Heavenly Stems And Earthly Branches
Heavenly stems and earthly branches are given the symbols from HS1-HS10 and EB1-EB12 respectively. This is for easier reference for those who are not proficient in the Chinese language.
The plus (+) symbol refers to “Yang” and minus (-) symbol refers to “Yin”.
Heavenly Stems (HS)
| HS1 | 甲 (Jia) | + Wood |
| HS2 | 乙 (Yi) | – Wood |
| HS3 | 丙 (Bing) | + Fire |
| HS4 | 丁 (Ding) | – Fire |
| HS5 | 戊 (Wu) | + Earth |
| HS6 | 己 (Ji) | – Earth |
| HS7 | 庚 (Geng) | + Metal |
| HS8 | 辛 (Xin) | – Metal |
| HS9 | 壬 (Ren) | + Water |
| HS10 | 癸 (Gui) | + Water |
Earthly Branches (EB)
| EB1 | 子 (Zi) | Rat | + Water |
| EB2 | 丑 (Chou) | Ox | -Earth |
| EB3 | 寅 (Yin) | Tiger | + Wood |
| EB4 | 卯 (Mao) | Rabbit | – Wood |
| EB5 | 辰 (Chen) | Dragon | + Earth |
| EB6 | 巳 (Si) | Snake | – Fire |
| EB7 | 午 (Wu) | Horse | + Fire |
| EB8 | 未 (Wei) | Goat | – Earth |
| EB9 | 申 (Shen) | Monkey | + Metal |
| EB10 | 酉 (You) | Rooster | – Metal |
| EB11 | 戌 (Xu) | Dog | + Earth |
| EB12 | 亥 (Hai) | Pig | – Water |
The heavenly stems and earthly branches are used extensively in the 4 pillars of destiny (bazi) and the application of feng shui. The tables above will serve as a good reference guide when you encounter them when doing life readings and practicing feng shui.
If you wish to memorize them, there is a formula that can help you.
There are 10 heavenly stems and 12 earthly branches.
Heavenly stems:
- starts with yang wood (+ wood)
- each following stem that follows will alternate between yin and yang
- order of elements follow the cycle of birth with each element occurring twice
This means that if you are looking for what element HS6 represents, it would obviously be yin Earth since the sixth element will be yin in nature and an earth element after 2 occurrences of wood and fire before it.
Earthly branches:
- starts with yang water followed by yin earth
- each following stem that follows will alternate between yin and yang
- order of elements follow the cycle of birth excluding earth
- each element occurs twice excluding earth
- 1 earth element occurs in between different elements
So if you want to find out what is EB7, first take note that it would be yang in nature since it’s the seventh branch.
Using the formula, water would be followed by earth, followed by 2 occurrences of wood (water gives birth to wood), followed by 1 earth, and 2 occurrences of fire (wood fives birth to fire). EB7 is therefore yang fire.