The Ten Gods (十神) explained: how each one is derived

The Ten Gods (十神) are the working vocabulary of a BaZi reading. Once the Day Master is known, every other stem in the chart, whether it stands on top of a pillar or hides inside a branch, gets one of ten labels describing its relationship to the Day Master. Some names sound dramatic in English (Seven Killings, Rob Wealth, Hurting Officer), but they are old technical terms, not warnings. A chart with plenty of Seven Killings is no more dangerous than any other chart.

Two questions decide every Ten God

To label a stem, compare it with the Day Master twice.

First, the elements. The five elements form two cycles. In the generating cycle (相生) wood feeds fire, fire makes earth, earth bears metal, metal carries water and water nourishes wood. In the controlling cycle (相剋) wood breaks up earth, earth dams water, water puts out fire, fire melts metal and metal cuts wood. Seen from the Day Master, any other stem stands in one of five relations:

• the same element: peers (比劫);
• an element the Day Master produces: output (食傷);
• an element the Day Master controls: wealth (財);
• an element that controls the Day Master: officer (官殺);
• an element that produces the Day Master: resource (印).

Second, the polarity. Each relation splits in two, depending on whether the other stem has the same yin-yang polarity as the Day Master or the opposite one. That makes ten:

• Same element: 比肩 Companion (same polarity), 劫財 Rob Wealth (opposite).
• Produced by the Day Master: 食神 Eating God (same), 傷官 Hurting Officer (opposite).
• Controlled by the Day Master: 偏財 Indirect Wealth (same), 正財 Direct Wealth (opposite).
• Controls the Day Master: 七殺 Seven Killings (same), 正官 Direct Officer (opposite).
• Produces the Day Master: 偏印 Indirect Resource (same), 正印 Direct Resource (opposite).

An easy way to remember it: in each pair, the same-polarity member is the "indirect" (偏) one and the opposite-polarity member is the "direct" (正) one. Companion, Eating God and Seven Killings are same-polarity members whose names just don't say so.

A worked example

Take a 甲 Day Master, which is yang wood, and go through the ten stems:

• 甲 yang wood is Companion; 乙 yin wood is Rob Wealth.
• 丙 yang fire is Eating God; 丁 yin fire is Hurting Officer (wood feeds fire).
• 戊 yang earth is Indirect Wealth; 己 yin earth is Direct Wealth (wood controls earth).
• 庚 yang metal is Seven Killings; 辛 yin metal is Direct Officer (metal controls wood).
• 壬 yang water is Indirect Resource; 癸 yin water is Direct Resource (water feeds wood).

For any other Day Master the pattern is identical; only the stems in each slot move round the cycle.

Branches and hidden stems

A branch has no Ten God of its own. Each branch holds one to three hidden stems (藏干), and each hidden stem is labelled like any other stem. Our chart lists all of them, main stem (本氣) first. Where a single label is needed for a branch, as for a luck pillar or a year's pillar, the site uses the branch's main hidden stem.

The themes readers attach

These are the associations practitioners commonly use. They describe themes, not events.

• Companion (比肩): peers and self-reliance, standing shoulder to shoulder.
• Rob Wealth (劫財): drive and team spirit; sharing, and sometimes contesting, resources.
• Eating God (食神): easy expression, taste and enjoyment; talent that flows.
• Hurting Officer (傷官): sharp creativity that questions the rules and reinvents them.
• Indirect Wealth (偏財): opportunity, deals and generosity; resources in motion.
• Direct Wealth (正財): steady effort, diligence and careful stewardship.
• Seven Killings (七殺): pressure met with courage; decisiveness when it counts.
• Direct Officer (正官): order, responsibility and recognition earned within the rules.
• Indirect Resource (偏印): unconventional learning, intuition and independent study.
• Direct Resource (正印): support, learning and care; a mentor's influence.

The five families also act on one another, following the controlling cycle: output tempers officer, officer restrains peers, peers compete for wealth, wealth presses on resource, and resource holds output in check. Much of a reading is about which family is held back by which.

Weighing them

One appearance does not make a theme. Readers weigh where each Ten God sits (a stem standing on a pillar counts for more than a faint residual stem inside a branch) and how strong the Day Master is in its season. The site's full report keeps the weighting simple and visible: it groups the ten into five families, counts each visible stem as one, adds each hidden stem by its share of the branch, and describes the most present families first.

Labelled by code

Every Ten God on the chart page comes from a lookup in code built on the same two questions, element relation and polarity. The AI receives those labels as fixed facts and writes about them; it has no way to relabel a stem.