Day Pillar #14 · 丁丑
| Position in the cycle | #14 of 60 |
|---|---|
| Heavenly stem 天干 | 丁 — 火 Fire |
| Earthly branch 地支 | 丑 — 土 Earth |
| Nayin 纳音 | 涧下水 — Water in the Ravine (Water) |
| Hidden stems 藏干 | 己、癸、辛 — 己 (Earth), 癸 (Water), 辛 (Metal) |
| Twelve-stage placement 十二长生 | 墓 — Storehouse (of the stem in its own branch) |
Dingchou (丁丑) is day pillar #14, and it is the clearest case in this series of something worth knowing about the classical registers: they argue with themselves, and the disagreement is usually load-bearing.
One entry in San Ming Tong Hui manages to call this pillar both a gathering of fortune and a dispersal of it, within four lines.
丁丑，福聚之水。最爱金生，忌辛未、丙辰、丙戌，相刑破也。
Dingchou: water in which fortune gathers. It most loves metal to generate it; it dislikes Xinwei, Bingchen and Bingxu, which punish and break it.
The register elsewhere gives the same pillar a one-line physical description that agrees with this:
丁丑水，水之不流清澈处，喜金及夏。
Dingchou water: the still, clear place where water does not run. It favours metal, and summer.
Water that does not flow. Clear, pooled, held in place — and wanting metal, which generates water.
丁丑、乙酉，在数为涣弱之水，阴盛阳弱，禀之者器识清明，多慧少福。
Dingchou and Yiyou are, by the numbers, dispersed and weak water: yin abundant, yang deficient. One who receives it is clear in judgement and discernment — much wisdom, little fortune.
涣 means to scatter. So the entry has now said 福聚 — fortune gathers — and 涣弱 — it disperses and weakens — about one pillar, and it did not notice, or did not mind.
福聚 is about capacity to hold. 涣弱 is about capacity to move. Read that way the entry stops contradicting itself, and the reason sits in the composition of the pillar.
Ding is yin fire. 丑 is yin earth, and its hidden stems are 己 (earth), 癸 (water) and 辛 (metal) — all three yin. Stem, branch and every hidden stem: not one yang component anywhere in the pillar. That is what 阴盛阳弱 is naming, and it is a fact about the structure, not a verdict about a person.
Yin gathers, stores, holds. So the water really does pool — 福聚 is accurate. But moving water requires the other kind of force, and there is none in the pillar. Hence 器识清明，多慧少福: sees clearly, cannot get it moving. Both halves are correct about different capacities.
橐以水木旺气，则阴阳均协，为贵达崇显之气。
Bellows it with flourishing water-and-wood energy, and yin and yang come into balance — it becomes an energy of eminence and high distinction.
The verdict flips from 多慧少福 to 贵达崇显 on a supplied condition. Note also that 喜金及夏 from the short register is pointing at the same gap from the other side — metal to source the water, summer to supply the missing yang. Diagnosis and prescription close inside one entry.
丁丑 shares its nayin with 丙子, the pillar immediately before it — both are 涧下水, water in the ravine, named for travelling underground rather than for what it is made of:
丙子丁丑何以取象涧下水？盖气未通济……卑湿乃水就之乡，由地中行，故曰涧下水。
Why are Bingzi and Dingchou taken as ravine water? Because the energy has not yet opened through… low damp ground is where water settles, and it travels through the earth — hence "water in the ravine."
Same nayin, adjacent seats, both stems fire — and the register gives them opposite water. 丙子 it calls 流衍之水, flowing and spreading water. 丁丑 it calls 福聚之水, water that gathers and stays.
The difference cannot be the stem, since Bing and Ding are both fire. It is the branch. 子 is water at its peak: full water moves, so it spreads. 丑 is damp earth, and water arriving there is caught and held. 丑 is also metal's storehouse in the 巳酉丑 frame — which is why 最爱金生 lands where it does. The thing this pillar is said to want most is already sitting under its own feet.
One category, one seat apart, and even something as basic as whether the water flows comes out reversed. That is the case against reading a pillar as a personality: the classical registers are not describing what someone is like. They are describing which capacity a structure is missing, and what supplies it.
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.
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