Ten Gods in BaZi: A Complete Guide

The ten gods are not a list to memorise. They are the output of two variables: how a stem stands in relation to the Day Master, and whether the two stems share polarity. The relation has five values — same element, generated by the Day Master, generating the Day Master, controlled by the Day Master, controlling the Day Master. Polarity has two. Five times two is ten, and nothing else goes into the calculation.

Take 甲 as the Day Master. 乙 is the same element at the opposite polarity, so it is 劫財. 丙 is generated by 甲 at the same polarity, so it is 食神. 己 is controlled by 甲 at the opposite polarity, so it is 正財. 辛 controls 甲 at the opposite polarity, so it is 正官. 癸 generates 甲 at the opposite polarity, so it is 正印.

That is the whole derivation, which makes it easy to check — and most English-language introductions fail the check on the same four rows. For 印, 財 and 官, the 正 member is always the opposite-polarity stem and the 偏 member is always the same-polarity one. So 甲's 正財 is 己, not 戊; its 正官 is 辛, not 庚; its 正印 is 癸, not 壬. A table that lists 正財 as same-polarity is one stem off on every 財 reading that follows from it, and the error stays invisible because both stems really are 財.

Each row below gives the stem that produces it for a 甲 Day Master, so any of them can be checked against the rule in the previous section rather than taken on trust.

The polarity column looks like bookkeeping. It is the part of the system that decides how a stem meets the Day Master — and the four names that cause trouble are not the four a rule like same polarity is bad would predict.

七殺 and 正官 are both pressure. The difference is jurisdiction. 正官 arrives with a rule attached, which means it can be negotiated, appealed and eventually satisfied. 七殺 arrives without one. Same element, opposite polarity, and the practical difference is whether the demand has a boundary you can locate.

劫財 and 比肩 are both peers. 比肩 runs alongside you. 劫財 is after the same thing you are after — 劫 is to seize, and the name is literal. This is why 劫財 readings so often turn on shared resources: partners, siblings, co-signers, anyone whose gain is your loss.

傷官 and 食神 are both output. 食神 produces. 傷官 produces and in doing so damages the 官 — the name states the mechanism rather than hinting at it. This is the pair where a wrong polarity costs the most, because 食神 coexists with 正官 while 傷官 collides with it, so the same chart read one stem off yields opposite advice.

偏印 and 正印 are both support. 正印 arrives with structure and credentials attached. 偏印 arrives on its own terms, which is why the older name for it is 梟, and why 偏印 is the one that can 奪食 — consuming the output it was supposed to enable.

So the rule is not that same polarity is harsh. Of the four difficult names, 七殺 and 偏印 are same-polarity while 劫財 and 傷官 are opposite. Polarity splits each pair evenly and does not rank it. What the four share is narrower and more useful: each takes something the Day Master needs to keep — autonomy for 七殺, resources for 劫財, standing for 傷官, output for 偏印.

The usual shorthand is that the Ten God in the month pillar carries the most weight. That sentence hides an unmade decision, because the month pillar has a stem and a branch and they do different work.

The branch (月令) is the heavier of the two. It sets the season, and the season decides which element is 旺 and which is 死 — wood 旺 in spring and 死 in autumn, water 旺 in winter and 囚 in summer. Everything else in the chart is read against that baseline.

It is also not a single Ten God. A branch holds two or three hidden stems, and which one is in charge depends on where the birth date falls inside the solar term. 寅 holds 甲, 丙 and 戊; in the standard 人元司令 tables the sequence runs 戊, then 丙, then 甲, with 甲 taking the longest stretch. Published tables disagree on the day counts but not on the order. So my month branch is 七殺 is shorthand for the ruling hidden stem of my month branch is 七殺 — and near a 節氣 boundary it can be a different stem a few days earlier.

The stem (月干) is the exposed one. It sits on the surface of the chart and tends to show up directly in behaviour, which is why readers often weight it more than it deserves. A chart can carry a mild month branch and a loud month stem, and the loud one is not the important one.

A woman has 丙 as her Day Master. Her month stem is 戊. Read from a table that has the polarity backwards, 戊 is 傷官, and the reading that follows is familiar: strong-willed, clashes with superiors, needs 印 to bring her under control.

戊 is yang earth, 丙 is yang fire, and 丙 generates earth. Same polarity, so 戊 is 食神. Her 傷官 is 己, which may or may not be in the chart at all.

The correction is not cosmetic, because 食神 and 傷官 sit on opposite sides of the 官. 食神 is the output star that coexists with authority and can discipline 七殺 — 食神制殺 is a standard pattern. 傷官 is the one that collides with 正官 — 傷官見官 is the standard warning. One polarity flip turns can work with authority into will fight authority.

Read as 食神, the chart says something specific. Her 印 is wood, wood generates 丙, and 丙 generates 戊, so the chain runs 印 to Day Master to 食神: the output is supplied by learning rather than drained out of the Day Master. That is the 食神配印 direction, and it predicts competence backed by study rather than by improvisation.

There is a check available. If 己 appears anywhere in the chart, stem or hidden stem, then both output stars are present and the reading changes again — 食神 and 傷官 together is a different structure from either alone. If 己 is absent, the 傷官 reading was never available in the first place, and the advice built on it was advice about a chart she does not have.

The ten names settle one question well: which part of the chart a stem belongs to, and therefore what kind of resource is being asked for. That is genuinely useful, because it turns a vague sense that something is off into a specific claim about which of five things is short.

They do not settle whether the chart can afford it. A 財 stem tells you money is in play; it does not tell you whether the Day Master is strong enough to hold it. That is the strength assessment, a separate step with its own procedure.

They also do not settle whether the chart forms a recognised pattern, and pattern outranks both. A chart that qualifies as 從財 reads its 財 stars as the structure itself rather than as something to be balanced — the same stems, the opposite instruction.

Which leaves one thing worth refusing. A reading that assigns a god and stops is a label, not an analysis. You have 七殺 so you are aggressive cannot be checked. Your 七殺 has no 印 to buffer it and no 食神 to work on it, so pressure arrives with neither a cushion nor a channel can be checked, argued with, and sometimes found wrong. Only the second kind is worth the time.