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Heavenly Stems & Earthly Branches

Ancient Chinese people had the skill to calculate the history of five thousands years and record the chronological sequence of events. They invented a measurement by two sets of signs in a certain sequence - Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. As early as about 2700BC, the ancestor of Chinese nation, Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), sent Da Rao Shi to create a calendar system.

Da Rao Shi explored the rule of changes between sky and earth, as well as that of the four seasons. Then he created ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches to make combinations representing a sexagenary cycle. A year can be represented by the composition of two characters, one from the heavenly set, and one from the other. That is believed to be the start of the stem-branch calendar. Thus came a way of counting time which has been passed down through thousands of years.

The Heavenly Stems

甲	乙	丙	丁	戊	己	庚	辛	壬	癸
jiǎ	yǐ	bǐng	dīng	wù	jǐ	gēng	xīn	rén	guǐ
Jia	Yi	Bing	Ding	Wu	Ji	Geng	Xin	Ren	Gui

Earthly Branches can be used to count time of years, months and hours. When counting years, people use them with the 12 Chinese zodiacs and strictly one Earthly Branch corresponds to one fixed zodiac. For example, our ancestors have divided a day and night into twelve sections and named each as a 'shi chen', which is equal to today's two hours and has a fixed Earthly Branch name. From 11 pm at night to 1 am is decided to be the first one - 'zi shi', then the second two hours 'chou shi', on the analogy of this.

The Earthly Branches and Corresponding Chinese Zodiac Animal Signs

子	丑	寅	卯	辰	巳	午	未	申	酉	戌	亥
zǐ	chǒu	yín	maǒ	chén	sì	wǔ	weì	shēn	yǒu	xū	haì
Zi	Chou	Yin	Mao	Chen	Si	Wu	Wei	Shen	You	Xu	Hai
Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Sheep	Monkey	Rooster	Dog	Pig

Take the year of 2005 for example, 2005 can be described as 'Yi You', a combination of the second sign in Heavenly Stems and the tenth one in the Earthly Branches. Then the next year 2006 will be 'Bing Xu' - the third sign and the eleventh one's association.

The Four Pillar of Life (also the Eight Characters of Birth Time or 'ba zi' in Chinese) was very popular and mostly used in fortune-telling. In four pairs of year, month, day, and hour of a person's birth, each pair includes one Heavenly Stems and one Earthly Branchs. There are compatibility and incompatibility relations among the stems and branches. The expression of one's birth time in this way has always been vital especially when it is used for fortune foretelling.

See the Compatibility Charts of Chinese Zodiac Animal Signs

Five Compatibilities of Heavenly Stems – Jia and Ji, Yi and Geng, Bing and Xin, Ding and Ren, Wu and Gui

Explanation: Wood is the corresponding element in Wu Xing to Jia, so is Earth to Ji. Wood grows in earth, so they are compatible combination. The rest can be explained in the same manner.

The Six Combinations of Earthly Branches – Zi and Chou combined into Earth, Yin and Hai combined into Wood, Mao and Xu combined into Fire, Si and Shen combined into Water, Wu and Wei combined into the sun and moon

The Three Combinations of the Early Branches – Shen, Xi, Chen combine and form Water, Hai, Mao, Wei combine and form Wood, Yin, Wu, Xu combine and form Fire, Si, You, Chou combine and form Metal, Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei combine and forms Earth.

The following content is to introduction the braches in opposition, listing from strong to week power of harms.

Six Clashes of the Earthly Branches – Zi vs Wu, Yin vs Shen, Mao vs You, Chen vs Xu, Si vs Hai, Chou vs Wei