Nayin 纳音 · sound element #29 of 30
The exception in the sixty: stems and branch are pure metal, and the nayin is wood anyway.
| Term 纳音 | 石榴木 — Pomegranate Wood (shi liu mu) |
|---|---|
| Element of the image | 木 Wood |
| Pillars it covers | 庚申、辛酉 — Gengshen and Xinyou (pair #29 of 30) |
申酉气归静肃，物渐成实，木居金地，其味成辛，故曰石榴木
Why the name: at Shen and You the qi returns to stillness and severity, things gradually come to fruit; wood seated in the ground of metal, its flavour turns pungent; hence Pomegranate Wood.
石榴木者，性辛如姜，花红似火，数颗枝头，累累多子，房内莹莹
Pomegranate Wood: pungent in nature like ginger, flowers red as fire; a few fruits at the branch tip, seed on seed in abundance, glistening within the chamber.
Gengshen and Xinyou are metal stems on metal branches — 干支纯金而纳音属木, as San Ming Tong Hui says, pure metal in stem and branch with a nayin belonging to wood. The book calls it 木之变者, the变 case of wood, and it is the clearest evidence that nayin is a separate layer rather than a summary of the stem-branch elements.
The derivation gives the reasoning: 庚申辛酉，五行属金而纳音属木，以相克取之 — the image is taken from the controlling relation, not the generating one. And 观他木至午而死，惟此木至午而旺 — other woods die at Wu, this one alone flourishes there. It is the wood that runs the cycle backwards.
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 →大林木 Great Forest Wood · 杨柳木 Willow Wood · 松柏木 Pine and Cypress Wood · 平地木 Level-Ground Wood · 桑柘木 Mulberry Wood · all thirty →