Golden Carriage star
In Chinese: 金輿金舆
A star of comfort and grace, two branches beyond the Day Master’s Prosperity star: ease, good taste, and help from those close, from a partner above all.
Meaning
The Golden Carriage is a star of comfort and grace: ease, good taste, and help from those close, from a partner above all. Its name, 金輿 jīnyú, is the gilded carriage of a high official, the vehicle that went with rank; in the tables it rides two branches ahead of the Day Master’s stipend, the Prosperity star, as a carriage goes before the one it carries.
The tradition reads a life made easier by the people around it: a partner who brings support and refinement, a household that looks after its own, a natural feeling for beauty and for doing things well. A Day Master with its Golden Carriage in a pillar is read as finding that comfort in the part of life the pillar stands for, and, in the day branch, the partner palace, the classics read it most of all as a partner’s gifts.
It is a gentle star and a secondary one. Ulune reads it as grace and as help received from those close, never as wealth or a marriage promised, and as a reminder that comfort shared with others is the kind the star describes.
In practice
- Found from the Day Master: Jia in Chen, Yi in Si, Bing and Wu in Wei, Ding and Ji in Shen, Geng in Xu, Xin in Hai, Ren in Chou and Gui in Yin, sought in every pillar, the day’s own included.
- Two branches after the stipend: each is the Prosperity star’s branch moved on by two, Yin to Chen for Jia, Mao to Si for Yi.
- With the life stages: for a yang Day Master the carriage stands in its Decline branch, seasoned strength; for a yin one in its Bath branch, the stage of charm.
- On the board, the star is listed with the pillars whose branches hold it, and its reading says which branch the Day Master looks for.
- In time, a luck pillar or a year whose branch is the carriage brings the star for its while; the full table shows it in that row.
Across traditions
- In imperial China the carriage was a mark of rank, its colours and gilding fixed by the court for each degree of office; the star borrows that image of a life carried in some comfort.
- In Western astrology comfort, taste and the help of a partner belong to Venus and to the seventh house, the house of partners: the same qualities, read through a planet and a place rather than through a branch.
Origin and history
The Golden Carriage comes from the tables of the Song and Ming books of the Zi Ping school, the Yuanhai Ziping and the San Ming Tong Hui, which teach it by a verse: “Jia the Dragon, Yi the Snake, Bing and Wu the Goat; Ding and Ji sing to the Monkey, Geng goes to the Dog; Xin the Pig, Ren the Ox, Gui meets the Tiger.” The rule behind the verse is the stipend two branches back, which ties the carriage to the Prosperity star and so to the Day Master’s own ground. Popular almanacs read it chiefly for marriage; Ulune keeps the wider reading the classics also give, comfort, grace and help from those close.
How Ulune calculates it
Ulune finds the Golden Carriage from the Day Master, two branches after its Prosperity star: Chen, Si, Wei, Shen, Wei, Shen, Xu, Hai, Chou and Yin, from Jia to Gui. It looks for that branch in every pillar, the day’s own included, and in the branch of a luck pillar or a year. The star is shown with the pillars it falls in, with its reading and the branch the Day Master looks for.
Correspondences
| Correspondence | Golden Carriage star |
|---|---|
| Characters, pinyin | 金輿 jīnyú (金舆), “golden carriage” |
| Read from | The Day Master |
| For each Day Master | Jia → Chen, Yi → Si, Bing → Wei, Ding → Shen, Wu → Wei, Ji → Shen, Geng → Xu, Xin → Hai, Ren → Chou, Gui → Yin |
| Rule | Two branches after the Prosperity star |
| Stage of the same branch | Decline for the yang stems, Bath for the yin |
| In the day branch | The partner palace: read as a partner’s gifts |
| Ulune’s reading | Comfort and grace, good taste, help from those close |
Related
- Symbolic starsThe traditional signs BaZi finds by fixed tables, the Nobleman, the Peach Blossom, the Travelling Horse and others: nuances read after the gods and the balance.
- Day MasterThe Heavenly Stem of the day of birth, the self in BaZi: the character every other stem and branch of a chart is read against, as one of the Ten Gods.
- Prosperity starThe branch where the Day Master finds its own resources, its Prosperity stage: steady means, work that sustains you, standing on your own ground.
- Decline stageThe sixth of the twelve life stages, where a phase has passed its height and softens: experience, moderation and a calmer, steadier strength.
- Bath stageThe second of the twelve life stages, the young phase washed and exposed, still unsteady: curiosity, charm, a taste for trying things, at times restlessness.
- Partner palaceThe branch of the day pillar, where the Day Master sits: the seat of the closest bonds, read in one chart and between two, as how two people live side by side.
Sources
- Xu Sheng (ed.), Yuanhai Ziping, Song dynasty
- Wan Minying, San Ming Tong Hui, 16th century
- Shen Xiaozhan, Ziping Zhenquan, 18th century
- Ho Peng Yoke, Chinese Mathematical Astrology, 2003
- Richard J. Smith, Fortune-tellers and Philosophers: Divination in Traditional Chinese Society, 1991