渊海子平

Background

Compiled by Xu Sheng in the Song dynasty, Yuan Hai Zi Ping collects the teachings of Master Xu Zi-ping (徐子平) and his predecessors. Master Xu broke from the Tang-era practice of reading the year-pillar as primary, and established the Day-Master as 'self' with the other seven characters as 'other'. This single shift is the structural foundation of all BaZi reading for the past thousand years. The text covers Five-Element generation and control, the Ten Gods, useful-element selection, and pattern judgment — every subsequent BaZi treatise draws from it.

Concepts this text grounds

• Day Master as the analytical axis
• The Ten Gods — relational archetypes around the Day Master
• Five-Element generation, control, and balancing
• Pattern identification (special vs. regular格局)
• Useful-element selection (用神)

Selected excerpts

All excerpts below are public-domain classical Chinese. English glosses are modern reviewer-polished renderings of the historical English translations.

• 「夫人禀天地之气，受阴阳之精。」

  A person is endowed with the qi of heaven and earth, receives the essence of yin and yang.

  卷一 · 论命

• 「以日为主，年为本，月为提纲，时为辅佐。」

  Take the Day Stem as the self set at the centre; the Year is the root, the Month the guiding headline, the Hour the supporting context — the fundamental break from the old year-based method.

  论日为主