The ten gods (十神)

Five relationships, doubled by yin and yang

Take your Day Master’s element. Every other element stands in one of five relationships to it: the same element; the element it produces; the element it controls; the element that controls it; and the element that produces it. Each relationship then splits in two depending on whether the other stem has the same polarity as the Day Master or the opposite one. Five times two is ten.

Yuan Hai Zi Ping sets out exactly this scheme, using a 甲 or 乙 wood Day Master as the example:

一曰官，分之阴阳，曰官、曰杀，甲乙见庚辛也；二曰财，分之阴阳，曰正财、偏财，甲乙见戊己也；三曰生气之阴阳，曰印綬、曰倒食，甲乙见壬癸是也；四曰窃气之阴阳，曰食神、曰伤官，甲乙见丙丁是也；五曰同类之阴阳，曰劫财、曰阳刃，甲乙见甲乙是也。

“First, officer, divided by yin and yang into Officer and Killing — Jia or Yi seeing Geng or Xin. Second, wealth, divided into Direct and Indirect Wealth — Jia or Yi seeing Wu or Ji. Third, the yin and yang of generating energy: Resource and “Reversed Food” — Jia or Yi seeing Ren or Gui. Fourth, the yin and yang of draining energy: Eating God and Hurting Officer — Jia or Yi seeing Bing or Ding. Fifth, the yin and yang of the same kind: Rob Wealth and Yang Blade — Jia or Yi seeing Jia or Yi.”

— Yuan Hai Zi Ping 《淵海子平》, 论日为主. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.

The text then concludes that “nobility and humility, long life and short, death and life” all fall within these five — a claim we report as the tradition’s, not as fact. Note that the classical names differ slightly from modern ones: “Reversed Food” (倒食) is the old name for Indirect Resource, and the text pairs Rob Wealth with Yang Blade rather than with Companion.

The ten gods table

English names vary a lot between books and websites. “Seven Killings” is also called “Seven Killing”, “7K” or “Indirect Officer”; “Resource” is also translated “Seal” or “Print” (印); “Eating God” is sometimes “Food God”. The Chinese names are the reliable reference.

A quirk worth noticing: the polarity rule is reversed from what many people expect. When the other stem has the same polarity, the relationship is the “indirect” or harsher one (偏, 七杀, 劫). When it has the opposite polarity, it is the “direct” one (正). Classical writers explain this with the idea that yin and yang attract, so opposite-polarity relationships are the balanced ones.

The pairs, with classical definitions

Resource 印 — what produces me

所谓印？生我者，即印綬也

“What is called the seal? That which produces me is the seal (Resource).”

— Yuan Hai Zi Ping 《淵海子平》, 论印綬. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.

以阳见阴，以阴见阳，谓之正印；阳见阳，阴见阴，谓之偏印。

“Yang meeting yin, or yin meeting yang, is called Direct Resource; yang meeting yang or yin meeting yin is called Indirect Resource.”

— Yuan Hai Zi Ping 《淵海子平》, 论印綬. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.

Resource supports the Day Master. Traditionally it stands for mother, protection, learning and seals of office. It is welcome when the Day Master is weak and less so when it is already strong.

Output 食伤 — what I produce

食神者，生我财神之谓也；如甲属木，丙属火，名盗气，故谓之『食神』。

“The Eating God is what produces my wealth. For example Jia is wood and Bing is fire: this is called draining energy, and so it is named the Eating God.”

— Yuan Hai Zi Ping 《淵海子平》, 论食神. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.

伤官者，我生彼之谓也；以阳见阴，阴见阳，亦名盗气。

“The Hurting Officer is what I produce, yang meeting yin or yin meeting yang; it too is called draining energy.”

— Yuan Hai Zi Ping 《淵海子平》, 论伤官. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.

The Hurting Officer gets its alarming name because, in the controlling cycle, it attacks the Direct Officer (fire melts metal in the 甲 example). Classical texts warn about “Hurting Officer meeting Officer” (伤官见官), and also describe Hurting Officer people as talented and proud.

Wealth 财 — what I control

何谓之正财？犹如正官之意；是阴见阳财，阳见阴财。

“What is Direct Wealth? It is like the idea of Direct Officer: yin seeing yang wealth, or yang seeing yin wealth.”

— Yuan Hai Zi Ping 《淵海子平》, 论正财. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.

Wealth is the element the Day Master controls. The same chapter stresses that the self must be strong enough to “carry” its wealth — a recurring theme: a weak Day Master with much wealth is read as burdened, not rich.

Officer and Seven Killings 官杀 — what controls me

夫七杀者，亦名偏官，喜身旺合杀、喜制伏、喜阳刃；忌身弱、忌见财，生忌无制。身旺有气为偏官，身弱无制为七杀。

“Seven Killings is also called Indirect Officer. It likes a strong self that combines with it, likes being restrained, likes the Yang Blade; it dislikes a weak self, dislikes meeting wealth, and dislikes going unchecked. With a strong self it is the Indirect Officer; with a weak self and no restraint it is Seven Killings.”

— Yuan Hai Zi Ping 《淵海子平》, 论七杀. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.

This passage shows something important about how the ten gods work: the same star is read very differently depending on the strength of the Day Master and the rest of the chart. None of the ten is simply “good” or “bad”.

Companions 比劫 — the same element

亦名『逆刃』，如乙见甲为劫财。

“Also called the “Reverse Blade”: for example Yi seeing Jia is Rob Wealth.”

— Yuan Hai Zi Ping 《淵海子平》, 论劫财. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.

Companions strengthen the Day Master but compete for its wealth, which is where the name “Rob Wealth” comes from.

Where the ten gods appear in a chart

Each visible stem except the Day Master gets a ten-god label, and so does every hidden stem in the branches. The stem hidden in the month branch — especially if it also appears among the visible stems — is the traditional starting point for naming the chart’s “structure” (格局), such as a Direct Officer structure or an Eating God structure. The ten gods are also applied to luck pillars and years, which is how practitioners describe a ten-year period as, say, a “Resource period”.

Traditional associations (and a caution)

Classical and modern books attach long lists of associations to the ten gods — Resource with mother and study, Wealth with father and (for a man) wife, Officer with career and (for a woman) husband, Output with children and expression, Companions with siblings and peers. These associations come from the five-element logic (for a man, the wife is the element he “controls”, the children the element that controls him; for a woman, the husband is the element that controls her and the children the element she produces), and many of them reflect the family structure of imperial China. We record them because you will meet them everywhere, but we encourage reading them as a historical symbolic system rather than as statements about real people.

See your ten gods

The calculator labels every visible and hidden stem in your chart with its ten god in English and Chinese. Look for which of the five groups appears most, and which is missing; then read the useful god page to see how classical texts decide what a chart needs.

Keep learning

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.