Quick answer: 丙寅 is yang fire (丙) sitting on wood (寅, the Tiger). The branch produces the stem, so it sits on its resource star (偏印 Indirect Resource), at the Birth life stage; its Na Yin is 炉中火 (Fire in the Furnace).
丙寅 (Bing Yin) is pillar number 3 in the cycle of sixty stem–branch pairs. When it appears as the day pillar, the Day Master is 丙 yang fire, sitting on the Tiger branch 寅. This page explains how the two halves of the pillar relate, what is hidden inside the branch, and how traditional Bazi texts interpret the combination.
| Pillar | 丙寅 Bing Yin |
|---|---|
| Stem | 丙 Bing — yang Fire (火) |
| Branch | 寅 Yin — Tiger, Wood; hours 03:00–05:00 |
| Hidden stems | 甲 丙 戊 |
| Life stage of 丙 in 寅 | Birth (長生) |
| Na Yin (納音) | 炉中火 — Fire in the Furnace (Fire), shared with 丁卯 |
| Void branches (空亡) | 戌亥 |
| Branch clashes with · combines with | 申 (Monkey) · 亥 (Pig) |
The stem: 丙 Bing
The classical description of 丙 comes from the Di Tian Sui (滴天髓):
丙火猛烈，欺霜侮雪，能煆庚金，逄辛反怯，土眾成慈，水猖顯節，虎馬犬鄉，甲來焚滅。“Bing fire is fierce; it scorns frost and mocks snow. It can forge Geng metal, yet meeting Xin it turns timid. Among much earth it becomes kind; when water runs wild it shows its integrity. In the land of Tiger, Horse and Dog, if Jia arrives, it burns itself out.”— Di Tian Sui (Drops from Heaven’s Marrow) 《滴天髓》, 天干論. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.
Bing (丙) is yang fire, usually pictured as the sun. The Di Tian Sui calls it fierce, able to “bully frost and snow”, and says it can melt metal — bright, outward, warming energy. On the day pillar, this stem is the Day Master — the “self” of the chart that every other character is measured against. The full verse and a ten-gods table are on the Bing Fire Day Master page.
The branch: 寅 Yin
Yin (寅), the Tiger, opens spring. It is yang wood carrying the first warmth of the year, with 甲, 丙 and 戊 hidden inside. The day branch is traditionally called the spouse palace (夫妻宮), the seat closest to the self, so readers look at it for themes of partnership and private life. As a month it corresponds to the 寅 month (early February to early March, the start of spring).
How the stem and branch work together
The branch’s element produces the stem’s element, so 丙 sits on its own resource (印) star. The seat is supportive: the branch feeds the stem the way a parent feeds a child. Traditional readings associate it with learning, protection and an inward, reflective temperament, and say the spouse palace here brings support.
In the life-stage cycle this is a Birth seat: the stem is just coming into life here, and older handbooks treat it as a gentle, supportive footing — not the strongest root, but a living one.
Hidden stems in 寅
Each branch contains one to three hidden stems. Measured against 丙, they take these ten-god roles:
| Hidden stem | Layer | Element | Ten god for 丙 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 甲 | Main qi (本氣) | Wood | 偏印 — Indirect Resource |
| 丙 | Middle qi (中氣) | Fire | 比肩 — Companion |
| 戊 | Residual qi (餘氣) | Earth | 食神 — Eating God |
The main qi, 甲, is an Indirect Resource (偏印) — the element that produces the Day Master, same polarity; unconventional learning and support. The middle qi, 丙, is a Companion (比肩) — the same element and polarity as the Day Master, adding direct strength. The residual qi, 戊, is an Eating God (食神) — the element the Day Master produces, same polarity; the gentle outlet of talent and enjoyment. The main qi carries most weight; the minor stems become important when another stem in the chart “draws them out”, for example when the same stem appears openly in the month or hour pillar.
Element balance
Counting the stem plus the hidden stems (weighting the main qi fully and the minor qi less, one common convention), the pillar leans fire > wood > earth, and metal, water are absent from the pillar itself. That does not mean the chart lacks them — the year, month and hour pillars usually change the picture entirely, and the month branch matters most of all.
Because the strength of 丙 depends above all on the month of birth, the same 丙寅 day reads very differently in different seasons: a fire Day Master is strongest in summer and weakest in winter. The five elements and useful god guides explain how practitioners decide whether a chart wants more of an element or less.
Na Yin: 炉中火
In the older Na Yin system the sixty pillars are grouped in pairs, each with a poetic “sound element”. 丙寅 and 丁卯 share 炉中火, “Fire in the Furnace”, a fire image. Note that the Na Yin element (Fire) is separate from the elements of the stem (Fire) and branch (Wood); most modern Zi Ping readers use Na Yin as colour rather than as the basis of the reading.
Traditional personality themes
Popular Bazi writing associates 丙 Day Masters with warmth, openness and generosity, and sometimes with visibility, enthusiasm and a public-facing manner. On a 寅 seat, the 偏印 (Indirect Resource) star in the spouse palace colours that picture, as described above. These are traditional images, offered for cultural interest. They are not evidence about any real person, and a single pillar never decides a reading — the classics always judge the whole chart, its season and its balance.
Clashes, combinations and void branches
寅 clashes with 申 and forms a six-combination (六合) with 亥, said to produce wood. It also belongs to the 寅午戌 three-harmony group of fire. When those branches appear in the year, month or hour, or arrive in a luck pillar, tradition says the spouse palace is “moved”. See combinations and clashes.
The pillar belongs to the 甲子 decade (旬) of the sixty-cycle, whose two “void” branches (旬空, 空亡) are 戌 and 亥. Many practitioners note when those branches appear elsewhere in the chart or in luck pillars, reading them as weakened or “empty”.
A closer look at 丙寅
丙寅 is often pictured as the sun rising over a spring forest. 寅 is where 丙 is born in the life-stage cycle, and its main hidden stem, 甲, is yang wood feeding yang fire. That makes this a self-supporting seat: an Indirect Resource underneath and a Companion (the hidden 丙) beside it. The pillar’s Na Yin, “Fire in the Furnace” (爐中火), which it shares with 丁卯, uses the same image of wood stacked under a flame.
Because the support is built in, the usual question for a 丙寅 day is not whether the fire is strong enough. It is whether the fire has somewhere useful to go. The small 戊 in 寅 is an Eating God outlet, and readers look for more earth or metal elsewhere in the chart to use the heat.
The most sensitive point is the 寅申 clash. 申 holds 庚 and 壬, which are 丙’s Indirect Wealth and Seven Killings, and it strikes the very wood that keeps the fire going. 寅, 巳 and 申 together also form one of the classic three punishments (三刑). 寅 also combines with 亥 into wood, which means more fuel. The Di Tian Sui verse on 丙 warns that in the tiger, horse and dog branches (寅午戌), if 甲 comes too, the fire “burns itself out” (虎馬犬鄉，甲來焚滅). A 丙寅 day already sits on the tiger with 甲 inside, so a 午 or 戌 elsewhere is a real caution. The same verse says 丙 “meeting 辛 turns timid”, because 丙 and 辛 combine.
Find your own day pillar
The day pillar cannot be worked out from the Western date alone — it follows an unbroken sixty-day cycle, and a birth after 23:00 may count as the next day in some schools. Enter your birth data in the free Bazi calculator to see yours, then read the chart-reading guide.
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Keep learning
More in Day pillars, plus core guides — or go back to the Bazi calculator home page.
Classical quotations are copied from the public-domain texts on Wikisource; links let you check every line. English translations are our own. Traditional Bazi statements are reported as tradition, not as fact.