Ren Xu · Yang Water Dog
In Chinese: 壬戌
Ren Xu, the Yang Water Dog: a river meeting the dry autumn hills, understanding, kind and loyal.
Meaning
Ren Xu runs the river against the Dog’s dry late-autumn earth, which banks and guides it. The tradition reads understanding and a quiet loyalty, a mind that listens before it judges.
Ren over Xu: yang Water over yang Earth, a stem its branch controls, as Earth controls Water.
Ren, Yang Water, is the river and the sea: wide, moving, carrying everything along. The Dog is loyal, honest and just.
The zodiac reads a Ren Xu year as the Water Dog’s. The Water Dog is the most understanding of the Dogs: perceptive, kind, ready to listen before judging. Its loyalty is quiet and deep.
Its Na Yin, shared with Gui Hai, is Water of the great sea (大海水 dàhǎi shuǐ): a sound of Water, heard beside the pillar’s Water and Earth.
In practice
- As a year, from Lichun, around 4 February: 1802, 1862, 1922, 1982, 2042, 2102 and 2162, in the 1800–2200 table.
- As a month: the Dog month of every Wu or Gui year, opened by Cold Dew, as in the solar years 2023 and 2028.
- As a day, every sixty days: in 2026, on 17 February, 18 April, 17 June, 16 August, 15 October and 14 December.
- As an hour: the Dog’s double hour, 19:00–21:00, of Wu and Gui days.
- As a day pillar, its stem is the Day Master, Ren, sitting on Xu, the partner palace: Xu holds Wu, Xin and Ding, Ren’s Seven Killings, Direct Resource and Direct Wealth, and Ren stands at its Crown stage there.
- As a luck pillar or a year, it brings each Day Master the god of its stem and the god of its branch’s main qi: the Correspondences below give them for all ten.
Across traditions
- In Japan, Korea and Vietnam the same pillar is mizunoe-inu, imsul and Nhâm Tuất, with each language’s readings of 壬 and 戌.
How Ulune calculates it
Ren Xu is the 59th of the sixty pillars: the 9th of the ten stems over the 11th of the twelve branches, which the cycle moves on one step together, so that a stem only ever meets the branches of its polarity. Ulune counts a year’s pillar from Lichun, 1984 being Jia Zi; a month’s twelve a year through the cycle, from Bing Yin in the Tiger month of 1984 (the rule of the five tigers); a day’s by the count of days, 1 January 2000 being Wu Wu; an hour’s twelve a day (the rule of the five rats).
Ren Xu belongs to the ten-day week from Jia Yin to Gui Hai, whose stems meet the branches from Yin to Hai and leave out Zi and Chou: for a day pillar of this week, those are the empty branches. Its Na Yin is the 30th of the thirty, one for each two pillars.
Correspondences
| Correspondence | Ren Xu |
|---|---|
| Characters, pinyin | 壬戌 rénxū |
| Place in the cycle | 59 of 60 |
| Stem | Ren, yang Water |
| Branch | Xu, the Dog, yang Earth |
| Hidden in the branch | Wu 60, Xin 30, Ding 10 |
| Stem and branch | Earth controls Water |
| Na Yin | Water of the great sea, with Gui Hai |
| Its stem’s stage in its branch | Crown |
| Ten-day week | Jia Yin to Gui Hai; empty branches Zi and Chou |
| Its stem, for each Day Master | Jia → Indirect Resource, Yi → Direct Resource, Bing → Seven Killings, Ding → Direct Officer, Wu → Indirect Wealth, Ji → Direct Wealth, Geng → Eating God, Xin → Hurting Officer, Ren → Companion, Gui → Rob Wealth |
| Its branch’s main qi, for each Day Master | Jia → Indirect Wealth, Yi → Direct Wealth, Bing → Eating God, Ding → Hurting Officer, Wu → Companion, Ji → Rob Wealth, Geng → Indirect Resource, Xin → Direct Resource, Ren → Seven Killings, Gui → Direct Officer |
| Years, 1800–2200 | 1802, 1862, 1922, 1982, 2042, 2102, 2162 |
| Month | Dog month of Wu and Gui years |
| Hour | Dog hour, 19:00–21:00, of Wu and Gui days |
| Before and after | Xin You, Gui Hai |
| Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese | Mizunoe-inu, imsul, Nhâm Tuất |
Related
- Ren · Yang WaterThe ninth Heavenly Stem, yang Water: the sea and the great river, a strength that flows, carries far and keeps moving round every obstacle.
- Xu · DogThe eleventh Earthly Branch, yang Earth: the Dog, the last month of autumn and the evening, dry ground that keeps the year’s Fire as yang goes home.
- DogThe eleventh of the twelve animals, the Dog of the branch Xu: loyal, honest and just, it defends its friends and its principles and can be trusted completely.
- Water of the great seaWater of the great sea, the Na Yin of Ren Xu and Gui Hai: the ocean that receives every river, vast, deep and all-embracing.
- Xin You · Yin Metal RoosterXin You, the Yin Metal Rooster: the jewel in the bright metal of mid-autumn, Metal on its own ground, exacting and honest.
- Gui Hai · Yin Water PigGui Hai, the Yin Water Pig, last of the sixty: rain over the winter sea, gentle, intuitive and open, the cycle’s close.
Sources
- Sima Qian, Shiji, c. 94 BC
- Ban Gu, Hanshu, 1st century
- Xu Sheng (ed.), Yuanhai Ziping, Song dynasty
- Wan Minying, San Ming Tong Hui, 16th century
- Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 3, 1959