Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches Five Elements Reference

The 天干地支五行对照表 is a reference table that maps the ten Heavenly Stems and twelve Earthly Branches to the Five Phases. It is used to identify which phase a given stem or branch belongs to, and which hidden stems a branch contains. The table is best understood as a classification aid rather than a statement of quantity or balance. It records affiliation, not weight.

天干一个字一个五行

For the Heavenly Stems, the mapping is one to one. Each stem carries exactly one phase. The pairing is fixed: 甲 and 乙 belong to Wood, 丙 and 丁 to Fire, 戊 and 己 to Earth, 庚 and 辛 to Metal, and 壬 and 癸 to Water. A single stem does not carry more than one phase, and no stem is left without a phase assignment. This one-to-one structure makes the stem side of the table simple to read.

地支一个字可能带三个五行

The Earthly Branches are not one-to-one with the Five Phases. Each branch has a principal phase, but it also contains hidden stems, and each hidden stem carries its own phase. A branch may therefore involve one, two, or three phases at once. For example, 子 contains 癸 and is Water. 丑 contains 己，癸, and 辛, so it involves Earth, Water, and Metal. 寅 contains 甲，丙, and 戊, so it involves Wood, Fire, and Earth. The hidden stems are what make the branch side of the table more complex than the stem side.

显与藏的分别

The distinction between stems and branches is not merely a difference of position. The stems are above; their energy is outward and visible. A stem represents a force that has already surfaced. The branches, by contrast, contain hidden stems known as 人元. These hidden elements are deeper and less manifest. For this reason, the stem column and the branch column do not describe the same level of expression. They are two different layers of the same chart, not two interchangeable lists.

为什么两列不能直接相加

Because stems and branches operate at different levels, a naive addition of one stem plus one branch does not yield a meaningful phase total. The usual method of counting phase distribution treats each stem as one entry, then adds all hidden stems within each branch. For example, if four stems are present, each contributes one count. If four branches are present, the count uses every hidden stem recorded in those branches. The result is a single tally of how often each phase appears across both layers. This is a counting procedure, not a direct pairing procedure.

对照表能回答与不能回答的问题

What the table can answer is affiliation. It can say that a given character belongs to a certain phase, or that a branch hides certain stems. What it cannot answer is magnitude. The table does not, by itself, say whether a phase is strong or weak in a particular chart, or whether a phase should be supplemented. Those questions require assumptions beyond the table, such as seasonal strength, stem-root relationships, and the weighting of hidden stems.

藏干取几个各家不同

A further limitation is that traditions differ on how many hidden stems to count. Some schools take only the principal energy of each branch. Others take the full set of principal, middle, and residual energies. Weighting practices also vary: one school may count the principal energy more heavily, while another treats all listed hidden stems as equal. Because of these differences, two tools using the same 干支 data can produce different phase counts. The discrepancy comes not from the table's basic affiliations, but from the choice of how many hidden stems to include and how to weight them.

数量不等于喜忌

Even when a phase count is produced, the number alone does not determine what is favorable or unfavorable. A phase may be numerous and still be harmful in a given configuration, or scarce and still be beneficial. The common saying that one should simply supply whatever is missing is not accepted within the internal logic of the system. Quantity is a descriptive fact; 喜忌 is an interpretive judgment. The 天干地支五行对照表 supplies the former but does not, by itself, supply the latter.