Nayin 纳音 · sound element #12 of 30
Earth fired into tile: material that has been through the kiln and now shelters other things.
| Term 纳音 | 屋上土 — Rooftop Earth (wu shang tu) |
|---|---|
| Element of the image | 土 Earth |
| Pillars it covers | 丙戌、丁亥 — Bingxu and Dinghai (pair #12 of 30) |
丙戌丁亥，气成物府，事以美圆，阴阳历遍，势得其间，乃曰屋上土也
Why the name: Bingxu and Dinghai — the qi has become the storehouse of things and the matter is rounded to completion, yin and yang have run their round and the momentum has found its place; hence Rooftop Earth.
屋上土者，埏埴为林，水火既济，盖蔽雪霜之积，震凌风雨之功，此土瓦也
Rooftop Earth: clay worked into rank on rank, water and fire brought to completion; it has the cover that shields against piled snow and frost, and the merit that shakes off wind and rain.
水火既济 is a hexagram name — After Completion. San Ming Tong Hui is saying this earth has already been through its transformation: clay plus fire equals tile. It is the only earth in the sixty that is a manufactured object.
That is why the text says 非木无以架之，故以木为根基 — without wood there is nothing to lay it on, so wood is its foundation. A tile with no roof frame is just a fired plate. The image makes this earth structurally dependent on wood, which inverts the usual reading in which wood is what controls earth.
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 · 壁上土 Wall Earth · 大驿土 Post-Road Earth · 沙中土 Earth in the Sand · all thirty →