Geng mountain

Meaning

Geng, 庚 gēng, is the first mountain of the west (W1): the fifteen degrees from 247.5° to 262.5°, centred on 255°. It takes its name from Geng, the seventh of the ten Heavenly Stems, yang Metal: one of the eight stems that stand round the compass, while Wu and Ji, the stems of Earth, keep the centre.

Geng carries the image of its stem, raw ore, the axe and the blade, a strength that cuts and decides. On the compass it opens the west, from the line at 247.5° where the south-west ends, and with You and Xin it makes the west Metal three times over, the palace of Dui, the lake, which the Lo Shu numbers 7. A home facing Geng looks a little south of west, towards the afternoon sun, and sits in Jia: a Zhen house, of the East group.

For the Flying Stars Geng is the west’s Earth dragon and counts as yang, unlike You and Xin, so its main chart is its own, the mirror of Jia’s across the compass: both of the period’s stars at the back for a home built in Period 8, at the front for one built in Period 9; in the middle periods the prosperous chart with a Combination of Ten in Periods 4 and 6, and the reversed one, with the Lo Shu repeated, in Periods 3 and 7.

In practice

• The facing: a home whose front faces between 247.5° and 262.5° faces Geng, and sits in Jia, E1: a Zhen house of the East group. The Home lens tints Geng on its dial and draws Jia dashed.
• Near its edges: within 3° of 247.5° or 262.5° many schools read a replacement chart, which Ulune shows beside the main one; within 1.5° the facing is on a void line: at 247.5° the line between the south-west and the west, towards Shen; at 262.5° the line towards You, inside the west.
• The Flying Stars: built in Period 9, a home facing Geng has the formation Double stars at the facing; built in Period 8, the formation Double stars at the sitting.
• The year: with its two neighbours Geng holds the Three Killings in some years, such as 2027, 2031 and 2035, which the classics suggest facing rather than having at one’s back. The year’s 5 Yellow visits its palace, the west, in 2024 and 2033.

Across traditions

• The solar terms: on luopan plates that carry a ring of the solar terms, Geng goes with the White Dew, the Sun at 165°, halfway through Virgo in the Western zodiac.
• The birth characters: the eight characters of a birth were long called 年庚 niángēng, ‘the year’s Geng’, and the card that carried them at a betrothal a 庚帖 gēngtiě; asking someone’s Geng is still a polite way to ask their age.

Origin and history

Geng opens the west, the side of autumn and of the harvest’s cut, where the year’s growth is gathered and stored. The west’s three Metal mountains face the east’s three Wood ones, Geng across from Jia, You from Mao and Xin from Yi, so every home facing the east sits in the west and every home facing the west sits in the east, and the Eight Mansions call the one a Dui house and the other a Zhen house.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune finds the mountain a home faces from its magnetic facing, among 24 mountains of 15° counted from Ren at 337.5°: Geng takes every facing from 247.5° up to 262.5°, that edge belonging to the next, and the home sits in the mountain opposite, Jia. For the Flying Stars, Geng is the first mountain of a cardinal palace, of the group the classics call the Earth dragon, and so counts as yang: when the stars look to it for their flight, it sends a star forward. Its replacement star, from the classical verse, is 9, which takes the place of the number going to the centre when, near an edge, it is the mountain that decides.

Correspondences