The Ten Gods are the layer that turns a Ba Zi chart from eight characters into a reading. Every other character in the chart is measured against one reference point — the Day Master — and the relationship is decided by two questions with five and two answers: which of the five element relations holds, and do the polarities match. Five times two is ten, which is why there are exactly ten gods and never an eleventh. This piece derives the whole table from those two questions, works a full example, and explains the two structural details most introductions leave out: why the Day stem never appears in its own list, and why hidden stems count for less.
Two questions, five answers and two answers
Take your Day Master and any other stem in the chart. Ask two questions.
First: which of the five element relations holds? Any two of the five elements stand in exactly one of five possible relations — they are the same element; the other produces mine; mine produces the other; the other controls mine; mine controls the other. That is the whole space. There is no sixth.
Second: do the polarities match? Every Heavenly Stem is yang or yin. Two stems are either matched (both yang, both yin) or unmatched.
Five relations × two polarity states = ten. That is the entire derivation. The Ten Gods are not a traditional list someone decided to stop at ten; ten is the number of cells in a 5×2 grid, and the tradition simply named all of them.
The naming follows one consistent rule, which is worth learning once rather than memorising ten labels: matched polarity produces the eccentric or indirect form (偏), unmatched polarity produces the orthodox or direct form (正). Two yang stems relating is read as blunt, unmediated, same-facing-same. A yang and a yin relating is read as complementary and therefore socially legible.
The complete table
| God | 十神 | Relation to Day Master | Polarity | Keynote |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Companion | 比肩 | Same element | Matched | Peers, self-reliance, direct competition |
| Rob Wealth | 劫財 | Same element | Unmatched | Siblings and rivals; resources split |
| Eating God | 食神 | I produce it | Matched | Steady output, appetite, craft, ease of expression |
| Hurting Officer | 傷官 | I produce it | Unmatched | Brilliant, outspoken output that challenges rules |
| Direct Wealth | 正財 | I control it | Unmatched | Earned income, stewardship, the predictable return |
| Indirect Wealth | 偏財 | I control it | Matched | Windfalls, ventures, opportunistic gain |
| Direct Officer | 正官 | It controls me | Unmatched | Legitimate authority, structure, role, reputation |
| 7 Killings (Indirect Officer) | 七殺 | It controls me | Matched | Raw pressure, stakes, transformation under force |
| Direct Resource | 正印 | It produces me | Unmatched | Nurture, education, protection, the received gift |
| Indirect Resource | 偏印 | It produces me | Matched | Unconventional learning, insight, solitary study |
Five pairs. Read down the Relation column and you will see the five element relations, each appearing twice — once matched, once unmatched. That is the whole system, and everything below is consequence.
Note the double name in row eight. 7 Killings (七殺) and Indirect Officer (偏官) are the same god, and different lineages and different translations prefer different names for it. If you have seen a chart labelled one way and a book label it the other, nothing has changed.
A worked example: Jia Wood
Take a Day Master of Jia (甲) — yang Wood — and run it against all ten Heavenly Stems. Wood is produced by Water, produces Fire, is controlled by Metal, and controls Earth.
- Jia (yang Wood) — same element, matched → Companion
- Yi (yin Wood) — same element, unmatched → Rob Wealth
- Bing (yang Fire) — Wood produces Fire, matched → Eating God
- Ding (yin Fire) — Wood produces Fire, unmatched → Hurting Officer
- Wu (yang Earth) — Wood controls Earth, matched → Indirect Wealth
- Ji (yin Earth) — Wood controls Earth, unmatched → Direct Wealth
- Geng (yang Metal) — Metal controls Wood, matched → 7 Killings
- Xin (yin Metal) — Metal controls Wood, unmatched → Direct Officer
- Ren (yang Water) — Water produces Wood, matched → Indirect Resource
- Gui (yin Water) — Water produces Wood, unmatched → Direct Resource
Ten stems, ten gods, one each. This is always true: against any Day Master, the ten stems map one-to-one onto the ten gods. If a derivation produces a duplicate, the derivation is wrong.
The two details most introductions leave out
The Day stem is not in its own list
A correctly built Ten Gods list reads the Year, Month and Hour stems — and pointedly not the Day stem, because the Day stem is the Day Master. Measuring it against itself would return Companion every time and say nothing about the chart.
This sounds obvious, and it is a surprisingly common error in software and in beginner readings, where an automatically generated "Companion" appears in every chart ever produced and is quietly interpreted as a personality trait.
Hidden stems are not full-weight
The four visible stems are only half the chart. Every Earthly Branch conceals one to three Heavenly Stems inside it, and each of those hidden stems also carries a Ten God relationship to the Day Master.
But they do not count equally. Branch qi is conventionally distributed across three tiers:
| Tier | 气 | Typical weight |
|---|---|---|
| Heavenly Stem | — | 1.0 |
| Main qi (本气) | primary | ~0.7 |
| Middle qi (中气) | second | ~0.2 |
| Residual qi (余气) | trace | ~0.1 |
A Direct Officer sitting openly in the Month stem and a Direct Officer buried as residual qi in the Hour branch are both "Direct Officer in the chart" and are not remotely the same statement. The first organises a life. The second is a trace.
Reading a chart by counting god names without weighting them is the single most reliable way to reach a confident wrong conclusion — and it is exactly what a list-shaped output invites you to do. The storage branches are where this matters most, since a vault can hold a god that never surfaces at all.
No god is good or bad on its own
Every one of the ten reads in two directions, and which direction depends on something computed before the gods are ever interpreted: is the Day Master strong or weak?
A weak Day Master needs Resource and Companions — support and allies — and finds Officer and Wealth exhausting, because both make demands on a self that has nothing spare. A strong Day Master has the opposite problem: it needs Officer to give it structure and Wealth to give it something to do, and more Resource simply makes it overfed.
So Direct Officer is discipline that makes a strong chart useful and pressure that crushes a weak one. Indirect Wealth is opportunity for a Day Master with the capacity to chase it and a distraction for one without. Rob Wealth splits resources — a loss when they are scarce, and a welcome ally when the Day Master needs company to stand up.
This is why the sequence matters. Compute the pillars, establish the Day Master, assess its strength, then read the gods. Any reading that skips the third step is assigning meanings to labels.
What the Ten Gods do not cover
They describe relationships between elements. They do not describe timing — that is the Luck Pillars and the annual cycle, where a new stem and branch enter the chart every ten years and every year and are read as gods in exactly the same way, which is the system's real economy: one relationship table, applied to the natal chart and to every moment that arrives afterwards.
They also do not describe events. A Ten God is a relationship, and a relationship is a shape a life can take, not a thing that will happen on a date. Any source telling you that Hurting Officer in the Month pillar means a specific outcome has left the system and started making claims it cannot support.
Start with the eight characters. Compute the pillars, find the stem of the day, and everything else in the chart becomes a relationship to it.
Frequently asked questions
What are the Ten Gods in Ba Zi?
Ten labels describing how each element in a chart relates to the Day Master. They are produced by two questions: which of the five element relations holds between the two (same, it produces me, I produce it, it controls me, I control it), and do the two share polarity. Five relations times two polarity states gives exactly ten, which is why the list is closed at ten and cannot grow.
Why are there exactly ten gods and not more?
Because the two inputs are exhaustive. Any two of the five elements stand in exactly one of five relations, and any two stems are either both yang, both yin, or mixed — which reduces to matched or unmatched. There is no third question to ask, so there is no eleventh god. The number ten is a consequence of the structure, not a convention someone chose.
What is the difference between Direct Officer and 7 Killings?
Both describe the element that controls your Day Master — authority, pressure, the force that disciplines you. Direct Officer (正官) is the version with opposite polarity, read as legitimate structure: rules you accepted, a role you hold. 7 Killings (七殺) is the same-polarity version, read as raw pressure without the softening of complementarity. 7 Killings is also called Indirect Officer (偏官); the two names describe one god.
Why does the Day stem not appear in my Ten Gods list?
Because it is the Day Master itself — the reference point every other character is measured against. Comparing it to itself would always return Companion and would tell you nothing. A correctly built list therefore reads the Year, Month and Hour stems plus the hidden stems inside all four branches, and leaves the Day stem out as the thing doing the measuring.
Do hidden stems count as much as visible ones?
No. A Heavenly Stem sits in the open and carries full weight. The stems hidden inside an Earthly Branch are weighted by their share of that branch qi — conventionally around 0.7 for the main qi, 0.2 for the middle, and 0.1 for the residual. A god appearing only as a residual hidden stem is present in the chart but faint, and treating it as equal to a visible stem is the most common way a beginner reading goes wrong.
Is Rob Wealth a bad god to have?
Not inherently. Rob Wealth (劫財) is a peer of the same element but opposite polarity — a sibling, a competitor, a partner. It splits resources, which is a loss when resources are scarce and support when the Day Master is weak and needs allies to stand. Every one of the ten gods reads differently depending on whether the Day Master needs strengthening or restraining, which is why strength is assessed before the gods are interpreted.
Which god represents money?
The Wealth pair — Direct Wealth (正財) and Indirect Wealth (偏財) — which is the element your Day Master controls. Direct Wealth is steady and earned, the salary and the predictable return; Indirect Wealth is irregular, opportunistic, the windfall and the side venture. Neither guarantees money. They describe your relationship to what you can command, and a chart heavy with Wealth and a Day Master too weak to hold it is a classical picture of money that arrives and leaves.
References
- Chinese astrologyWikipedia
- Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)Wikipedia
- Heavenly StemsWikipedia