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Bushi Zhengzong · The Orthodox Tradition of Divination
Stem Assignment, Self and Response, and the Six Beasts
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Verse for Assigning Stems to the Hexagram
Begin assignment from the bottom.
Qian Metal: Jia-Zi, outer Ren-Wu; Zi, Yin, Chen, Wu, Shen, Xu. Kan Water: Wu-Yin, outer Wu-Shen; Yin, Chen,
Wu, Shen, Wu (stem), Zi. Gen Earth: Bing-Chen, outer Bing-Xu; Chen, Wu, Shen, Xu, Zi, Yin. Zhen Wood: Geng-Zi, outer
Geng-Wu; Zi, Yin, Chen, Wu, Shen, Xu. Xun Wood: Xin-Chou, outer Xin-Wei; Chou, Hai, You, Wei, Si, Mao. Li
Fire: Si-Mao, outer Si-You; Mao, Chou, Hai, You, Wei, Si. Kun Earth: Yi-Wei, outer Gui-Chou; Wei, Si, Mao,
Chou, Hai, You. Dui Metal: Ding-Hai; Si, Mao, Chou, Hai, Si, You, Wei.
Reading note: The mnemonic writes 戊 after 午申; Wu (stem) retains it rather than silently substituting Xu. It also writes 巳 at both Li stem positions, retained as Si. The following explicit table instead uses 己, Ji. The two source forms are not silently harmonized.
Hexagram Assignment: Stem-Assignment Table
Inner Hexagram; Outer Hexagram.
Qian assigns Jia: Zi, Yin, Chen. Qian assigns Ren: Wu, Shen, Xu.
Zhen assigns Geng: Zi, Yin, Chen. Zhen assigns Geng: Wu, Shen, Xu.
Kan assigns Wu: Yin, Chen, Wu. Kan assigns Wu: Shen, Xu, Zi.
Gen assigns Bing: Chen, Wu, Shen. Gen assigns Bing: Xu, Zi, Yin.
Yang trigrams begin assignment at the first line, from bottom to top, continuing to the sixth line.
Xun assigns Xin: Mao, Si, Wei. Xun assigns Xin: You, Hai, Chou.
Li assigns Ji: Si, Wei, You. Li assigns Ji: Hai, Chou, Mao.
Dui assigns Ding: Wei, You, Hai. Dui assigns Ding: Chou, Mao, Si.
Kun assigns Yi: You, Hai, Chou. Kun assigns Gui: Mao, Si, Wei.
Yin trigrams begin assignment at the sixth line, from top to bottom, continuing to the first line.
Formula for Placing Self and Response
At the head of each of the eight palaces, Self belongs at six.
Thereafter it rises in turn from the first line.
For Wandering Soul in the eight palaces, establish it at four.
For Returning Soul in the eight trigrams, examine the third line.
Verse on the Six Beasts
Jia and Yi begin with Green Dragon; Bing and Ding begin with Vermilion Bird; a Wu day begins with Gouchen; a Ji day with Soaring Snake; Geng and Xin begin with White Tiger; Ren and Gui with Dark Warrior.
Note: Base the Six Beasts on the one casting the hexagram, assigning them from the first line to the sixth.
Examples for Jia, Yi, Bing, and Ding days are now attached; infer the rest by analogy.
Sixth line; fifth line; fourth line; third line; second line; first line.
Jia and Yi Day Example: Dark Warrior; White Tiger; Soaring Snake; Gouchen; Vermilion Bird; Green Dragon.
Bing and Ding Day Example: Green Dragon; Dark Warrior; White Tiger; Soaring Snake; Gouchen; Vermilion Bird.
Green Dragon: Governs rightness, loyalty and uprightness, elevated purity free of vulgarity, and a properly matched spouse. It also governs celebrations, money and valuables, blessings and emolument, auspicious qi, and
enjoyment.
Vermilion Bird: Governs verbal disputes, postal remittances, firelight, flying, and swiftness.
Gou Spirit: Fields and earth, entanglement, complications, attraction, restraint, and delay. It also governs honesty.
Reading note: Gou Spirit is the name written 勾神 here; the preceding starting formula uses 勾陈, Gouchen.
Soaring Snake: Governs alarm and doubt, strangeness, dreams, hidden private matters, hidden virtue, fixed allotments in the unseen realm, yin spirits, and predestined ties within the darkness.
White Tiger: Governs pain, bloodshed, bleeding, injury, surgery, and wounds from knives, swords, and guns. It also governs illness, death, funerals, and mourning
garments and baneful qi.
Reading note: The source splits 考服 across the two records; the funeral context is rendered as mourning garments. The preceding 夕主 is read as continuing the list, not as a separate nighttime rule.
Dark Warrior: Governs thieves, people of the rat-and-snake sort, sexual disorder, excessive entertainment, improper conduct, gambling, illicit sexual behavior, deception, falsity, and
sexual indulgence.
Method of judgment by combining images of the Six Spirits with images of the Six Relations.
Green Dragon; Vermilion Bird; Gou Spirit; Soaring Snake; White Tiger; Dark Warrior.
Officer and Ghost
Green Dragon: Law, official emolument, uprightness; in marriage questions, the star of the rightful husband. In household fengshui, the spirit altar. In applications, the authorities, customs office, and the like.
Vermilion Bird: Official disputes, argument, reporting a case; curses that injure people, talismans, and harmful occult arts. These require a moving Officer with Dark Warrior or Soaring Snake. A moving Fire Officer indicates fire disaster.
Gou Spirit: In business, a familiar customer. For a woman's marriage question, husband or boyfriend; for a man's, a rival in love. In litigation, entanglement; also worry.
Soaring Snake: In litigation, controlling the Useful Spirit indicates imprisonment. In dreams, strange and frightening things. In the household, movement that controls the Useful Spirit indicates uncanny disturbance. In illness, possession or entanglement by ghosts. For a woman's marriage, the star of a destined husband.
White Tiger: Movement controlling the Useful Spirit indicates bloodshed or surgery. Repeated control indicates death. Clashing with the Useful Spirit without controlling it indicates illness; with control as well, severe illness. This method applies to questions about oneself, one's course of fortune, illness, pregnancy and childbirth, and the household.
Dark Warrior: Thieves; movement controlling the Useful Spirit indicates robbery and harm. For a woman's question, an illicit union; combination with Gou Spirit is called an illicit combination.
Reading note: These six groups follow the six columns named immediately above. The source's existing group boundaries are used; no additional correspondences are supplied.
Parents
Green Dragon: Documents, diplomas, certificates, legal provisions, contracts, official files, registers, and scriptures.
Vermilion Bird: Letters, mail, telegrams; teachers and oral recitation of scriptures.
Gou Spirit: Falls. For an application, obstruction in paperwork; for one's fortune or person, toil and anxious concerns; for pregnancy, difficult labor. Familiar acquaintances.
Soaring Snake: Use the judgment for the Parent line in the images of the Six Relations.
White Tiger: Injury through falls, or illness among elders.
Dark Warrior: Movement controlling the Useful Spirit indicates falsity in the “six writings,” or an elder concealing a false situation.
Reading note: The final group writes 六书, retained as “six writings”; the uncertain first character is not silently replaced to make “documents.”
Brothers
Green Dragon: Biological brothers and righteous friends.
Vermilion Bird: Quarreling, anger and provocation, stirring up disputes.
Gou Spirit: Close and friendly companions.
Soaring Snake: Movement controlling the Useful Spirit indicates secret plots, concealed harm, and being defrauded of money. In a friend's litigation, imprisonment.
White Tiger: Friends beset by illness.
Dark Warrior: Deception, fraud for money, or expenditure for entertainment. Gambling must lose.
Wealth
Green Dragon: Rightfully obtained wealth, the first wife, welcome wealth. In person-and-destiny questions, wealth of fortune and emolument and the enjoyment of blessings.
Vermilion Bird: Remittances. In a man's marriage question, a talkative wife or one working in public relations.
Gou Spirit: For a man, wife or girlfriend; for a woman's marriage question, a rival.
Soaring Snake: In business and money fortune, destined wealth. In a man's marriage question, a wife destined by earlier affinity.
White Tiger: For oneself, wealth with illness or wealth accompanied by stinginess. In a man's marriage question, the woman is ill.
Dark Warrior: Wealth gained by deception. In a man's marriage question, an improper girlfriend, a woman in an illicit union who combines with Self, or a fashionable girlfriend. Gambling wins.
Descendants
Green Dragon: A leisurely and refined disposition, not seeking empty reputation or laboring over vulgar affairs, in person-and-destiny questions. In wealth, profit; in career, leisure. Favorable for a man's marriage question, unfavorable for a woman's. In illness, recovery without medicine. Unfavorable for official employment.
Vermilion Bird: Music and songs, pets and birds, or recitation of Buddhist spells.
Gou Spirit: Use the judgment of the Descendant line in the images of the Six Relations.
Soaring Snake: In questions about offspring, children destined in one's allotment. Also accumulating virtue and possessing hidden merit.
White Tiger: Illness and unease among the younger generation or children.
Dark Warrior: Enjoyment involving unconventional sidelines, the entertainment world, and much psychological gratification through material desires.
Reading note: The supplied compilation includes terms such as telegrams, customs applications, and public relations. They are translated as present in the current reader rather than silently rewritten as vocabulary of a different historical edition.
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