Sword Edge star
In Chinese: 羊刃
A yang Day Master’s phase at its sharpest, in the branch of its Peak: decisiveness, courage and the strength to cut through, an energy to channel with care.
Meaning
The Sword Edge is the Day Master’s phase at its sharpest: decisiveness, courage and the strength to cut through. It is the branch of a yang stem’s Peak, where its phase is at its fullest, read as a blade rather than as a summit. The name is written 羊刃 yángrèn and also 陽刃, “the yang blade”; the first spelling, with the character for a goat, has been explained as a butcher’s knife or simply as a sound-alike of the second, and the books use both.
The tradition reads an energy to channel with care. A Day Master with its Sword Edge in a pillar has strength to spare there: the will to decide, to act and to defend what it values, which serves best when it is given a cause and a discipline. The branch holds the Day Master’s twin of the other polarity, its Rob Wealth, as its main qi for Jia, Bing, Geng and Ren and beside it for Wu, so the edge is also the drive of a peer who competes as much as it helps.
The classics treat it as one of the forceful signs, to be tempered rather than feared. Their remedy is structure: an Officer or Seven Killings in the chart, the power that controls the Day Master, is said to hold the blade by its hilt. Ulune reads the Sword Edge as intensity and courage, never as harm, and as a strength that grows wiser with a purpose.
In practice
- Found from a yang Day Master: Jia in Mao, Bing and Wu in Wu, Geng in You and Ren in Zi, sought in every pillar, the day’s own included. The yin Day Masters have no Sword Edge in Ulune.
- In the month: when the month branch is the Day Master’s Sword Edge, Ulune names the chart’s Sword Edge structure, 羊刃格.
- Beside the stipend: the Sword Edge is one branch after the Prosperity star, the stem’s office followed by its height.
- On the board, the star is listed with the pillars whose branches hold it; its reading says that it is read for the yang Day Masters only, the yin stems’ Sword Edge being disputed.
- In time, a luck pillar or a year whose branch is the Sword Edge brings it for its while, a time the tradition reads as one of drive and bold decisions, best given a clear aim; the full table shows it in that row.
Across traditions
- In Japan, Korea and Vietnam the star is yōjin, yangin and Dương Nhận, read there too as a sharp, decisive strength.
- In Western astrology the same themes, courage, decision and the will to cut through, belong to Mars, whose classical tradition also asks that its force be given a purpose: a planet rather than a branch, but the same counsel.
Origin and history
The Sword Edge is among the oldest of the stars, found in the Song and Ming books of the Zi Ping school, the Yuanhai Ziping and the San Ming Tong Hui, with its table for the five yang stems. The yin stems’ Sword Edge has been disputed since then: some books place it one branch after their stipend, going forward, others in their Peak branch, going backward, and many leave it out, as Ulune does. Shen Xiaozhan’s Ziping Zhenquan, in the 18th century, gives the Sword Edge a chapter of its own, counts it with Seven Killings, the Hurting Officer and the Indirect Resource among the forceful signs to be tempered, and shows how an Officer or Seven Killings makes a chart with a strong edge a chart of authority.
How Ulune calculates it
Ulune’s table of the Sword Edge holds the five yang Day Masters’ Peak branches, Mao for Jia, Wu for Bing and Wu, You for Geng and Zi for Ren, and nothing for the yin ones. 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 same table gives the Sword Edge structure, when the month branch is the Day Master’s Sword Edge.
Correspondences
| Correspondence | Sword Edge star |
|---|---|
| Characters, pinyin | 羊刃 yángrèn, also 陽刃, “the yang blade” |
| Read from | A yang Day Master |
| For each Day Master | Jia → Mao, Bing → Wu, Wu → Wu, Geng → You, Ren → Zi; none for Yi, Ding, Ji, Xin, Gui |
| Stage of the same branch | Peak |
| In its branch | The Day Master’s Rob Wealth, as main qi (for Wu, beside it) |
| In the month | Sword Edge structure |
| One branch before | Prosperity star |
| Ulune’s reading | Decisiveness, courage, the strength to cut through, an energy to channel with care |
| Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese | Yōjin, yangin, Dương Nhận |
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.
- Peak stageThe fifth of the twelve life stages, where a phase is at its fullest: strength, drive and determination, and the care it takes not to overreach.
- Sword Edge structureThe frame of a chart whose month is a yang Day Master’s Sword Edge: a life organised around intensity, decisive and bold, at its best serving a cause.
- Rob WealthA stem of the Day Master’s phase and the other polarity, Yi for Jia: rivals and teammates at once, competition, boldness and a readiness to share or risk.
- 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.
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