Ten Heavenly Stems
Twelve Earthly Branches
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The 12 Earthly Branches (12 animal signs) and the 10 Heavenly Stems are a must-know for those who want to practice Bazi. This is because they will allow us to derive in-depth insights into a person’s destiny, personality, character and potential by just seeing them on a Bazi chart.
Heavenly Stems indicate 10 circulatory signs - they are: jia, yi, bing, ding, wu, ji, geng, xin, ren and gui whereas the Earthly Branches refers to zi, chou, yin, mao, chen, si, wu, wei, shen, you, xu and hai.
There are 2 heavenly stems for each element – the Yang version of that element and the Yin version. For each year, there is always one heavenly stem and one earthly branch. The same thing happen for each month, each day and each hour – there is always a heavenly stem and earthly branch. And this is how the Bazi or 8 characters are derived.
The composition of two characters (one from the Heavenly Stems and one from the Earthly Branches) can be used to represent a year. For example the year 2005 is described as "Yi You" because it represents a combination of 10th sign in the Earthly Branches and the 2nd in the Heavenly Stems. The year 2006 will then be known as "Bing Xu" (3rd sign and the 11th one's association).
If this month is Yi Chou, then the next month will be Bing Yin. Similarly, if today is Jia Zi then tomorrow will be Yi Chou and if this bi-hour is Ding You, then next bi-hour will be Wu Xu.
The Heavenly Stem of the Day Pillar (your day of birth) is called as the Day Master (DM). DM represents your basic nature; behavior, characteristics, even your appearance. The DM is your personal element.
Ten Heavenly Stems:
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Jia
Yang
Wood (Strong Wood)
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Bing
Yang
Fire (Strong Fire)
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Ding
Yin
Fire
(Weak Fire)
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Wu
Yang
Earth
(Strong Earth)
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Ji
Yin
Earth
(Weak Earth)
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Geng
Yang
Metal
(Strong Metal)
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Xin
Yin
Metal
(Weak Metal)
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Ren
Yang
Water
(Strong Water)
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Gui
Yin
Water
(Weak Water)
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Twelve Earthly Branches:
Initially, the ten stems were created to record the days and the 12 branches were created to record the months but there was a problem using this system. The stems get repeated 3 times in a month and this makes recordings confusing. It would be far more complicated if year, month, day and time are involved. In order to make things easier they combine the branches and the stems to form 60 different combinations for recording of year, month, day and time.
Each branch is paired with a heavenly stem, forming a ‘pillar’. Also note that only odd-numbered branches are paired with odd-numbered stems, and even-numbered branches with even-numbered stems. For example, the first branch can be paired with the first heavenly stem, the third or the fifth etc but cannot be paired with the second, the fourth etc.
This explains why there is four Jia Zi combinations (Jia Zi of the year, month, day and hour) everyday in the Hsia Calendar or Chinese Solar Calendar.
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