Da Liu Ren

The earth plate fixes the twelve branches as positions. The heaven plate places the monthly general over the divination hour and carries the remaining branches around in order. This rotation establishes what is above each earth position. The day stem has an assigned branch lodging; together with the day branch it supplies the starting positions for four paired lessons.

The first lesson pairs the day stem with the branch above its lodging. The second takes that upper branch as a new earth position and finds its upper term. The third begins from the day branch; the fourth repeats that second-stage operation on the third lesson’s upper term. Read the four as two chains, one starting with the stem and one with the branch.

The two plates give a positional grammar. “Above” means a lookup in the rotated heaven plate, not a higher physical place. If one earth position has Si above it, reading the heaven term Si next means looking at earth Si and finding what stands above that position. This repeated lookup is what makes the lesson chains derivable rather than a collection of independently chosen symbols. Stem lodging supplies the otherwise missing earth position for a stem, because the earth plate itself has twelve branches, not ten stem cells.

A bounded question gives the interpretation an object: for example, whether to approach a particular person about a proposed arrangement. Its time is the consultation or event time selected by the chosen method, not automatically the client’s birth time. Birth-year or age information may appear in additional layers, but it does not replace the moment of casting.

The monthly general and monthly branch serve different jobs. Their change conventions must be recorded rather than inferred from a Western calendar month. For dates near a seasonal boundary, an hour change or a local midnight, the adopted calendar and civil-time convention affect the construction. If two possible times yield different lessons, both alternatives belong in the explanation.

The monthly general is a branch-valued seasonal coordinate, while the monthly branch commonly describes the month’s calendrical position. They can differ because their selection and transition rules differ. Once the general and hour are both branches, aligning them determines the rotation uniquely. The day’s stem and branch then locate the lesson starts. In this order, seasonal information establishes the plate alignment and daily information establishes the two starting chains; neither substitutes for the other.

The initial transmission, called fa yong, is selected under a hierarchy of rules. Common teaching organizes these as the Nine Gateways, including overcoming relations, comparison and special configurations such as fu yin and fan yin. The chosen initial term leads to the middle and final transmissions under the applicable rule. This is why “take the first lesson” is not a universal shortcut.

For study, trace the branch selection before discussing its meaning: which lessons have lower-over-upper or upper-over-lower overcoming; whether more than one qualifies; which tie-break applies; and whether the configuration requires an exceptional route. The result is a derived sequence. Its reliability as a calculation can be checked separately from any claim about a future event.

Liu Ren Da Quan’s opening rule gives lower-over-upper overcoming priority; if none is present it looks for upper-over-lower overcoming. With more than one candidate, the comparison route considers its yin–yang relationship to the day stem; a further rule is needed when that does not resolve the tie. Ordinary continuation then takes the heaven term above the initial transmission’s earth position as the middle, and repeats for the final. Fu Yin has its own continuation by punishment, as the worked example shows. Thus the Nine Gateways are a branching selection procedure, not nine meanings to attach afterward.

Use a Jia Zi day and a monthly general equal to the selected hour. This is a structural exercise after calendar selection, so every heaven branch sits over its matching earth branch. Jia lodges at Yin. The Four Lessons, written lower → upper, are Jia → Yin, Yin → Yin, Zi → Zi and Zi → Zi.

Under the Fu Yin rule in Liu Ren Da Quan, juan 1, first check whether the lessons contain overcoming. This exercise has none, and Jia is a yang stem: select the branch above the day stem, Yin, as initial transmission. Continue through the punishment sequence, Yin → Si → Shen, giving initial Yin, middle Si and final Shen. This is the construction result; heavenly generals and interpretation are subsequent layers.

The example also explains why the ordinary upper-term continuation cannot be used here. On coincident plates, Yin’s upper term is still Yin; repeating that lookup would give Yin three times. The declared Fu Yin rule instead proceeds by punishment: Yin punishes Si and Si punishes Shen. Jia and Yin are both Wood, and the Zi pairs are Water with Water, so none of the four lesson pairs supplies overcoming. The exception is therefore selected from the structure, not because a reader prefers the more varied sequence.

The first, middle and final transmissions supply successive positions within a reading. The day stem and branch help organize the person and matter; the heavenly generals add symbolic roles. Seasonal strength describes how readily a phase functions, while emptiness qualifies a branch’s place in the current ten-day cycle.

An important comparison is between the Four Lessons, which preserve the initial relationships, and the Three Transmissions, which develop a selected strand. In some configurations the same terms repeat; in others the sequence moves through several phases. This explains why a process reading needs both the starting pairs and the derived sequence.

The twelve generals provide another vocabulary on already derived branches. Names such as Noble, Vermilion Bird and Black Tortoise commonly evoke assistance, speech or documents, and concealment or private matters respectively. Their function is symbolic qualification: a document question might examine communication when a relevant term bears Vermilion Bird. It still matters which lesson or transmission carries it and how that term relates to the focus. A general name read without its position discards the construction that made it relevant.

Different manuals may disagree on details of lodged stems, the heavenly noble’s placement, day and night boundaries or the treatment of competing transmission candidates. A working method must name its rule set. Mixing a plate from one convention with a transmission from another can create an internally inconsistent configuration.

Xiao Liu Ren is a separate family of simplified counting practices, often using six named positions. Shared naming does not turn that cycle into Da Liu Ren’s Four Lessons. Likewise, the Three Methods comparison concerns Da Liu Ren, Qi Men and Tai Yi, not a requirement to calculate all three for one question.

Fu Yin means the heaven and earth branches repeat their positions; Fan Yin refers to their opposed alignment. These are plate relations before they are reading labels. The manual still asks about overcoming within these configurations, which is why their names do not remove the need to inspect the lessons. Differences in the Noble’s starting position or direction affect the generals, while differences in transmission selection affect the branch sequence. Comparing editions is clearer when one identifies which layer differs rather than calling two entire charts incompatible.

Start with a known day, monthly general and hour, then draw the earth positions, rotate the heaven plate and derive the two lesson chains. The next question is which initial-transmission rule applies. Comparing an ordinary overcoming case with a repeated-plate case makes the hierarchy easier to learn.

Keep a small glossary beside the record: monthly general rotates the plate; lodged stem locates the day stem; Four Lessons supply paired relations; initial transmission selects a strand; later transmissions continue it under the applicable route. Add the twelve heavenly generals only after those positions are settled.

A useful first exercise covers only the branch construction. Write twelve earth branches in a circle, place the general over the hour, and fill the heaven ring in branch order. Mark the stem lodging and day branch with different colors, then follow each lookup twice. Before consulting a commentary, list the phase and yin–yang of each lesson’s upper and lower terms. This small sequence teaches the necessary mechanics; the commentary’s judgments become easier to follow because every term has a visible origin.

Opposition and punishment perform different operations. The opposite pairs lie six positions apart in the twelve-branch cycle; punishment has its prescribed sequences, including the Yin–Si–Shen chain used in the exercise. A branch can participate in more than one relation, but the selected formation rule determines which relation advances the transmission. Thus knowing that Yin opposes Shen does not justify replacing the exercise’s middle Si with Shen.

The lesson pairs also have Five Phase relations: generating, overcoming or sharing a phase. These relations help select and subsequently qualify a sequence. The resulting branch names remain positions with those relations, not three ordinary people. Keeping branch geometry, phase relation and heavenly-general meaning as separate annotations makes a complicated record readable. Each annotation can then be brought into the question at the appropriate interpretive stage.

The Siku preface to Liu Ren Da Quan describes its heaven–earth plates, Four Lessons and Three Transmissions, while questioning some legendary claims about its origins and noting uncertainty about the compiler: https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/六壬大全

Liu Ren Da Quan, juan 9, preserves the Bi Fa Fu’s conditional pattern descriptions and worked configurations: https://www.kanripo.org/edition/WYG/KR3g0031/009 . These sources document a historical method, not proof that its particular predictions are empirically established.

The lodged-stem and Fu Yin selection rules used in the exercise are in Liu Ren Da Quan, Siku edition, juan 1: https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/六壬大全_(四庫全書本)/卷01