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Casting methods

Casting a hexagram from the time

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Casting a hexagram from the time — what is it? Casting a hexagram from the time refers to the ordinal numbers of the Earthly Branches: add the lunar day, the lunar month and the year branch, then the hour.

Casting a hexagram from the time is one of the ways of obtaining a hexagram of the Yi. This method refers to the ordinal numbers of the Earthly Branches.

The ordinal numbers of the Earthly Branches

Zi = 1, Chou = 2, and so on up to Hai = 12. Within a day, the count starts at the Zi hour, which runs from 11 p.m. of the previous day to 1 a.m. of the next.

The calculation and an example

  1. Lunar day + lunar month + year branch number13 + 5 + 5 (Thìn)A = 23
  2. A + hour branch number23 + 4 (Mão)B = 27
  3. A ÷ 8, remainder → upper trigram23 : 8 dư 7Mountain (Gen)
  4. B ÷ 8, remainder → lower trigram27 : 8 dư 3Fire (Li)
  5. B ÷ 6, remainder → moving line27 : 6 dư 3Line 3
  • 1Zi
  • 2Chou
  • 3Yin
  • 4Mao
  • 5Chen
  • 6Si
  • 7Wu
  • 8Wei
  • 9Shen
  • 10You
  • 11Xu
  • 12Hai
Grace (Bi) changes to Nourishment (Yi) Mountain (Gen) Palace · Earth
Officer line Yin Wood
Wealth Zi Water
Siblings Xu Earth Resp.
Wealth Hai Water Siblings · Chen Earth
Siblings Chou Earth
Officer line Mao Wood Self
Example: lunar day 13, month 5, Chen year, Mao hour → Grace (Bi), moving line 3. A remainder of 0 counts as 8 (trigram) or 6 (line).

See also

Related terms

Try it on a real hexagram: Six Lines Plum Blossom More terms