Hua Ke: supporting stars and three sources
Content version · · Sources & references
Four stems hand Hua Ke to Wen Chang, You Bi, Wen Qu or Zuo Fu. An engine-computed sample chart shows how supporting stars are placed by month and hour, and keeps birth-year, palace-stem and self Ke apart.
The short version7 min read
Unlike the two columns before it, the Ke column in the engine's table hands its mark to supporting stars: Wen Chang, Wen Qu, Zuo Fu and You Bi. Hua Ke (Ke for short) is the third mark on a star, and the book pictures it as examinations and literary work.
- In the engine's table, of the nine names in the Ke column, Wen Chang, You Bi, Wen Qu and Zuo Fu are supporting stars, and four stems (Yang Fire, Yang Earth, Yin Metal, Yang Water) give Ke to them.
- Supporting stars are set by birth month and hour, not the year stem: in the sample, three hours move Wen Chang to three branches while its palace name stays, so the lunar month decides.
- The sample chart's Wealth palace carries five Ke records from three kinds of source: one birth-year, three palace-stem flights and one self-transformation.
Read first
The Ke column: nine names, four of them outside the fourteen major stars
Hua Ke (化科), "Ke" for short, is the third of the four marks. The book's picture for it is examinations and literary work. The Ke column does something the two columns before it never do: it gives the mark to supporting stars.
Ke stars come from the engine's four-transformation table (identical cell by cell to the iztro default). "Supporting stars" means Wen Chang, Wen Qu, Zuo Fu and You Bi; the Yang Water cell differs from the Quan Shu rhyme, see the text.
Ten stems give only nine names in the Ke column, because Tai Yin appears twice, under Yang Metal and Yin Water. The right column gives the kind. Wen Chang (文昌) under Yang Fire, You Bi (右弼) under Yang Earth, Wen Qu (文曲) under Yin Metal and Zuo Fu (左辅) under Yang Water are supporting stars; the other six stems land on major stars. All twenty places in the Lu and Quan columns are major stars. Supporting stars show up four times in Ke and twice in Ji (Wen Qu under Yin Earth, Wen Chang under Yin Metal).
The book gives Ke its image in its own entry:
The Ke star is Water, the god of the examinations above, the god in charge of literary work.
Where the supporting stars go: month and hour, with no say for the year stem
Yang Fire gives Ke to Wen Chang, yet Yang Fire cannot say which palace Wen Chang sits in. The book's rhyme for Wen Chang takes the birth hour as its input:
Wen Chang starts at the Dog position on the Rat hour; on the Ox hour it goes back to the Rooster.
The rhyme for Zuo Fu and You Bi uses the birth month instead:
Zuo Fu starts from the Dragon in the first month; going forward, the position that meets the birth month is the noble one.
Try a Yang Fire Rat year day (solar 9 March 1996, lunar month 1, day 20). Leave the year and day alone and change only the hour; Wen Chang lands on a different branch each time. What is interesting is the palace name:
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
Wen Chang runs backward through the branches and the Life palace runs backward too, so their relative position holds and Wen Chang's palace name does not follow the hour. Wen Qu runs forward, so its palace name changes with every hour.
Birth-year Ke: Yang Fire's Wen Chang, palace by month
The sample chart takes that day at the Rabbit hour, male. The year stem is Yang Fire, the Ke column gives Wen Chang, and Wen Chang sits in the Wealth palace (the Goat palace). The record reads "birth-year Ke, Wen Chang, Wealth palace".
Since Wen Chang's palace name depends only on the month, the palace of a Yang Fire year's birth-year Ke can be listed straight from the lunar month. Running the engine over all twelve months and all thirteen hour slots, each month's palace name stayed fixed across every hour:
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
Move the same question to a Yang Water year and it turns around: Zuo Fu's palace name depends on the hour and ignores the month. The Rat hour gives Wellbeing, the Ox hour Property, the Tiger hour Career.
Palace-stem Ke: three flights into one Wealth palace
In the sample chart three palaces send their Ke into the Wealth palace:
- Children palace (Yang Fire, Monkey): the Ke star under Yang Fire is Wen Chang, in Wealth. The palace stem equals the year stem, so the star repeats the birth-year Ke, although it arrives by a different route.
- Career palace (Yin Metal, Rabbit): the Ke star under Yin Metal is Wen Qu, in Wealth.
- Wellbeing palace (Yin Metal, Ox): the same stem and the same Wen Qu, in Wealth. Career and Wellbeing share a stem, so they send identical Ke.
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
Self-Ke: three palaces landing on themselves
Self-Ke looks at the palace's own stem. Three palaces in the sample chart pass:
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
Two land on supporting stars: Zuo Fu in Friends and You Bi in Siblings. The Yang Water cell uses the engine table. The last line of the Quan Shu rhyme reads Fu, and if Tian Fu were taken from it, the Friends entry would fail; the disagreement between the two texts is recorded in birth-year transformations.
Put the five records back into the Wealth palace: one birth-year Ke, three palace-stem flights, one self. Their sources differ and are written separately; they are not "lots of Ke in the Wealth palace".
After the look-up, three more things
Scan the supporting stars too
Search for the star carrying a mark among major stars and Wen Chang, Wen Qu, Zuo Fu and You Bi together; their placement has its own rhymes, covered in supporting, malefic and minor stars.
Place by month and hour
Wen Chang's palace name follows the lunar month and Zuo Fu's follows the hour. Never derive their place from the year stem.
Write sources apart
Birth-year Ke, a palace stem's flight and self each get a line, and as many lines as the palace shows.
One by month, one by hour
A Yang Fire year, born in lunar month 3: which palace holds the birth-year Ke?
Yang Fire gives Ke to Wen Chang, and in month 3 Wen Chang is in the Travel palace. The hour does not change the palace name.
A Yang Water year, born at the Rat hour: which palace holds Zuo Fu with Ke (engine table)?
Yang Water gives Ke to Zuo Fu, and at the Rat hour Zuo Fu is in the Wellbeing palace, whatever the birth month.
After Ke comes the fourth column, the one most easily over-read: Hua Ji.
Questions readers ask next
Does Ke landing on supporting stars make them more important than major stars?
The table simply gives the mark to those stars; it ranks nothing. The practical consequence is a technical one: when you look for the stars that carry a mark, the supporting stars must be scanned too, or four stems' Ke goes missing.
In the same Yang Fire year, does Ke move to another palace if the birth hour changes?
Wen Chang's branch changes, but in the sample its palace name did not, because the Life palace moved with it. Under Yin Metal, Wen Qu's palace name does shift with the hour, so each star has to be looked up on its own.
For Yang Water years, is Ke on Tian Fu or on Zuo Fu?
The engine's table gives Zuo Fu, while the last line of the Quan Shu rhyme names Fu. State which table was used in your notes, and never record both stars as Ke.
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Hua Quan (化权): Why Its Star Often Repeats the Previous Stem's Lu, and Three Sources ↗
Why Hua Ji (化忌) Is Not Simply Bad News: Ask the Star, Place and Source First ↗