The ten gods (십신)

How the ten gods are worked out

Take your Day Master’s element and walk the generating cycle: wood feeds fire, fire makes earth, earth bears metal, metal carries water, water feeds wood. Every other stem is one of five relations to you. Then check polarity: same yin/yang gives the first god of the pair, different gives the second.

The names are classical. The handbook 淵海子平, in the Ming edition on Wikisource, opens by running through all ten for a 甲 day stem: 甲 meeting 甲 is 比肩, 乙 is 劫財, 丙 is 食神, and so on to 癸, 印綬 (淵海子平). The Ming compendium 三命通會 explains the names one by one; its entry on Seven Killings gives 甲 meeting 庚 and traces the name to the two being seven places apart (三命通會, vol. 5). Our engine computes the same relations and is tested against the lunar-typescript library’s table for all 100 pairs.

Ten gods lookup table (10×10)

Find your Day Master in the first column and read across. For example, to a 庚 Geng Day Master, 丁 Ding is Direct Officer; to a 丁 Ding Day Master, 庚 Geng is Direct Wealth. Relations aren’t symmetric: what you are to someone is usually a different god from what they are to you.

Names in Korean, Chinese, Japanese and English

English names vary more than any other part of the vocabulary. We use the most common set; the table lists the variants you’ll see elsewhere. Japanese books call the set 通変星 and keep the classical name 印綬 for Direct Resource, the heading 三命通會 uses (Kotobank: 通変星). The Korean encyclopedia’s saju entry also uses 인수 (印綬) alongside 정재, 편관, 식신 and the rest (사주, E0025957).

The five families

The ten gods pair into five families, and most readings start there before looking at single gods. Our free chart counts each family’s weight across the visible and hidden stems.

• Companion (비겁, 比劫): Friend and Rob Wealth. Self, peers, pride and self-reliance.
• Output (식상, 食傷): Eating God and Hurting Officer. Expression, making, doing and words.
• Wealth (재성, 財星): Indirect and Direct Wealth. Handling what’s in front of you: money, tasks, logistics.
• Officer (관성, 官星): Seven Killings and Direct Officer. Rules, pressure, duty and reputation.
• Resource (인성, 印星): Indirect and Direct Resource. Learning, support, preparation and being looked after.

Friend (比肩): the equal

Friend (比肩, 비견) is the stem of the same element as your Day Master that has the same polarity. Examples: 甲 Jia for a 甲 Jia Day Master, 丁 Ding for a 丁 Ding Day Master, 庚 Geng for a 庚 Geng Day Master, 癸 Gui for a 癸 Gui Day Master.

Friend stands for peers and standing on your own feet: the colleague, the sibling, the person you measure yourself against as an equal. Readers describe a chart heavy in Friend as self-directed and slow to ask for help.

In Korean it is 비견, literally “shoulder to shoulder.”

Rob Wealth (劫財): the rival

Rob Wealth (劫財, 겁재) is the stem of the same element as your Day Master that has the opposite polarity. Examples: 乙 Yi for a 甲 Jia Day Master, 丙 Bing for a 丁 Ding Day Master, 辛 Xin for a 庚 Geng Day Master, 壬 Ren for a 癸 Gui Day Master.

Think of a peer with a competitive edge: the teammate who is also your rival, the drive to keep up. Its usual associations are boldness, generosity with the group and a habit of sharing, or spending, what you have to stay in the circle.

The name is usually explained as “robbing” the Wealth that the Day Master controls. Readers take it as competition for what you handle, not as a loss.

Eating God (食神): steady making

Eating God (食神, 식신) is the stem of the element your Day Master generates that has the same polarity. Examples: 丙 Bing for a 甲 Jia Day Master, 己 Ji for a 丁 Ding Day Master, 壬 Ren for a 庚 Geng Day Master, 乙 Yi for a 癸 Gui Day Master.

Calm expression, craft, enjoyment and a knack for making things that feed people: that is the Eating God cluster. 三命通會 defines it as what the day stem produces and names it with a verb: 甲 “eats” 丙 (甲食丙), 乙 eats 丁.

It is usually pictured as easygoing talent that produces without strain.

Hurting Officer (傷官): the sharp eye

Hurting Officer (傷官, 상관) is the stem of the element your Day Master generates that has the opposite polarity. Examples: 丁 Ding for a 甲 Jia Day Master, 戊 Wu for a 丁 Ding Day Master, 癸 Gui for a 庚 Geng Day Master, 甲 Jia for a 癸 Gui Day Master.

Hurting Officer is the sharp one: talent, performance, criticism and a refusal to take rules on trust. The name is literal. 三命通會 explains that for 甲 the Hurting Officer 丁 attacks 辛, which is 甲’s Direct Officer.

Originality and friction with authority come with it, which is how it earned a scary reputation it doesn’t deserve.

Indirect Wealth (偏財): the juggler

Indirect Wealth (偏財, 편재) is the stem of the element your Day Master controls that has the same polarity. Examples: 戊 Wu for a 甲 Jia Day Master, 辛 Xin for a 丁 Ding Day Master, 甲 Jia for a 庚 Geng Day Master, 丁 Ding for a 癸 Gui Day Master.

Indirect Wealth is about moving resources: juggling many people’s needs, deals and logistics. 三命通會 sets it against Direct Wealth, which it pictures as “my wife,” and says Indirect Wealth is not what she brings but “everyone’s wealth” (衆人之財).

Readers link it with sociability, generosity and a feel for opportunity.

Direct Wealth (正財): the bookkeeper

Direct Wealth (正財, 정재) is the stem of the element your Day Master controls that has the opposite polarity. Examples: 己 Ji for a 甲 Jia Day Master, 庚 Geng for a 丁 Ding Day Master, 乙 Yi for a 庚 Geng Day Master, 丙 Bing for a 癸 Gui Day Master.

Steady management, budgets, routines and what you earn by work belong to Direct Wealth, along with carefulness and reliability.

Classical texts also read it as the wife in a man’s chart, a gendered convention we don’t use (see below).

Seven Killings (偏官, 七殺): pressure and drive

Seven Killings (偏官, 편관) is the stem of the element that controls your Day Master that has the same polarity. Examples: 庚 Geng for a 甲 Jia Day Master, 癸 Gui for a 丁 Ding Day Master, 丙 Bing for a 庚 Geng Day Master, 己 Ji for a 癸 Gui Day Master.

Pressure, urgency, rivals and hard deadlines gather under Seven Killings. 三命通會 gives 甲 meeting 庚 as its example and says the name comes from the two being seven places apart.

Also called Indirect Officer (편관, 偏官). Readers see courage under pressure in it as much as stress.

Direct Officer (正官): rules and approval

Direct Officer (正官, 정관) is the stem of the element that controls your Day Master that has the opposite polarity. Examples: 辛 Xin for a 甲 Jia Day Master, 壬 Ren for a 丁 Ding Day Master, 丁 Ding for a 庚 Geng Day Master, 戊 Wu for a 癸 Gui Day Master.

Direct Officer covers structure, propriety, reputation and being judged fairly. 三命通會 calls it the first of the six patterns, a pairing of yin and yang that restrains to useful effect.

Responsibility and a strong sense of what is proper are its everyday face.

Indirect Resource (偏印): unusual learning

Indirect Resource (偏印, 편인) is the stem of the element that generates your Day Master that has the same polarity. Examples: 壬 Ren for a 甲 Jia Day Master, 乙 Yi for a 丁 Ding Day Master, 戊 Wu for a 庚 Geng Day Master, 辛 Xin for a 癸 Gui Day Master.

Intuition, unconventional study, solitude and ideas off the main road are the Indirect Resource themes. 淵海子平 gives it three names, 倒食, 偏印 and 梟神 (“owl spirit”), and 三命通會 explains 倒食 as the god that Eating God most dreads.

We mention that name as history only; the tradition’s darker readings of it are folklore, not a verdict on anyone.

Direct Resource (正印, 印綬): being taught and looked after

Direct Resource (正印, 정인) is the stem of the element that generates your Day Master that has the opposite polarity. Examples: 癸 Gui for a 甲 Jia Day Master, 甲 Jia for a 丁 Ding Day Master, 己 Ji for a 庚 Geng Day Master, 庚 Geng for a 癸 Gui Day Master.

Learning, credentials, care and support: Direct Resource is the teacher and the parent. 三命通會 names it 印綬 and explains it as what generates you, “with the sense of father and mother.”

Japanese and older Korean texts (인수) keep the name 印綬. Patience, study and needing to feel ready are its usual traits.

The “hurting officer in a woman’s chart” trope

Search for Hurting Officer and you will find warnings that it is bad for a woman’s marriage. That idea comes from how the classical texts assign partners. In the old convention a man’s spouse is read from Wealth and a woman’s from Officer; 三命通會 itself defines Direct Wealth as “my wife” (為我之妻) (三命通會, vol. 5). Hurting Officer is the god that strikes Direct Officer, so a woman with a strong one was read as hard on her husband.

That is a reading of marriage from a particular time and society, not a finding about anyone’s relationships. We read the ten gods the same way for everyone: Hurting Officer is a sharp eye and a reluctance to take rules on trust, in anyone’s chart.

About this page

Written with AI (Claude) from the sources listed and our calculation engine. Horan and Kachi are fictional characters, and nothing here predicts events. The rules behind every chart: how we calculate.