Nayin 纳音 · sound element #19 of 30
Earth as interior surface: a thin layer whose whole function depends on the frame behind it.
| Term 纳音 | 壁上土 — Wall Earth (bi shang tu) |
|---|---|
| Element of the image | 土 Earth |
| Pillars it covers | 庚子、辛丑 — Gengzi and Xinchou (pair #19 of 30) |
气居闭塞，物尚包藏，掩形遮体，内外不交，故曰壁上土
Why the name: what image do Gengzi and Xinchou take? The qi dwells shut in, things are still wrapped up, form is covered and body screened, inner and outer do not meet; hence Wall Earth.
壁上土者，恃栋依梁，兴门立户，却暑御寒之德，遮霜护雪之功
Wall Earth: it leans on the ridgepole and depends on the beam, raises the doorway and sets up the household; it has the virtue of turning back the heat and warding off the cold, and the merit of screening frost and sheltering snow.
Zi and Chou are deep winter — shut in, which is precisely what the derivation says: 内外不交, inner and outer do not meet. A wall is the thing that makes that true.
恃栋依梁 — it leans on the ridgepole and depends on the beam. San Ming Tong Hui then asks the question the image implies: 非平地何以为靠, without Level-Ground Wood what would it lean on? Of all thirty images this is the one most explicitly defined by dependence rather than by any property of its own.
Sources: 《三命通会》 (San Ming Tong Hui, Ming dynasty, 万民英) — chapters 论纳音取象 and 释六十甲子性质吉凶. Both passages above are quoted from a local plain-text edition and checked character by character by a test before this page can ship. Translations are ours.
Enter a birth date, time and longitude — the calculator returns the four pillars, the hidden stems, the nayin and the ten gods, with true solar time applied.
Open the chart calculator →路旁土 Roadside Earth · 城头土 City-Wall Earth · 屋上土 Rooftop Earth · 大驿土 Post-Road Earth · 沙中土 Earth in the Sand · all thirty →