Da Liu Ren four lessons: how they are laid out

What are the Da Liu Ren four lessons?

The four lessons, si ke 四课, are the first thing read from a Da Liu Ren plate once the heaven plate has been turned. Two belong to the day stem and two to the day branch. In each one, a branch on the heaven plate sits over a lower position, and the pair is written upper over lower.

Upper god上神 shang shen

The heaven-plate branch sitting over a position. It is the top half of a lesson.

Lower position下神 xia shen

What the upper god sits on: the day stem itself in lesson one, a branch in the other three.

Lodging palace寄宫 ji gong

The earth-plate branch where a day stem is placed, because the earth plate only has seats for the twelve branches.

Yin gods阴神 yin shen

The name for lessons two and four. Each is built on the upper god of the lesson before it.

If the two plates are new to you, start with what is Da Liu Ren, which explains the month general and how it turns the heaven plate. This guide picks up from a plate that is already turned.

The example plate: 21 October 2026, 10:30

Every guide in this series uses one moment: 21 October 2026 at 10:30, Tokyo time. Entered in the free tool, it gives a 戊辰 (wu chen) day and the 巳 (si) hour, the two hours from 9:00 to 11:00 on the clock.

The month general is 辰, called 天罡 Tian Gang. The free tool changes the general at each middle solar term, and the last one, 秋分 the autumn equinox, set it to 辰. Placing 辰 on the 巳 hour turns the heaven plate so that each earth branch carries the branch one place before it: 辰 over 巳, 卯 over 辰, and so on.

Where does the day stem lodge?

The earth plate holds only the twelve branches, so a day stem is placed at a fixed branch, its lodging palace. The Da Liu Ren Zhinan lists them with a reason: a yang stem lodges at the branch of its lu 禄, and a yin stem one place ahead, so no stem sits on 子, 午, 卯 or 酉.

The example's day stem is 戊, a yang earth stem, so it lodges at 巳. Note the two shared seats: 丙 and 戊 both lodge at 巳, and 丁 and 己 both at 未.

How to lay out the four lessons, step by step

1. Lesson one

   Go to the day stem's lodging palace, 巳. The heaven plate puts 辰 over it, so lesson one is 辰 over 戊.

2. Lesson two

   Treat that upper god, 辰, as a seat on the earth plate and look at what sits over it: 卯. Lesson two is 卯 over 辰.

3. Lesson three

   Go to the day branch, 辰, on the earth plate. 卯 sits over it, so lesson three is 卯 over 辰.

4. Lesson four

   Treat 卯 as a seat and look above it: 寅. Lesson four is 寅 over 卯.

Traditional manuals write the lessons from right to left, lesson one on the far right, with the upper gods on the top row.

Lessons two and three came out the same, and that is not a slip. The god over the stem's palace is 辰, which is also the day branch, so both paths climb from 辰 to 卯. It happens on any plate where lesson one's upper god is the day branch.

How is each lesson's relation read?

Each lesson is also judged by the elements of its two halves. A lower position that controls its upper god is lower harms upper, 下贼上; an upper god that controls its seat is upper controls lower, 上克下. The others feed one way or the other, or share an element.

Controls matter because the Da Liu Ren three transmissions start from them. Here 卯 is the only god that controls its seat, so the free tool begins the transmissions from 卯.

What does each of the four lessons stand for?

The Da Liu Ren Zhinan names the lessons by yin and yang. The stem is yang and the branch is yin, and within each pair the god on the seat is yang and the god above it is yin. Lessons two and four are together called the yin gods.

Its second volume gives the pairing most readers start from: the day stem stands for the person and the day branch for the matter, and a question about a household is read from the branch side. So lessons one and two are read as the asker's side and lessons three and four as the matter's. Finer meanings per lesson differ from teacher to teacher.

Why do other charts show different four lessons?

When two charts for the same moment disagree, the arithmetic is rarely the cause. Check these points in order.

1. Month general

   Does the source change it at the middle solar term, as the free tool does, or at the start of the solar month?

2. Hour

   Was the same clock time used? The free tool takes the time you enter, with no time-zone or solar-time correction.

3. Day boundary

   The free tool turns the day at midnight. A school that starts the day at 23:00 gets another day stem in that last hour.

4. Lodging palaces

   Do 丙 and 戊 both lodge at 巳, and 丁 and 己 at 未, as in the table above?

5. Lesson one's element

   Is the relation of lesson one judged with the stem's own element or with the element of its palace?

Lay out the four lessons for your own moment

Build a plate in the free Da Liu Ren calculator with Chart only. The result page lists the four lessons in a table: the names 干阳, 干阴, 支阳 and 支阴, then the upper god, the lower position and the relation, in the order used above.

Every heaven branch on the plate also carries one of the Da Liu Ren twelve generals, which colour how a lesson is read. For the method from the start, see the Da Liu Ren guide.