Yin · Tiger

Meaning

Yin 寅 is the third Earthly Branch: the branch of the Tiger, of the east-north-east, of the double hour from three to five in the morning, and of the first month of the Chinese year, which opens at Lichun, the start of spring. The word is not the yin 陰 of yin and yang: it is another character with another tone, and the branch itself is yang, Wood on the rise. The Han historians read it as things drawn out and stretched: in Yin, Sima Qian wrote, the ten thousand things begin to grow and wriggle up like earthworms through the thawing soil.

It is read as initiative, courage and vitality: the push of a beginning, the energy of first light, the confidence of the Tiger, which acts on what it believes. Yin opens things, the year, the day, a project, and likes the open field more than the well-kept garden. Its difficulty is impatience with whatever is not yet ready: the early spring can be cold, and a beginning that is forced can stall before it takes root.

As one of the four branches that begin the seasons, with Si, Shen and Hai, Yin is where a phase is born: Fire is born here, as Bing and Wu are in the life stages, and the Wood of spring takes its first strength. It holds three stems, Jia its main qi, Bing and Wu: the tree, and the warmth that will come.

In practice

• In BaZi, Yin holds Jia as its main qi, with Bing and Wu: Wood carrying the seeds of Fire and Earth. It is the Prosperity of Jia and the Peak of Yi, the Birth of Bing and Wu, the Nobleman of Xin, and the Travelling Horse for a year or day branch of the Shen, Zi and Chen trine. Every year’s first month is a Yin month, from Lichun, about 4 February, to Jingzhe, about 6 March, and its stem follows the year’s by the rule of the five tigers.
• Its relations: Yin is in harmony with Hai, a pair that leans towards Wood, though the same two branches also form a destruction; it begins the Fire trine with Wu and Xu, and the spring trio with Mao and Chen. It clashes with Shen, harms Si, and belongs to the “ungrateful” punishment with Si and Shen.
• In Chinese astrology, Yin is the Tiger: 2022 was a Water Tiger year, 2034 will be a Wood Tiger year.
• In Feng Shui, Yin is the last mountain of the north-east, from 52.5° to 67.5°, a yang one for the Flying Stars.

Across traditions

• In Japan the branch is read tora, the tiger; in Korea in; in Vietnam Dần. The month of Yin is the first month of the Chinese year in China, Japan’s old calendar, Korea and Vietnam, and Lunar New Year falls in it or just before it.
• The Yi Jing’s sovereign hexagram for the Yin month is Peace (Tai, the 11th): three whole lines below three broken ones, heaven and earth in balance as spring begins.
• Western astrology has no sign that begins at Lichun, which falls in the middle of Aquarius; its spring starts later, with Aries at the equinox, which in China lies in the middle of the next month, Mao’s.

Origin and history

Yin is one of the branch characters of the Shang oracle bones, where it names days. Which month should open the year was long disputed: tradition gave the Xia dynasty a year beginning with the Yin month, the Shang one beginning with Chou and the Zhou one beginning with Zi, and the Taichu reform of 104 BC, under Emperor Wu of Han, returned to the Xia’s choice, which every Chinese calendar has kept since. The Huainanzi (139 BC) sets Yin at the start of spring; Ban Gu wrote that things are drawn out and come through in Yin, and Xu Shen’s Shuowen Jiezi (c. 100) that in the first month yang stirs and wants to rise, while yin is still strong.

BaZi’s classics count the months from Yin, and the rule of the five tigers, which gives the first month’s stem from the year’s, is named after it: a Jia or Ji year opens with a Bing-Yin month, a Yi or Geng year with Wu-Yin, a Bing or Xin year with Geng-Yin, a Ding or Ren year with Ren-Yin, a Wu or Gui year with Jia-Yin.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune numbers Yin 2 among the branches. The Yin month runs from the exact moment of Lichun, the Sun at 315°, to Jingzhe, the Sun at 345°, and the year’s pillar changes at the same instant of Lichun; the Yin hour is 03:00 to 05:00 on true solar time at the birthplace by default. Ulune counts the month pillars as one unbroken run through the sixty-cycle from Bing-Yin, the Tiger month of 1984, which gives the same stems as the five tigers. In BaZi’s balance Yin’s hidden stems count 0.6 for Jia, 0.3 for Bing and 0.1 for Wu, twice in the month branch.

Correspondences