The Ten Gods (十神) Explained

The Ten Gods (十神) are the vocabulary of BaZi interpretation. They name the relationship between the Day Master and every other stem in the chart — visible stems, hidden stems, and the stems of luck and annual pillars. Once you can read the Ten Gods, a chart stops being a grid of characters and becomes a description of resources, outputs, pressures and support.

How they are derived

Each Ten God is defined by two questions: which element relation does the stem have with the Day Master, and is its polarity the same or different?

The "direct" (正) members have opposite polarity and are traditionally considered more balanced; the "indirect" (偏) members share polarity and are considered more one-sided. Seven Killings, for example, is a same-polarity control and is traditionally described as more forceful than the Direct Officer.

The full lookup table

Here is every combination: find your Day Master in the left column and read across to see what each stem means for you.

Notice the pattern: each row is the same sequence shifted. That is because the Ten Gods depend only on element and polarity relations, which repeat around the cycle.

The five families

It is often easier to think in five families than in ten individual gods:

• Companions (比劫) — peers, siblings, self-reliance, competition. They support a weak Day Master and compete for wealth in a strong one.
• Output (食伤) — expression, creativity, skills, children in classical texts. They drain the Day Master and generate wealth.
• Wealth (财) — resources the Day Master manages: money, property, and in classical texts the wife for a male chart. They consume the Day Master's energy.
• Officer (官杀) — authority, structure, discipline, pressure, and in classical texts the husband for a female chart. They control the Day Master.
• Resource (印) — support, learning, protection, documents, the mother. They generate the Day Master.

The classical gendered associations reflect the society in which the texts were written. Many modern practitioners read the families more broadly — wealth as what you manage, officer as what manages you — and this site follows that broader reading.

Reading by strength

The meaning of a Ten God changes with the strength of the Day Master. This is the most important rule in Ten God interpretation:

• For a strong Day Master, output, wealth and officer stems are usually welcome: they use, channel or discipline the surplus energy. Companions and resources add to an excess.
• For a weak Day Master, resources and companions are usually welcome; output, wealth and officer stems add pressure.

So the same Hurting Officer can be read as creative talent in one chart and as friction with authority in another. Lists that assign fixed meanings — "Seven Killings = danger" — ignore this rule. See how to judge strength.

Reading by position

Position matters as much as identity:

• Month pillar — the environment, career setting and structure of the chart. The Ten God of the month branch's main hidden stem names the chart's structure (格局).
• Day branch — the Day Master's closest support and, classically, the spouse palace.
• Year pillar — background, family of origin, early years.
• Hour pillar — output, later years, and classically children.

A Direct Wealth in the day branch is read differently from a Direct Wealth in the year stem, even though the label is the same.

Visible and hidden

Visible stems express their Ten God openly. Hidden stems are latent: they become prominent when the same stem appears above (revealed, 透干), or when a luck or annual pillar clashes or combines the branch. The calculator lists hidden-stem Ten Gods separately so you can see both layers.

How the gods interact

Ten Gods act on each other in pairs, and classical structures are built from these pairings:

• Eating God controls Seven Killings (食神制杀) — expression restrains pressure.
• Resource transforms Seven Killings (杀印相生) — pressure feeds support, which feeds the Day Master.
• Resource restrains Hurting Officer (伤官佩印) — learning tempers rebelliousness.
• Wealth generates Officer (财生官) — resources support position.
• Rob Wealth competes for Wealth (比劫夺财) — peers compete for resources.

Recognising these pairs is the step from labelling a chart to reading it. See reading the Ten Gods in context.

Ten Gods over time

Luck pillars and annual pillars bring new stems, and each one is a Ten God relative to your Day Master. A decade of Direct Resource stems brings the themes of support and learning; a year of Seven Killings brings pressure and challenge — and whether those are welcome depends, again, on strength. The calculator labels every luck and annual pillar with its Ten Gods.

Key terms in this article

Ten Gods · 十神

The Ten Gods name each stem by its element relation and polarity relative to the Day Master: Friend and Rob Wealth (same element), Eating God and Hurting Officer (output), Direct and Indirect Wealth, Direct Officer and Seven Killings, Direct and Indirect Resource.

Chart Structure · 格局

Chart structure (格局) classifies a chart mainly by the Ten God of the month branch's main qi, e.g. Direct Officer structure or Eating God structure. Classical texts such as 子平真诠 build their analysis around it.

Hidden Stems · 藏干

Hidden stems (藏干 or 人元) are the stems stored inside each earthly branch: a main qi and up to two residual qi. For example 寅 holds 甲 (main), 丙 and 戊. Hidden stems provide roots for the Day Master and can be "revealed" when the same stem appears above.

Strong Day Master · 身强

A strong Day Master is supported by the season, has roots and is backed by companion or resource stems. Traditionally it handles pressure well and benefits from output, wealth and officer elements that use or channel its energy.

A worked reading

Suppose a 庚 metal Day Master is born in a 午 month. The month branch holds 丁 (Direct Officer) as main qi and 己 (Direct Resource) as middle qi. If 丁 is also revealed as a visible stem, the chart's structure is commonly described as a Direct Officer structure. The next question is whether the Day Master can carry it: in a fire month metal is out of season, so the reader looks for earth (Resource) to support metal and to absorb the fire. If 己 or 戊 appears with roots, the Officer and Resource cooperate — the classic "Officer produces Resource, Resource supports self" chain. If there is no earth and much fire, the Officer becomes pressure rather than structure.

This one paragraph uses four ideas from this article: the lookup table, hidden stems, strength, and interaction. That is the normal shape of a Ten Gods reading — never one star on its own.

Ten Gods and modern life

Traditional texts tie the Ten Gods to family roles and to official careers that no longer exist in the same form. Modern readers usually translate them into themes: Officer as structure and accountability, Wealth as resources and practical management, Output as expression and skill, Resource as learning and support, Companions as peers and self-reliance. These translations are interpretive conventions, not literal predictions, and it is worth stating them as such when you explain a chart to someone else.

Practising with your own chart

Open the Ten Gods calculator, enter a birth time and write down the Ten God of every visible stem and every main-qi hidden stem. Then group them into the five families and note which family is strongest, which is missing, and where each sits by pillar position. Ten minutes of this exercise teaches more than reading definitions.

Common questions

Which Ten God is "best"? None. Each has constructive and excessive expressions.

What if a family is missing? A missing family is not automatically a problem; it may appear in hidden stems or in luck pillars, or simply not be central to the chart.

Do I count hidden stems equally? No. Main qi counts more than residual qi, and visible stems act more directly.

Next: five elements in BaZi, or open the Ten Gods guides.