The ten Heavenly Stems (天干, tiān gān) are the upper row of a BaZi chart. Each stem is one of the five elements in either yang or yin: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water × two polarities. The Day Master’s stem — the upper character of the day pillar — is the center of the chart. The other three stems are the rest of the weather.
This page is the stem list. The day-by-day personalities are in all 10 Day Masters. Elements as a cycle: BaZi five elements. The lower row is 12 Earthly Branches.
The Ten
| Stem | Pinyin | Polarity | Element | Common image |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 甲 | Jia | Yang | Wood | tall tree |
| 乙 | Yi | Yin | Wood | vine, grass |
| 丙 | Bing | Yang | Fire | sun |
| 丁 | Ding | Yin | Fire | lamp, hearth |
| 戊 | Wu | Yang | Earth | mountain, bank |
| 己 | Ji | Yin | Earth | garden soil |
| 庚 | Geng | Yang | Metal | axe, ore |
| 辛 | Xin | Yin | Metal | jewelry, needle |
| 壬 | Ren | Yang | Water | ocean, river |
| 癸 | Gui | Yin | Water | rain, mist |
The images are teaching metaphors, not destinies. Jia Wood is not required to become a CEO of a lumber company. It is a way of occupying Wood: upright, initiating, sometimes inflexible.
Stems Are Not Isolated
A stem sits on a branch. The branch has a main qi and hidden stems. Jia on Yin (Tiger) is not the same as Jia on Wu (Horse). The stem is the visible face; the branch is the room.
Stems also combine and clash with each other (the stem combinations and the chou/chong relationships that books list). Learn the ten faces first. Combinations are a second semester. See also stem and branch combinations.
Stem Versus Day Master
Every chart has four stems. Only one is the Day Master. Beginners read all four as if they were four personalities. That produces a committee. Read the Day Master as “who is looking.” Read the other stems as resources, output, power, or wealth relative to that Day Master — which is the Ten Gods language.
How the Ten Walk Through Time
Stems do not appear at random. They cycle Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui, then repeat. Years, days, and (with a pairing table) months and hours all take a stem from that wheel.
The 60-pair cycle is stem × branch. 2024 Jia Chen is Yang Wood on Dragon. Ten years later the stem has walked a full lap and the branch has not; twelve years later the branch has lapped and the stem has not. That is why “Wood Dragon” is rarer than “Dragon,” and why Chinese zodiac five elements exists as a second letter on the animal year.
For a natal chart you do not need to recite the whole 60. You need the four stems you were handed and the stem of the current year. The current-year stem is an annual role: the same Jia year is resource for a Bing Fire Day Master and power for a Yi Wood Day Master. Same letter, different job.
A First Pass on Your Four Stems
Write the four upper characters in order: year, month, day, hour.
- Circle the day stem. That is the Day Master. Stop calling the other three “who I am.”
- Name each of the other three by element and polarity, then by role relative to the Day Master.
- Notice repeats. Three Fire stems around a Wood Day Master is a chart that talks about output and heat. Three Metal stems around Wood is a chart that talks about pressure.
- Only then look at the branches those stems sit on. A helpful stem on a clashing branch is a useful person in a noisy room.
If the hour is unknown, do the first three. Do not invent a fourth stem to make the paragraph feel finished.
Jia Wood as Day Master is a different essay from Jia Wood as year stem on someone else’s chart. The first is a person. The second is weather they were born under. The Day Master portraits are for the first job. This page is for not mixing the jobs.
What Stems Do Not Tell You
A stem does not tell you your job title, your diagnosis, or whether a year will be “lucky.” It tells you a quality of occupying an element. The rest of the chart — season, hidden stems, luck pillars — decides whether that quality is well-fed, starved, or overfed.
English-language posts that assign a career to each stem (“Geng should be a surgeon”) are doing magazine astrology with Chinese letters. Geng is an image of Metal that cuts. What you cut is still a choice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are stems the same as the Chinese zodiac? No. The zodiac animals are the branches of the year, popularized. Stems are the elemental/polarity letters.
Do I need the hour stem? The hour pillar is one of four. Missing hour loses a stem and a branch. The other three still read. See hour pillar.
Is yang “better” than yin? No. Yang is more outward in the metaphor; yin is more inward. Both are required for a cycle.
Where do I start after this list? How to read a Four Pillars chart, then your Day Master page.