XinggeLuck Periods and the Northern and Southern Dippers
〈論行限分南北斗〉
The Complete Book of Zi Wei Dou Shu, Volume 3: Reading a life and its luck periods · Original text with translation
Introduction
Luck Periods and the Northern and Southern Dippers (論行限分南北斗) is only three sentences long. It sorts the stars into two groups, the Southern Dipper and the Northern Dipper, and uses them to time when a luck period's good or bad events arrive.
The first sentence says which group brings blessing to whom: yang men and yin women are blessed by the Southern Dipper stars, yin men and yang women by the Northern Dipper stars. The other two set the timing. The good or bad of the Northern Dipper stars shows in the first five years of a Decade Luck and the first half of a Minor Luck year; that of the Southern Dipper stars shows in the last five years of a Decade Luck and the second half of a Minor Luck year.
In the usual listing the Northern Dipper stars include Tan Lang, Ju Men, Lu Cun, Wen Qu, Lian Zhen, Wu Qu and Po Jun; the Southern Dipper stars include Tian Fu, Tian Liang, Tian Ji, Tian Tong, Tian Xiang and Qi Sha; Zi Wei, Tai Yang and Tai Yin belong to the central heaven. In the middle of the second sentence the base text has a stray half-width question mark, a slip for a comma.
1陽男陰女南斗為福。陰男陽女北斗為福。
TranslationYang men and yin women take the Southern Dipper stars as their blessing; yin men and yang women take the Northern Dipper stars as their blessing.
- 陽男陰女
- A man born in a yang year (stems Jia, Bing, Wu, Geng, Ren) and a woman born in a yin year (stems Yi, Ding, Ji, Xin, Gui).
This sentence pairs the two Dippers with yin and yang men and women: yang men and yin women are blessed by the Southern Dipper stars, yin men and yang women by the Northern Dipper stars. Yang men and yin women are exactly the people whose Decade Luck runs forward, and yin men and yang women are those whose luck runs backward, so this rule uses the same yin-yang division as the direction of the Decade Luck. Which star belongs to which Dipper is listed in the Quan Shu's table of the stars by Dipper: Tian Tong, for example, is a Southern Dipper star and Tan Lang a Northern one. A Xingge chart does not mark the Dippers and does not adjust good or bad by them, so readers have to do the matching themselves: take yin or yang from the year stem of the birth data, then see which Dipper the main stars of the Decade Luck palace belong to.
2北斗諸星吉凶，大限斷上五年應?小限斷上半年應。
TranslationThe good or bad of the Northern Dipper stars: in the Decade Luck, judge it to show in the first five years; in the Minor Luck, judge it to show in the first half of the year.
- 北斗
- The Northern Dipper: usually Tan Lang, Ju Men, Lu Cun, Wen Qu, Lian Zhen, Wu Qu, Po Jun and others.
Textual note: In 「大限斷上五年應?小限……」, the half-width question mark in the middle should be a comma, matching the next sentence.
Here the Northern Dipper stars are given the front half: the first five years of a Decade Luck, the first half of a Minor Luck year. The original gives no reason. The usual explanation is that the Northern Dipper governs what comes first and the Southern Dipper what comes after, the northern stars being quick and outward, the southern ones slow and reserved. In practice, if the Decade Luck palace holds Northern Dipper stars (Tan Lang, Ju Men, Lian Zhen, Wu Qu, Po Jun and so on), the good or bad of those ten years surfaces earlier. Many later schools dropped this split into two halves of five years and divide a decade instead with the palace-stem transformations or the Annual Luck; Xingge does not use the five-year split either.
3南斗諸星吉凶，大限斷下五年應，小限斷下半年應。
TranslationThe good or bad of the Southern Dipper stars: in the Decade Luck, judge it to show in the last five years; in the Minor Luck, judge it to show in the second half of the year.
- 南斗
- The Southern Dipper: usually Tian Fu, Tian Liang, Tian Ji, Tian Tong, Tian Xiang, Qi Sha and others.
The mirror of the previous sentence: the good or bad of the Southern Dipper stars shows in the last five years of a Decade Luck and the second half of a Minor Luck year. The Southern Dipper includes Tian Fu, Tian Liang, Tian Ji, Tian Tong, Tian Xiang and Qi Sha. Taken together, the two sentences give the ten years of a Decade Luck a front and a back. If one palace holds stars of both Dippers, such as Wu Qu with Tian Fu (Wu Qu is a Northern Dipper star, Tian Fu a Southern one), the decade can be read as two halves with a theme each. This is one of the Quan Shu's timing techniques and few people use it now, but it is worth testing against what actually happened in past decades of one's own life.
Base text (Wikisource, partly in simplified Chinese)
FAQ
What is the difference between Southern Dipper and Northern Dipper stars?
Luck Periods and the Northern and Southern Dippers says the good or bad of the Northern Dipper stars shows in the first five years of a Decade Luck and the first half of a Minor Luck year, while the Southern Dipper stars show in the last five years and the second half. Yang men and yin women are blessed by the Southern Dipper, yin men and yang women by the Northern Dipper.
Does a Decade Luck's fortune show in its first five years or its last five?
According to this chapter, it depends on whether the stars of the luck are Northern or Southern Dipper stars: Northern Dipper stars govern the first five years, Southern Dipper stars the last five.