Nayin and the thirty paired classifications

Paired classifications

Nayin, 纳音, classifies a complete stem-and-branch pair. It groups the sixty entries in the Ganzhi cycle into thirty neighbouring pairs: positions 1–2 share a name, positions 3–4 another, and so on. Jia-Zi and Yi-Chou both receive Metal in the sea. Each name combines an image with one of the five phases.

The lookup applies to a year, month, day or hour designation. First establish that designation, then locate it in the table. The same Nayin name belongs to both stem–branch pairs in a row.

Nayin has a historical connection with musical theory. In the music section of his Mengxi Bitan, or Dream Pool Essays, Shen Kuo relates the sixty cyclical designations to twelve pitch standards and five tones. His explanation associates Jia-Zi and Yi-Chou with Metal. This musical framework connects the cycle to the five phases, while the names below give each paired classification a distinctive material or landscape image.

The thirty names

Each row covers two neighbouring positions in the sixty-part cycle. Chinese names accompany the English labels. “Spring water” means water from a spring, not water associated with the season. The phase translated as Metal also appears in images of gold.

There are six named classifications for each phase, covering twelve of the sixty positions in this mapping.

Different meanings of “element”

A stem's phase and a pair's Nayin are different classifications. Jia and Yi are Wood stems, yet Jia-Zi and Yi-Chou have the Nayin Metal in the sea. Jia-Chen also begins with Jia, but its Nayin is Lamplight fire. The phase of the first character does not determine the Nayin of the complete pair.

A Nayin entry also leaves most of a date unspecified. Metal in the sea identifies two positions, not one, and those positions recur on several timescales. A calendar note still needs its year, month, day or hour context.

In a four-pillar birth chart, the Nayin label belongs beside the pillar from which it was obtained. A year classification cannot substitute for the month, day and hour classifications.