North-west 西北
The Qian 乾 direction, heaven and authority, and the seat Kua 6 is born into. North-west favours the west four.
What north-west is
North-west is the 乾 Qian palace, the heaven trigram, sixth of the nine. Heaven is the classical image of initiative and of authority: the thing that sets a direction rather than following one.
That is a description of the seat, and it is worth separating from what the seat does for a person. Eight Mansions reads the compass outward from the individual, so north-west is not the commanding corner of a building in any general sense. It is eight different things for eight different Kua numbers.
Kua 6 is born into it, so 伏位 Stability sits in the north-west for Kua 6 alone.
Who north-west favours
North-west is one of the four favourable directions for the west group, Kua 2, 6, 7 and 8, and one of the four rough ones for the east group, Kua 1, 3, 4 and 9.
It is strongest for Kua 7, where it carries 生氣 Success, first of the eight, tied by classical practice to growth, push and being seen. For Kua 8 it is 天醫 Health, the recovery ground. For Kua 2 it is 延年 Relationships, the long game. For Kua 6 it is the own seat, steady rather than striking.
Having four favourable directions is not the same as having four interchangeable ones, and the difference between them is what a reading actually assigns.
When north-west is one of your rough four
For the east group north-west is ranked from mildest to most heightened rather than lumped together.
It is 禍害 Mishaps for Kua 4, the mildest of the rough four. It is 六煞 Setbacks for Kua 1, and 五鬼 Conflict for Kua 3, which classical practice associates with disputes and with effort that meets resistance. For Kua 9 it is 絕命 Instability, the most heightened of the eight, where things tend to scatter rather than hold together.
Each of those is a reading of ground rather than a claim about a person, and the ordering is what lets a compromise be made knowingly.
Assignment, not avoidance
No home is without a north-west, and the tradition has never asked for one to be closed off.
Assignment is the whole method: a rough sector takes the storage, the corridor or the room nobody settles in, while a favourable one earns the desk, the bed or the chair that gets used. Where two people in a household are in different groups, every direction favours exactly one of them, so the question becomes which room each of them uses rather than which of them is right.
Which of the eight north-west is for you comes down to one number from your birth year, and that is the first thing a reading works out.
Common questions
NotesIs north-west the most important direction in a house?
Some schools treat it that way because 乾 Qian is the heaven trigram and is read as the authority position of a dwelling. Eight Mansions as practised here does not key a whole home to one person or one corner, so north-west is simply one of the eight, favourable for Kua 2, 6, 7 and 8 and rough for Kua 1, 3, 4 and 9.
What trigram is north-west?
乾 Qian, the heaven trigram, in the sixth of the nine palaces. Kua 6 is born into it, so 伏位 Stability lands here for Kua 6 and for nobody else.
My Kua number came out 5. Which direction is mine?
Kua 5 has no trigram seat of its own, so it is redirected: to 2 on one calculation basis and to 8 on the other. Both are west group numbers, and the original value is kept on the sheet so you can see what happened rather than wondering why your number changed.
What north-west is for each Kua
Computed · 8 Kua numbersOne number decides the whole column. Find yours on the left and read across: the four favourable readings run strongest first, and the four rough ones run mildest first, which is the order the tradition ranks them in.
Not sure of your Kua number? It comes from your birth year and the calculation basis your chart is read on. How Eight Mansions works.
What north-west is in your own home
Find your day master free →This page describes the direction. A reading works out your Kua number, names all eight directions in severity order, and says which room each one should be doing rather than leaving you a table to apply.
Still working out which system answers your question? All eight directions
Method and sources
The trigram, the Kua whose seat this is, and what this direction is for each of the eight Kua numbers are computed from the same function the readings use, never typed. What each designation tends to mean follows the classical verse listed below.
Read against the classical direction verse and the dwelling essentials:
- 大遊年歌 Da Youniange Song of the Great Wandering Year, the anchor verse, attributed to 八宅明鏡 Bazhai Mingjing
- 陽宅三要 Yangzhai Sanyao The Three Essentials of Dwellings