Nayin 纳音 · sound element #17 of 30
The smallest fire in the sixty: light that carries meaning rather than heat.
| Term 纳音 | 山下火 — Fire at the Foot of the Hill (shan xia huo) |
|---|---|
| Element of the image | 火 Fire |
| Pillars it covers | 丙申、丁酉 — Bingshen and Dingyou (pair #17 of 30) |
丙申丁酉，气息形藏，势力韬光，龟缩兑位，力微体弱，明不及远，乃曰山下火也
Why the name: Bingshen and Dingyou — the qi rests and the form hides, the force veils its light, drawn back like a tortoise into the seat of Dui, strength slight and body weak, its brightness not reaching far; hence Fire at the Foot of the Hill.
山下火者，草间熠耀，花理荧煌，寒林缀叶之光，隔幔点衣之彩，方朔以荧火名之
Fire at the Foot of the Hill: glimmering among the grass, a shimmer in the veining of flowers; the light of leaves strung through a cold wood, the colouring that dots a robe through a curtain; Dongfang Shuo named it the firefly.
Shen and You are autumn metal — the season where fire is spent. The derivation is unusually candid about it: 力微体弱，明不及远, strength slight, body weak, brightness not reaching far.
方朔以荧火名之 — Dongfang Shuo called it the firefly. That is the image doing something the abstract element cannot: a firefly gives off almost no energy, and it is still the thing you notice in a dark wood. San Ming Tong Hui goes on to say this fire 喜水, welcomes water, which no other fire in the sixty does.
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 · 山头火 Hilltop Fire · 霹雳火 Thunderbolt Fire · 覆灯火 Lamp Flame · 天上火 Fire in the Sky · all thirty →