Nayin 纳音 · sound element #6 of 30
Fire seen from a distance at day's end — light that is real but detached from what it burns.
| Term 纳音 | 山头火 — Hilltop Fire (shan tou huo) |
|---|---|
| Element of the image | 火 Fire |
| Pillars it covers | 甲戌、乙亥 — Jiaxu and Yihai (pair #6 of 30) |
甲戌乙亥谓之山头火者，山乃藏形，头乃投光，内明外暗，隐而不显，飞光投乾，归于休息之中，故曰山头火也
Why the name: Jiaxu and Yihai are called Hilltop Fire because the mountain hides the form and the summit throws the light; bright within and dark without, hidden and not manifest, the light thrown toward Qian, returning into rest — hence Hilltop Fire.
山头火者，野焚燎原，延烧极目，依稀天际斜晖，仿佛山头落日，此乃九月烧荒
Hilltop Fire: wildfire burning off the plain, the blaze running to the limit of sight; faintly the slanting glow at heaven's edge, seemingly the sun setting on the hill.
Xu and Hai close the cycle — late autumn into early winter, the season the text glosses as 九月烧荒 (the ninth-month burning of the stubble). The image is deliberately double: a fire on a ridge, and a sunset that only looks like one.
内明外暗 — bright within, dark without — is the phrase doing the work. The light is genuine and it is also, from where anyone stands, unreachable. San Ming Tong Hui says this fire needs a mountain: 无山则木无所依，火无所见 — without the hill the wood has nothing to rest on and the fire has nothing to be seen against.
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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Open the chart calculator →炉中火 Fire in the Furnace · 霹雳火 Thunderbolt Fire · 山下火 Fire at the Foot of the Hill · 覆灯火 Lamp Flame · 天上火 Fire in the Sky · all thirty →