Selected readings from the Zhu Xing Wen Da Lun

A question-and-answer encyclopedia of stars

The "Zhu Xing Wen Da Lun" in volume one of the *Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu* is the part of the book most like an "encyclopedia of stars". Every section opens with "What does such-and-such star govern?", then answers with the star's element, whether it belongs to the Southern or Northern Dipper, and its Hua Qi, before turning to personality and how it changes in different palaces and with different stars.

For example, the Tian Ji section opens "Tian Ji belongs to wood, the third star of the Southern Dipper, the good star that extends one's reckoning"; Tian Xiang's "Tian Xiang belongs to water, the fifth star of the Southern Dipper"; and Tian Liang's "Tian Liang belongs to earth, the second star of the Southern Dipper". The "Hua Qi" on Xingge's term cards, like Tian Xiang transforming into the Seal or Tian Liang into Shelter, comes from here.

It covers more than the fourteen main stars: Wen Chang and Wen Qu, Zuo Fu and You Bi, Tian Kui and Tian Yue, Lu Cun and Tian Ma, the transformations, Qing Yang, Tuo Luo, Huo Xing and Ling Xing, Di Kong and Di Jie, and small stars such as Tian Shang and Tian Shi, Tian Xing, Tian Yao, and Tian Ku and Tian Xu.

Several voices

The same star often has several passages: first "the answer", then "Master Xiyi says", sometimes "Master Yuchan says", and finally a "song" in seven- or five-character lines for memorizing. Master Yuchan appears as "Master Bai Yuchan" elsewhere in volume one.

The views sometimes complement each other and sometimes stress different things. Tian Liang's "answer" says it is "in appearance solid, warm and modest", while Master Xiyi's passage says "the person is refined and gentle, steady in form and spirit": one emphasizes solidity, the other refinement. You don't need to pick the right one; just take what they share: steady and gentle.

Three stars to read

Tian Ji

It has no heart for cruelty or unkindness, and a mind for clever adaptation. It sees the fish in the deep and does things with method.

Tian Ji is kind-hearted and quick to react, with powers of observation fine enough to see fish in deep water, and orderly in what it does. "Seeing the fish in the deep" is a common old allusion that originally carried a warning, that seeing too clearly isn't always good; here it's used to praise Tian Ji's observation. Cleverness and overthinking were always two sides of the same coin.

Tian Xiang

Its words are honest and its deeds without pretense. Seeing others in difficulty, it feels compassion; seeing others wronged, it feels indignant.

Tian Xiang speaks plainly, softens when others are in trouble and wants to speak up at unfairness: a mediator with a sense of justice. The same passage says it "does not change its resolve to follow wrongdoing, and does not shift because of Qi Sha": however bad the people around it, it rarely changes with them.

Tian Liang

In a person's chart, it is open and upright in character; in appearance, solid, warm and modest, straightforward and selfless.

Tian Liang is aboveboard, steady and modest, and acts without favoritism, which is why it's often called the elder star. Like the senior colleague everyone goes to with a problem, who never spreads gossip.

Points to watch when reading

The dialogues are thorough, and very direct. The Zi Wei section says "without Zuo Fu and You Bi alongside, it is a lonely ruler", meaning the emperor star needs helpers around it to do well; the song of Tian Fu says "Tian Fu is the treasury of wealth; meeting it in Life, one is rich in the end", treating it as a treasury star. But quite a few passages, especially on Tan Lang, Ju Men and Tian Yao, use heavy moral language, and the descriptions of women carry the biases of their time.

Xingge's approach: take each star's nature as its persona; treat verdicts loaded with conditions only as reference, "how practitioners tend to see it"; and say outdated values over again with today's eyes.