He Luo Li Shu Calculator: Birth Hexagrams and Yuan Tang
He Luo Li Shu assigns numbers to all eight birth characters. Odd and even totals select trigrams; the birth hour selects Yuan Tang, then the changed line forms the post-heaven figure.
Worked birth · 28. 大過 → 9. 小畜
庚午 / 辛巳 / 庚辰 / 辛巳 · Yuan Tang line 6; post-heaven line 3. Lower Yuan · Yang half · winter solstice to summer solstice.
Heaven 32 − 25 = 7 → 7 · Earth 24 → 4. Upper Dui · Lake; lower Xun · Wind.
Enter the UTC+08:00 birth clock. The year and month turn at their Jie solar terms; the day turns at 23:00. Birth seconds choose the side of an exact solar boundary.
Pre-heaven · Preponderance of the Great
Great excess places more weight on a beam than it can bear. The situation needs a substantial adjustment rather than routine maintenance.
Line 6: 上六：過涉滅頂，凶，無咎。
Post-heaven · The Taming Power of the Small
Small restraint gathers what cannot yet be changed by force. Refine conduct and attend to manageable details while larger conditions remain unsettled.
Line 3: 九三：輿說輻，夫妻反目。
The Yuan Tang line changes, then the upper and lower trigrams exchange places.
Read the number assignments
| Pillar | Stem number | Branch numbers | Heaven · odd | Earth · even |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 庚午 | 3 | 2 + 7 | 3 + 7 | 2 |
| Month 辛巳 | 4 | 2 + 7 | 7 | 4 + 2 |
| Day 庚辰 | 3 | 5 + 10 | 3 + 5 | 10 |
| Hour 辛巳 | 4 | 2 + 7 | 7 | 4 + 2 |
Heaven supplies the upper trigram and Earth the lower because the year is Yang and the selected calculation is male. Hour branch 巳 uses the yang hours sequence 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 6 from Rat or Horse respectively.
Enter an existing four-pillar record
Use the original record’s Yuan and birth half-year. Upper Yuan includes 1864–1923, middle 1924–1983 and lower 1984–2043; the cycle repeats every 180 years. January and early February use the Li Chun cycle year.
| Heavenly stem | Number |
|---|---|
| 甲 | 6 |
| 乙 | 2 |
| 丙 | 8 |
| 丁 | 7 |
| 戊 | 1 |
| 己 | 9 |
| 庚 | 3 |
| 辛 | 4 |
| 壬 | 6 |
| 癸 | 2 |
| Earthly branch | Numbers |
|---|---|
| 子 | 1 + 6 |
| 丑 | 5 + 10 |
| 寅 | 3 + 8 |
| 卯 | 3 + 8 |
| 辰 | 5 + 10 |
| 巳 | 2 + 7 |
| 午 | 2 + 7 |
| 未 | 5 + 10 |
| 申 | 4 + 9 |
| 酉 | 4 + 9 |
| 戌 | 5 + 10 |
| 亥 | 1 + 6 |
Heaven and Earth numbers
The ten stems each take one Luo Shu number; each branch takes a pair of He Tu numbers. Add the odd values for Heaven and even values for Earth. Above 25, subtract 25 once from Heaven; above 30, subtract 30 once from Earth. Remove tens from a remainder, except that an exact ten, twenty or thirty takes 1, 2 or 3.
Central five and placement
The 1632 Shi Yingxuan edition of He Luo Li Shu gives central 5 a trigram according to the upper, middle or lower Yuan. Upper uses Gen for male and Kun for female; lower uses Li and Dui respectively. In middle Yuan, Yang-male and Yin-female take Gen, with the other pair taking Kun. Yang-male and Yin-female put Heaven above Earth; the other pair put Heaven below.
Yuan Tang and the two figures
Count hour branches through the figure’s Yang or Yin line positions to locate Yuan Tang. The pure Qian and Kun figures add the selected male or female calculation and solstice half-year. Changing Yuan Tang and exchanging trigrams normally produces post-heaven. Kan, Tun and Jian keep the trigrams in place at line 5 in the Yin half-year or line 6 in the Yang half-year.
Read the selected lines
The figure’s original English reading introduces its imagery. Read the marked classical line in the pre-heaven figure, then the marked line in post-heaven. The solid dot identifies Yuan Tang; line numbers run from bottom to top.