Nayin 纳音 · sound element #8 of 30
Earth built into a defence: ground whose value comes from having been deliberately shaped and stacked.
| Term 纳音 | 城头土 — City-Wall Earth (cheng tou tu) |
|---|---|
| Element of the image | 土 Earth |
| Pillars it covers | 戊寅、己卯 — Wuyin and Jimao (pair #8 of 30) |
戊寅己卯，气能成物，功以育物，发乎根，壮乎萼蕊，乃曰城头土也
Why the name: Wuyin and Jimao — the qi is able to complete things and its merit is in raising them; it issues from the root and comes to strength in calyx and bud; hence City-Wall Earth.
城头土者，天京玉垒，帝里金城，龙盘千里之形，虎踞四维之势
City-Wall Earth: jade ramparts of the heavenly capital, a metal city of the imperial seat; the shape of a dragon coiled for a thousand li, the posture of a tiger crouched at the four corners.
Yin and Mao are spring wood — the season that controls earth. So this is earth under pressure, and the image answers that pressure with construction: a rampart is earth that has been made to hold a line it would not hold on its own.
San Ming Tong Hui adds a distinction worth keeping: 此土有成有未成，作两般论 — this earth is read in two states, finished and unfinished. The wall that has been built and the earth heaped ready to build are not the same thing, and the text refuses to collapse them.
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.
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