tian Xi is in the other, and the reverse holds too.

Opposite means six branches away, straight across the ring. The twelve palace names run in a fixed order around the circle, so names six places apart form natural pairs, six in all: Life with Travel, Siblings with Friends, Partner with Career, Children with Property, Wealth with Wellbeing, Health with Parents. Whichever palace name holds Hong Luan, Tian Xi is in its partner name, and every chart lands on exactly one pair.

Opposite means looking across, not sitting in

Hong Luan and Tian Xi are never in one palace. When reading the palace that holds Hong Luan, Tian Xi is across the way and takes part through the opposite-palace relation instead of sitting there; each star's own position is recorded separately, and the difference between opposite, same-palace and flanking is set out in opposite, flanking and converging palaces.

Each layer counts once: Tian Xi, Yun Xi, Liu Xi

The same rule is run again in the time layers. The decadal layer uses the branch of the current ten-year limit and renames Hong Luan and Tian Xi as Yun Luan (运鸾) and Yun Xi (运喜); the yearly layer uses the yearly branch and renames them Liu Luan and Liu Xi; the finer monthly layer repeats the count once more as Yue Luan and Yue Xi, but here only the first two time layers are shown. One woman's chart from 1995 shows it (Metal Four bureau, limits from age four, running forward). Its first six limits place Yun Luan and Yun Xi like this:

Each time the limit branch advances one step, Yun Xi steps back one, so it changes spot every ten years, while natal Tian Xi is computed from the birth-year branch and never moves. Laid on top of each other:

One branch can carry different palace names in different layers too: the Tiger is the Children palace in the natal chart but the Health palace in this limit layer. Read Yun Xi and Liu Xi with that layer's own palace names rather than copying the natal ones.

Another "Tian Xi spirit" in the book

The poem on Tian Xing in volume 1 of the Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu (紫微斗数全书) opens by giving that star a second name: when it sits in its temple position, the strongest grade, it is called the Tian Xi spirit. The poem goes on to name the Tiger, Rooster, Dog and Rabbit as those places. The title belongs to Tian Xing and shares only a name with the Tian Xi placed opposite Hong Luan; Tian Xing's own placement is covered in Tian Xing: counted from the Rooster, eight palaces from Tian Yao.

1. 1

   Find Hong Luan first

   Look up its branch and palace name in its own article: the year gives the branch and Life gives the name.

2. 2

   Then count across

   Six branches on from Hong Luan is Tian Xi's branch; for the palace name take the partner name.

3. 3

   Name the layer

   Tian Xi for the natal chart, Yun Xi for a decade, Liu Xi for a year, and each layer renumbers its palace names.

Its partner star is covered in Hong Luan: one palace back per year; the inputs of the other minor stars are in the full table of minor-star inputs.