XinggeChildren Who Harm Their Parents
〈論小兒剋親〉
The Complete Book of Zi Wei Dou Shu, Volume 3: Reading a life and its luck periods · Original text with translation
Introduction
Children Who Harm Their Parents (論小兒剋親), in volume three of the Complete Book of Zi Wei Dou Shu, is a single paragraph that judges whether a child harms its parents from the combination of birth-year branch and birth hour.
For those born in Yin, Wu, Si or You years, birth in the Chen, Xu, Chou or Wei hour is the most poisonous, and for those born in Zi, Shen, Hai or Mao years it is next. Those born in Yin, Hai or Si years in the Wu, Shen, You or Hai hour harm the father first, but past sixteen it does no harm. Those born in Chen, Si, Chou or Wei years in the Zi, Wu, Mao, Si, Hai, Shen or You hour harm the mother first.
This is a pure pairing of year branch and hour branch; it looks at no stars and has nothing to do with the stars on the chart. The base text's 戍 is a slip for the branch 戌.
1如寅午巳酉生人，見辰戍丑未時最毒，子申亥卯生人次之。若寅亥巳生人，見午申酉亥時，主先剋父，出十六歲則不妨。若辰巳丑未生人，見子午卯巳亥申酉時生者，主先剋母。
TranslationFor example, for those born in Yin, Wu, Si or You years, meeting the Chen, Xu, Chou or Wei hour is most poisonous; for those born in Zi, Shen, Hai or Mao years it is next. For those born in Yin, Hai or Si years, meeting the Wu, Shen, You or Hai hour means harming the father first; past sixteen years of age it does no harm. For those born in Chen, Si, Chou or Wei years, birth in the Zi, Wu, Mao, Si, Hai, Shen or You hour means harming the mother first.
- 剋
- Harm: a parent injured, dying early, or with only a thin bond to the child.
Textual note: The 戍 in 「辰戍丑未」 should be the branch 戌.
This passage judges by two things only, the branch of the birth year and the branch of the birth hour, and does not look at the stars at all. It is a method of the old spirit-star kind, a separate system from the star chart of Dou Shu. Looking closely at the three lists, they overlap: someone born in a Si year appears in the 'most poisonous' group, the 'harms the father first' group and the 'harms the mother first' group, and the text does not say how to choose when they overlap. For a modern reading, these sayings about harming parents can only be taken as the ancients' lore. To judge the bond with parents, Dou Shu's own method is the Parents Palace and the brightness of Tai Yang and Tai Yin; the Quan Shu's Parents Palace chapter says that Tai Yang in Xian harms the father first and Tai Yin in Xian the mother, and that is the basis one can actually see on a chart.
Base text (Wikisource, partly in simplified Chinese)
FAQ
How does Zi Wei Dou Shu say a child harms its parents?
Children Who Harm Their Parents pairs the birth-year branch with the birth hour: for those born in Yin, Wu, Si or You years, the Chen, Xu, Chou or Wei hour is most poisonous; for those born in Yin, Hai or Si years, the Wu, Shen, You or Hai hour harms the father first, and past sixteen it does no harm; for those born in Chen, Si, Chou or Wei years, the Zi, Wu, Mao, Si, Hai, Shen or You hour harms the mother first.
Is harm to the father over after the age of sixteen?
The original says that for those born in Yin, Hai or Si years in the Wu, Shen, You or Hai hour, 「主先剋父，出十六歲則不妨」: the father is harmed first, and once past sixteen it does no harm.