The Children palace: own, opposite and three sides

The fourth box, with Property across from it

The box after Partner and before Wealth is the Children palace, fourth in the order; it covers children and younger relatives.

Open the full-size diagram

Sketch: the highlighted Children palace is joined by the plum line to Property across the ring and forms a triangle with Friends and Parents; the ring is drawn clockwise, while real palace names run backward along the branches.

In the picture Children sits at the far right of the ring: Partner and Wealth flank it, Friends and Parents complete its trine, and the plum line runs straight across to Property. How the opposite and the trine are counted is explained in three sides, four directions.

Each subject stays its own; being opposite says something about position only. When the book later tells the reader to "look at the opposite palace", the step lands on the Property box.

The reading order the book writes down

The Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu (紫微斗数全书) files its Children entry, "Si Zi Nü" (四子女), in the second of its scrolls, and the entry begins not with what any star does but with a sequence for looking:

To read the children, first look at the stars of the own palace… next look at whether the opposite palace brings clash or punishment. If the own palace holds no stars, look only at the stars of the opposite palace.

Of the three steps, the first takes the stars of the own palace. The second looks at whether the opposite palace brings clash or punishment, that is, whether stars across the ring shine into this box. The third is the three sides and four directions, where the book goes on to its own verdicts, which this article does not take up. What deserves notice is the sentence in the middle, "if the own palace holds no stars, look only at the opposite": it is not an add-on but moves the whole reading to the box across the ring.

When the own palace holds no stars, which box to read

On a chart the rule becomes a pure position question: the box to turn to is fixed by the branch of the Children palace. The table below takes several landing places for Life and works out Children and its opposite, Property, together:

The arithmetic has two steps: count three boxes back from Life to get Children, then six more to reach Property. With Life on the Rat, for example, Children is on the Rooster and the box to borrow from is the Rabbit.

One difference of wording matters. The book says "the own palace holds no stars", while today's "empty palace" usually means a palace without any of the fourteen major stars, so the two ranges are not identical. After borrowing, the original position is still kept; for how to write that down, see empty palaces and borrowed stars.

Strong and weak palaces: one box, two gradings

Further along, the section "Ding Shi Er Gong Ruo Qiang" (定十二宫弱强) sorts the twelve palaces into strong and weak, with one set for male charts and another for female charts:

Male chart: Wealth, Career, Wellbeing, Travel and Property are strong palaces; Children, servants, Siblings and Parents are weak ones. Female chart: husband, offspring, Wealth, Property and Wellbeing are strong; the rest are weak.

The same Children palace is a weak palace in the male set and, under the name "offspring", a strong one in the female set. The two gradings plainly do not agree. The text gives the grades and does not say how a grade enters any particular judgment; when quoting it, give the source and the period, and only then decide whether to carry it over.

Locate it, check for stars, name the source

1. 1

   Fix the position first

   From Life count three boxes back to Children, then six more to find Property, and write both branches down.

2. 2

   See whether the own palace holds stars

   If it does, copy the own palace first; if not, move the evidence to the opposite box, Property, and keep the original position on record.

3. 3

   Say which set is used

   When citing a grading or a count of sons, name juan 2 and say whether it is the male or the female set.

The previous box is the Partner palace and the next is the Wealth palace; for the whole set of twelve, see the map of palace topics.