Tian Ma: twelve year branches, four places

Four palaces only, by the year branch

Tian Ma (天马) is placed by the branch of the birth year, and the twelve branches put it in only four places: Tiger, Monkey, Snake and Pig. Whatever the year of birth, the other eight palaces never hold Tian Ma.

Open the full-size diagram

Branch ring: all twelve year branches were charted in the engine; circles of one color form a trine, each reading year branch → branch of Tian Ma, and the order is not the real chart layout.

Each circle in the picture reads year branch → where Tian Ma sits: Rat to Tiger, Ox to Pig, Tiger to Monkey, and on to Pig to Snake. The colors split the twelve branches into four groups. Three circles of one color form an equilateral triangle on the ring, meaning a trine, and each triangle gives Tian Ma a single landing place. The element list in juan 2 of the Quan Shu adds one line: Tian Ma belongs to Fire.

One input decides it, the year branch. How the year branch is taken also depends on the year-boundary setting, and the fifth section works an example.

Opposite the first branch of the trine

Set the first branch of each trine beside Tian Ma's landing place and the pattern shows:

Tiger, Snake, Monkey and Pig are also called the four "first-month" branches, the opening month of each season. Because Tian Ma always goes opposite one trine's first branch, it can only appear in these four places. The BaZi "Traveling Horse" uses the very same twelve-row table, though the site engine looks it up by the day branch; the landing places agree and the starting point differs, as Traveling Horse explains.

The names the book gives for sharing a palace

Juan 1 opens its answer to "what does Tian Ma govern" like this:

Each palace has its own checks and changes. When it comes to the Body or Life palace it is called the traveling horse. ... With Lu Cun in one palace it is called Lu and horse racing together, also the broken-whip horse.

The first half is a label: Tian Ma on the Life or Body palace is the traveling horse. The second half gives the first name: with Lu Cun, Lu and horse racing together, also the broken-whip horse. A long run follows, every item a name chosen by what shares its palace:

Lu Cun and Tuo Luo: countable from the year pillar

Of the eight pairings, Lu Cun and Tuo Luo depend on the birth year alone, so whether Tian Ma shares a palace with them can be looked up from the year pillar. Charting all sixty year pillars, one each, gives this:

Why exactly these pillars? In the sixty-cycle a stem and its branch always share polarity. Tian Ma lands only on Tiger, Monkey, Snake and Pig, so for Lu Cun to share its palace the stem's Lu spot must also be one of those four. That holds for Yang Wood (Tiger), Yang Metal (Monkey), Yang Water (Pig) and both Yang Fire and Yang Earth (Snake). Yang Fire and Yang Earth would need a year in the Pig-Rabbit-Goat group to get a horse on Snake, but those branches are all Yin and cannot pair with them; Yang Water would need the Snake-Rooster-Ox group for a horse on Pig, with the same problem. That leaves Yang Wood and Yang Metal, three Yang branches each, six pillars in all.

Tuo Luo works the same way. It sits one branch before Lu Cun, and only the Yin stems Yin Fire and Yin Earth (Tuo Luo on Snake) and Yin Water (Tuo Luo on Pig) can meet a horse from the Yin-branch groups: three pillars for each of the three stems, nine in all. Qing Yang sits one branch after Lu Cun, and its eight possible places (Rabbit, Dragon, Horse, Goat, Rooster, Dog, Rat and Ox) never include Tiger, Monkey, Snake or Pig, so it can never meet Tian Ma and the count is zero. The placement of those two stars is in Lu Cun, and the second has its own article, Tuo Luo.

Year boundary and flowing year: one table, a new year branch, a new place

Tian Ma reads only the year branch, so a new branch moves it, and the easiest place for the branch to change is the year boundary: the site settings let the year turn at lunar new year or at the Start of Spring. In 2025 lunar new year fell on January 29 and the Start of Spring on February 3, so February 1 lies between them; the flowing horse of 2026 gives a second comparison:

The third row shows the flowing-year layer reading the same table: the branch of 2026 is Horse, Horse belongs to the Tiger-Horse-Dog trine, the table gives Monkey, and the engine's flowing-year chart has the flowing horse on the Monkey palace. How the year-boundary setting moves Lu Cun is shown, on another date, in Lu Cun.

For the rule that ties Tian Ma to the Partner palace and to the Life palace's trine, read the Partner palace article, which is not repeated here.

1. 1

   Settle the year branch first

   For births near the Start of Spring or lunar new year, decide which year boundary applies before taking the branch.

2. 2

   Then find the trine

   File the branch under one of the four groups; the landing place is opposite that group's first branch.

3. 3

   Last, check who shares the palace

   Once the chart is placed, see whether Lu Cun or Tuo Luo sits with Tian Ma, and only then compare with the book's names, not the other way round.