Ten Gods in BaZi: How to Calculate and Read the Ten Relationships

This guide explains Ten Gods in BaZi. The Ten Gods (Shi Shen, 十神) in BaZi are ten relationship labels calculated from the Day Master, the Heavenly Stem of the day pillar. They do not describe fate as a prize or a penalty. Each of the five families—Peer, Output, Wealth, Authority, and Resource—splits by yin-yang polarity into two roles. A chart reading starts by identifying the Day Master, mapping every stem and hidden stem against it, then ranking the results by season, strength, and combination instead of treating a single label as a prediction. Practical decisions still rest on booking rules, weather, law, safety, and professional advice.

What the Ten Gods actually measure

BaZi, also called the Four Pillars of Destiny, records a birth moment as four columns: year, month, day, and hour. Each column holds a Heavenly Stem and an Earthly Branch. The Ten Gods are not extra planets added around that chart. They are names for how every other stem relates to one reference point, the Day Master (Ri Yuan, 日元). Hidden stems inside the branches take the same names once you extract them.

The names travel with the Day Master, not with the calendar. Direct Wealth is not a fixed property of Earth or Metal. It is the role of the element the Day Master controls, with opposite polarity. Change the Day Master, and the same stem changes family. A label copied from a forum post, a celebrity chart, or a year-column slogan cannot be reused. The system is a cultural map of Five-Element production and control, not a certificate of marriage, salary, or health.

Locate the Day Master before you name anything

Ten God work fails in the first minute when the Day Master is wrong. Fix the reference, then name the relationships.

1. Convert the birth time with the solar-term year boundary and the double-hour clock used in Four Pillars work. Civil midnight and the January calendar year are not the same cut.
2. Read the four pillars as year, month, day, and hour, each with a stem and a branch.
3. Take only the Heavenly Stem of the day pillar. That stem is the Day Master.
4. Write its Five-Element identity and its polarity, yang or yin, on a single line.
5. List every remaining Heavenly Stem, then extract the hidden stems of the four branches.

If you need the solar-term conversion done on a consistent grid, open the BaZi Calculator and copy the Day Master plus the four stem-and-branch pairs before you assign families. If the day stem is still in doubt, stop. Every later label will invert.

The five families and the yin-yang split

Five-Element production runs Wood to Fire, Fire to Earth, Earth to Metal, Metal to Water, and Water to Wood. Control runs Wood to Earth, Earth to Water, Water to Fire, Fire to Metal, and Metal to Wood. Standing on the Day Master, those two cycles yield five families:

• Peer: the same element as the Day Master.
• Output: the element the Day Master produces.
• Wealth: the element the Day Master controls.
• Authority: the element that controls the Day Master.
• Resource: the element that produces the Day Master.

Polarity then splits each family in two. Same polarity as the Day Master gives Friend, Eating God, Indirect Wealth, Seven Killings (also called Indirect Officer), and Indirect Resource. Opposite polarity gives Rob Wealth, Hurting Officer, Direct Wealth, Direct Officer, and Direct Resource.

Peer is named differently in English, but the arithmetic is the same. Same polarity is Friend (Bi Jian, 比肩). Opposite polarity is Rob Wealth (Jie Cai, 劫财). Those translations describe elemental match, not theft and not loyalty. Direct and Indirect in the other families follow polarity, not moral rank.

A Jia Wood Day Master produces Fire, so yang Fire (Bing) is Eating God and yin Fire (Ding) is Hurting Officer. A Ding Fire Day Master produces Earth, so yin Earth (Ji) is Eating God and yang Earth (Wu) is Hurting Officer. The Output family is unchanged. The role inside Output follows the Day Master's yin or yang.

Each family divides by polarity into two roles; every label is calculated relative to the Day Master.

Calculate the ten roles stem by stem

Work one stem at a time with the table below. Identify the elemental relation first, then the polarity, then the name. Eating God is also written Shi Shen in Chinese (食神). That compound is not the group name Ten Gods (十神), even though both are romanized as Shi Shen in some English notes.

Jia Wood, a yang drill

Jia is yang Wood. Wood produces Fire, controls Earth, is controlled by Metal, and is produced by Water. Same-polarity partners are therefore yang: Jia Friend, Yi Rob Wealth, Bing Eating God, Ding Hurting Officer, Wu Indirect Wealth, Ji Direct Wealth, Geng Seven Killings, Xin Direct Officer, Ren Indirect Resource, Gui Direct Resource.

Ding Fire, a yin drill

Ding is yin Fire. Fire produces Earth, controls Metal, is controlled by Water, and is produced by Wood. Same-polarity partners are therefore yin: Ding Friend, Bing Rob Wealth, Ji Eating God, Wu Hurting Officer, Xin Indirect Wealth, Geng Direct Wealth, Gui Seven Killings, Ren Direct Officer, Yi Indirect Resource, Jia Direct Resource.

Jia Wood is the Day Master in the first drill and Direct Resource in the second. The stem did not change character. The reference point did. Hidden stems follow the same table. A branch can hold a main qi and residual stems; label those after the visible stems and mark them as hidden so a residual stem is not counted as a Heavenly Stem.

Read in an order that blocks fortune claims

Calculation is not interpretation. Interpretation still needs an order that keeps labels from turning into promises.

1. Confirm the Day Master and its seasonal strength from the month branch.
2. Count visible stems first, then hidden stems, without scoring them as luck points.
3. Group hits into the five families before naming the ten roles.
4. Check combinations, clashes, and output-authority tension before talking about character.
5. Note which families sit in the current decade or year pillar as structure, not as a promised event.
6. Separate chart language from decisions that require contracts, medical advice, or safety rules.

Families first. Polarity second. Season and combinations third. Character language last, if at all. Outcome language not at all. Once the map is on the page, the BaZi chart reading guide shows how month command, clashes, combinations, and decade pillars surround those labels. Use it to place the Ten Gods in a full chart, not to upgrade a single name into a forecast.

Direct Officer means the controlling element with opposite polarity. It does not mean a title or a promotion. Indirect Wealth means the controlled element with the same polarity. It does not mean a windfall. If a sentence cannot be rewritten as an elemental relation, it has left BaZi method.

Know where the method stops

State the limits as working rules, not as decoration.

• A missed solar term or a civil-hour mix-up can change the month or hour pillar and, in some cases, the Day Master itself.
• Hidden stems are not equal. Main qi outweighs residual qi.
• Repeating a Ten God does not create a score of talent or a deficit of fortune.
• Almanac preference never outranks booking windows, weather, workplace policy, law, or physical safety.
• Medical, legal, and financial decisions belong with licensed professionals.

Chart software in any language, including Russian-language Ten God fields beside hidden stems, can print the labels correctly and still invite a leap from a printed name to a predicted marriage, salary, or diagnosis. Keep the printout. Refuse the leap. Peer does not mean trustworthy friends, Authority does not mean a difficult manager, and Resource does not mean a protective parent. Those are later stories. The calculation only says which element sits in which family relative to the Day Master.

Map the chart, then decide with ordinary facts

Run one complete pass, then stop and decide with the facts of the task.

1. Chart the four pillars with a consistent solar-term and double-hour method.
2. Circle the day stem and write its element and polarity in one line.
3. Fill the five-family table for every visible stem.
4. Add hidden stems in a second pass, marked as hidden.
5. Write one sentence per family that names only relation and polarity.
6. Take any practical next step—travel, hiring, a medical booking, a contract—from the ordinary constraints of that task.

If you want a stem-only drill before using a full birth chart, start with the Jia Wood Day Master page, fill the five families, then repeat the identical steps on the Ding Fire Day Master page and compare which English names stay put while the stems rotate. The comparison trains calculation. It does not show that one Day Master is preferable.