Surrounded palaces
Why a palace is never read alone, which four palaces make up the surrounded set, how flanking palaces differ from it, and how to get both in each of the three programming languages.
For: everyone. Code and the predicate table are at the end of the page
Why it exists
Reading a palace on its own loses half the information. The convention in Zi Wei Dou Shu is that any palace is read together with its opposite palace and its two trine palaces. Those four together are the surrounded palaces (三方四正).
The most immediate reason is the empty palace — when a palace holds no major star, tradition says to "borrow the stars of the opposite palace". Even when it is not empty, malefics and mutagens anywhere in the surrounded set bear on the reading of the palace at the centre.
Which four palaces
Taking the palace in question as the reference slot, the other three are at fixed offsets:
| Member | Slot | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Target | i | The palace being read |
| Opposite | i + 6 | Directly across; the most direct influence |
| Career position | i + 4 | One of the two trines |
| Wealth position | i + 8 | One of the two trines |
Slots are taken modulo 12. On the chart these four positions form a triangle plus a diagonal: 三方 ("three directions") is the trine of three palaces, 四正 ("four squared") is those plus the opposite, four in all.
i+4 (career position)
／ ＼
／ ＼
i ──────── i+6 (opposite)
＼ ／
＼ ／
i+8 (wealth position)"Career position" and "wealth position" are names relative to the target palace, not the Career and Wealth palaces on the chart. They coincide only when the target is the Soul palace; for any other target, only the positional relationship is the same.
In code
All three programming languages accept either a palace index or a palace name:
let sp = astrolabe.surrounded_palaces(Palace::Soul).unwrap();
println!("{:?}", sp.opposite.name);The four members are target, opposite, career (the career position) and wealth (the wealth
position). On the chart used throughout these pages, taking the Soul palace as the target, they
resolve to soul, surface, career and wealth.
Predicates
The surrounded-palace predicates share names with the single-palace ones, but check the union of the four palaces. They are identical across the three programming languages:
| Method | Does |
|---|---|
have(stars) | Do the four palaces together hold all the given stars |
have_one_of(stars) | Do they hold any one of them |
not_have(stars) | Do they hold none of them |
have_mutagen(m) | Does any of the four carry the given mutagen |
not_have_mutagen(m) | Do none of the four carry it |
sp := chart.SurroundedPalaces(iztro.PalaceSoul)
sp.Have(iztro.StarTianfuMaj) // Tianfu in the surrounded set
sp.HaveOneOf(iztro.StarQingyangMin, iztro.StarTuoluoMin) // Qingyang or Tuoluo in sight
sp.NotHaveMutagen(iztro.MutagenJi) // no Hua Ji in sightThe astrolabe also offers three shortcuts that skip fetching the surrounded set first:
chart.is_surrounded(PalaceName.SOUL, [MajorStar.TIANFU])
chart.is_surrounded_one_of(PalaceName.SOUL, [MinorStar.QINGYANG, MinorStar.TUOLUO])
chart.not_surrounded(PalaceName.SOUL, [MinorStar.HUOXING])Don't confuse have with have_one_of
have requires every star in the list to be present; have_one_of requires only one. A
question like "is a malefic in sight?" almost always wants have_one_of.
A worked example
Testing whether the Soul palace is "flanked by auspicious stars and clear of malefics":
from x_iztro.enums import PalaceName, MinorStar
chart = Astro().by_solar("2000-8-16", 2, "female", language="en-US")
sp = chart.surrounded_palaces(PalaceName.SOUL)
lucky = sp.have_one_of([MinorStar.ZUOFU, MinorStar.YOUBI,
MinorStar.WENCHANG, MinorStar.WENQU])
clean = sp.not_have([MinorStar.QINGYANG, MinorStar.TUOLUO,
MinorStar.HUOXING, MinorStar.LINGXING])
print(lucky, clean, lucky and clean)True False FalseThis chart has Wenchang and Wenqu in the surrounded set, but it also sees some of Qingyang, Tuoluo, Huoxing and Lingxing, so the pattern does not hold.
Flanking palaces
The flanking palaces (夹宫) of a target palace are the two immediately either side of it:
slots i - 1 and i + 1. The twelve palaces form a ring, so slots wrap modulo 12 — the palace
before slot 0 is slot 11.
… ── i-1 (previous) ── i (the flanked palace) ── i+1 (next) ── …Flanking and the surrounded set do not overlap: none of i±1 coincides with i+4, i+6 or
i+8.
| Relation | Members | Slots | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surrounded palaces | Meeting across the chart (会照) | Target, opposite, career position, wealth position | i i+6 i+4 i+8 |
| Flanking palaces | Pressing from either side (相夹) | Previous, next | i-1 i+1 |
Meeting is a resonance across the board: it asks which forces answer to one another. Flanking is pressure at close quarters: it asks what the palace is hemmed in by. Different images, so the two lines of evidence are read separately.
The flanking set excludes the target: the surrounded set counts the target as one of its four members, while flanking holds only the two neighbours.
Predicates run on the union of the two
The predicates share names and meaning with the surrounded ones; the range becomes the union of the two flanking palaces:
| Method | Does |
|---|---|
have(stars) | Do the two palaces together hold all the given stars |
have_one_of(stars) | Do they hold any one of them |
not_have(stars) | Do they hold none of them |
have_mutagen(m) | Does either palace carry the given mutagen |
not_have_mutagen(m) | Does neither carry it |
have does not require both stars in the same palace
Flanking is one star on each side by definition. have([Tianji, Tianyue]) is true when Tianji sits
in the previous palace and Tianyue in the next — the predicate reads the union of the two, not which
of them a star landed in.
let f = chart.flanking_palaces(Palace::Soul).unwrap();
println!("{} / {}", translate_palace(f.previous.name, Language::EnUS),
translate_palace(f.next.name, Language::EnUS));
println!("{}", f.have(&[StarKey::TianjiMaj, StarKey::TianyueMin]));
println!("{}", f.have_one_of(&[StarKey::QingyangMin, StarKey::TuoluoMin]));siblings / parents
true
trueOn this chart the Soul palace is flanked by Siblings (Tianji) and Parents (Tianyue, Tuoluo). Tianji
and Tianyue sit on opposite sides, so have still holds. Of Qingyang and Tuoluo only Tuoluo is
present, so have_one_of is true while have is false — 羊陀夹命 does not form.
What it is used for
Every "XX flanking life" pattern rests on this geometry: two stars in the palaces either side of the Soul palace. In the pattern engine that covers 羊陀夹命, 日月夹命, 左右夹命, 魁钺夹命, 劫空夹命, 昌曲夹命 and 科权禄夹, and also 紫府夹命 and 金舆扶驾. Why flanking and meeting must never be conflated is on the pattern page under Easily misread points.
Flanking palaces have their own semantic text too: one section per side, structured like the surrounded-palace text, with the role headings "Previous Palace" and "Next Palace".
Star classes and keys are on Stars.
Mutagens and flying stars
Where the four mutagens come from, the full ten-stem mutagen table, and how self-mutagens and flying predicates work.
Horoscopes
What each of the six time scopes computes, why the palace name on a cell changes, how the childhood scope is derived, and where flowing stars and yearly twelve gods come from.