The ten gods
A BaZi chart has eight characters and one of them is you. The ten gods are the ten possible relations between that character and every other one, and they are the vocabulary the whole reading runs on. Each is a tendency, never a verdict.
Peers
2 of 10Your own element. Another of your kind, standing somewhere else in the chart.
Output
2 of 10What your day master generates. The gods that point outward, and draw on you to do it.
Wealth
2 of 10What your day master controls. Resources you can work with, if the chart has the strength to.
Officer
2 of 10What controls your day master. Force and structure acting on you rather than from you.
Resource
2 of 10What generates your day master. The gods that feed you rather than draw on you.
Where the ten come from
Two questions produce all of them. Is the other stem's element the same as your day master's, or one you generate, control, are generated by, or are controlled by? And does its polarity match yours or oppose it?
Five relations times two polarities is ten, and that is the entire set. There is nothing else in it. This is why the vocabulary is worth learning once: every statement a BaZi reading makes about what a chart contains is made in these ten words.
Why a name is not a verdict
The English names circulating for these are unhelpful, and some are actively misleading. Reading them as good or bad is the single most common error people make with this system, and the classical texts are explicit that it is wrong.
The same god reads in opposite directions depending on whether the chart can carry it. Pressure in a chart with the support to hold it is resilience; in one without, it is strain. Support in a stretched chart is relief; in an already comfortable one it is stagnation. The relation does not change. What changes is the balance around it, and working that out is what a reading is for.
Which of the ten are in your chart
Draw your four pillars free →Every chart holds some of these and not others, and the ones it lacks are as readable as the ones it has. A reading names yours and says what each is doing where it landed.
Still working out which system answers your question? Start with your day master
Method and sources
Every relation on these pages is computed from the same function the readings use, so the vocabulary here and the vocabulary in a delivered document are the same. What each relation tends to mean follows the classical texts listed below.
Read against the classical commentaries on stem strength and chart structure:
- 滴天髓 Ditian Sui Drops of Heavenly Marrow
- 子平真詮 Ziping Zhenquan The True Interpretation of Ziping
- 淵海子平 Yuanhai Ziping The Deep Sea of Ziping
- 三命通會 Sanming Tonghui A Comprehensive Treatise on the Three Fates
- 窮通寶鑑 Qiongtong Baojian The Precious Mirror of Seasons