Day Pillar #13 · 丙子
| Position in the cycle | #13 of 60 |
|---|---|
| Heavenly stem 天干 | 丙 — 火 Fire |
| Earthly branch 地支 | 子 — 水 Water |
| Nayin 纳音 | 涧下水 — Water in the Ravine (Water) |
| Hidden stems 藏干 | 癸 — 癸 (Water) |
| Twelve-stage placement 十二长生 | 胎 — Gestation (of the stem in its own branch) |
Bingzi (丙子) is the cleanest case in this series for why placement beats essence in this system.
Bing is yang fire, the sun. Zi is water at its deepest — midnight, due north. So the stem and the branch are opposites, and the nayin, which ignores stem logic entirely, comes out as water: specifically 涧下水, water in the ravine.
San Ming Tong Hui explains the name by where the water goes rather than by what it is:
气未通济，高段非水流之所，卑湿乃水就之乡，由地中行。
The energy has not yet opened through; high ground is not where water runs, low damp ground is where water settles — it travels through the earth.
Underground water. Not visible.
丙午 is 天河水, Heaven's River Water — 惟天上乃有, it exists only in the sky. Same stem. Same element in the nayin layer. One above, one below. And the texts give them opposite requirements.
银河之水，土不能克，故见土不忌……天上之水，地金难生，故见金难益。
The water of the Milky Way cannot be checked by earth, so meeting earth is not feared. Being water of the sky, earthly metal can hardly generate it, so meeting metal brings no benefit.
涧下水者，山环细浪，雪涌飞端……此水清澄，喜见金养。
Ravine water: fine waves ringing the mountain, snow surging at the crest. This water is clear, and it welcomes metal to nourish it.
Metal is useless to one and wanted by the other. Nothing about the fire changed. Only the position did.
In the twelve-stage cycle, Bing fire is at 胎 in 子 — the gestation stage, before birth. Not weak. Not yet surfaced. And the sixty-pillar register calls this pillar 流衍之水, flowing and spreading water, adding: 不忌众土 — it does not fear earth in quantity.
Which is the thing that keeps turning up in the good sources, and the reason to distrust personality labels for a Day Master. The tradition does not tell you what a pillar is. It tells you where it sits, and then what that position needs.
Sources: 《三命通会》 (San Ming Tong Hui, Ming, 万民英) and 《滴天髓》 (Di Tian Sui) — both quoted from local plain-text editions and verified character by character. Translations are ours. Corrections are welcome.
Enter a birth date and time to get the four pillars, the hidden stems, the nayin and the twelve-stage placements for a real chart — the same tables this page is built on.
Open the chart calculator →甲子 Jiazi · 乙丑 Yichou · 丙寅 Bingyin · 丁卯 Dingmao · 壬申 Renshen · 癸酉 Guiyou · all sixty →