SuperBazi 超级八字 - The Ten Gods: A Practical Map of Your Chart's Relationships 十神

People come to a Bazi (八字) chart wanting to understand what is actually driving their patterns: why work feels a certain way, why money comes and goes the way it does, what kind of pressure they respond well to and what kind wears them down. The Ten Gods (十神, shíshén) give those questions a name. They are the vocabulary that turns a grid of symbols into a readable story about relationships, strengths, friction, and direction.

What the Ten Gods Actually Are

Your chart is built around the Day Master (日主) — the Heavenly Stem (天干) that represents you at the centre of the picture. Everything else in the chart is defined by its relationship to that element. The Ten Gods are the names for those relationships.

Think of it like a family system. Once you know who "you" are, every other person in the room has a role relative to you: parent, sibling, child, partner, rival. The Ten Gods work the same way. They describe how each element in your chart relates to your Day Master, and by extension, how different energies show up in your life.

These are not literal deities or mystical beings. They are practical labels for the five types of elemental interaction — producing, being produced by, controlling, being controlled by, and matching — each expressed through Yin and Yang polarity. That gives ten distinct roles, each with its own character.

The Five Relationships and Where They Come From

Before the ten roles make sense, it helps to see how they are built. The Five Elements (五行) interact through two natural cycles:

Creation (相生): Wood feeds Fire → Fire creates Earth → Earth produces Metal → Metal carries Water → Water nourishes Wood.
Control (相克): Wood penetrates Earth → Earth absorbs Water → Water extinguishes Fire → Fire melts Metal → Metal chops Wood.

Each element in your chart participates in both cycles relative to your Day Master. Some elements produce you, some drain you, some support you, some challenge you. The five relationship types are:

Relationship	Direction	Example (for a Wood Day Master)
Same element	Matching	Other Wood
Produces Day Master	Nourishing	Water (Water → Wood)
Day Master produces	Expressive	Fire (Wood → Fire)
Controls Day Master	Pressuring	Metal (Metal → Wood)
Day Master controls	Managing	Earth (Wood → Earth)

Each of these five splits into two by Yin/Yang polarity: same polarity and opposite polarity. That polarity split is what creates the ten roles, and it is not arbitrary. A same-polarity relationship tends to feel parallel and unbuffered, while an opposite-polarity relationship tends to feel complementary and matched. That difference shapes how each god shows up in practice.

The Ten Roles

Here is the full reference, grouped by function:

Chinese	Pinyin	English	Abbrev.	Relationship	Polarity
比肩	bǐ jiān	Friend	F	Same element	Same polarity
劫财	jié cái	Rob Wealth	RW	Same element	Opposite polarity
食神	shí shén	Eating God	EG	Day Master produces	Same polarity
伤官	shāng guān	Hurting Officer	HO	Day Master produces	Opposite polarity
偏财	piān cái	Indirect Wealth	IW	Day Master controls	Same polarity
正财	zhèng cái	Direct Wealth	DW	Day Master controls	Opposite polarity
七杀	qī shā	Seven Killings	7K	Controls Day Master	Same polarity
正官	zhèng guān	Direct Officer	DO	Controls Day Master	Opposite polarity
偏印	piān yìn	Indirect Resource	IR	Produces Day Master	Same polarity
正印	zhèng yìn	Direct Resource	DR	Produces Day Master	Opposite polarity

Each god represents a distinct pattern of energy in your life. Here is what each one tends to describe, and where to dig deeper.

The Companion Family: Friend and Rob Wealth

Friend (比肩) and Rob Wealth (劫财) share your element. They represent peers, collaborators, competitors, and the general relationship with standing on your own feet.

Friend reflects healthy competition, collaboration, and the sense of people who are on your level. People with prominent Friend tend toward self-reliance, independence, and comfort with peers who operate at a similar pace. Rob Wealth can point to rivalry, resource splitting, or the drive to assert yourself, sometimes constructively, sometimes not. It describes the energy of claiming your share, which can show up as healthy assertiveness or as friction with people who want the same things you do.

A chart heavy on the Companion Stars family may describe someone who works best independently or in partnerships where roles are clearly defined. The risk is competitive friction or difficulty accumulating resources when too many hands reach for the same pool. (Full treatment: Friend Star in Bazi.)

The Output Family: Eating God and Hurting Officer

Eating God (食神) and Hurting Officer (伤官) are your output elements — what you produce. They describe how you express yourself, create, and turn inner capacity into visible work.

Eating God tends toward creative expression, enjoyment, and a relaxed approach to ideas. It is the energy of producing without strain: a chef refining technique through years in the same kitchen, a teacher whose clarity makes complex material feel approachable. Hurting Officer is sharper output: ambition, critique, unconventional thinking, and sometimes friction with authority. It is the energy of tearing things apart to rebuild them better: a product designer who cannot stop improving, a lawyer who finds the weak argument no one else noticed.

The shadow side matters for both. Eating God can drift into comfortable stagnation, coasting on talent without direction. Hurting Officer can scatter its intensity, burning bridges or churning through roles because nothing meets the standard it imposes. Both need a destination: a Wealth channel that converts expression into something tangible. (See Eating God Produces Wealth.)

The Wealth Family: Direct Wealth and Indirect Wealth

Direct Wealth (正财) and Indirect Wealth (偏财) are what you control, often linked to money, responsibility, and tangible results. But calling them "money stars" is too narrow. They describe your relationship with managing resources: how you engage with opportunity, how you handle responsibility, and how much you can carry before it starts carrying you.

Direct Wealth suggests steady, structured management. Think salary, long-term clients, patient investment, a business that reinvests its gains. People with prominent Direct Wealth tend toward financial responsibility: they keep budgets, prefer predictable growth, and feel safer with structure. Indirect Wealth leans toward windfalls, risk-taking, and a more fluid relationship with resources. Think deals, side ventures, market opportunities, and money that arrives through timing and connections rather than a fixed paycheque.

The key question for both is capacity. A strong Day Master can carry heavy Wealth and turn it into real accumulation. A weak Day Master under heavy Wealth can feel stretched thin, managing more than the foundation allows. (Full treatment: Wealth Stars in Bazi.)

The Officer Family: Direct Officer and Seven Killings

Direct Officer (正官) and Seven Killings (七杀) represent what controls you: structure, authority, discipline, and pressure. They describe how you handle external standards, how you respond to authority, and whether structure strengthens you or suffocates you.

Direct Officer is conventional order, career frameworks, and social expectations. Think promotions earned through consistent delivery, reputations built on reliability, management roles that reward follow-through. Seven Killings is intense pressure, challenge, and the demand to either toughen up or get overwhelmed. Think high-stakes environments where fast decisions and resilience under fire matter more than protocol: entrepreneurship, sales, emergency response, competitive industries.

Both can drive growth, but they feel very different. Direct Officer shapes through structure; Seven Killings shapes through fire. A strong Day Master can absorb Officer pressure and channel it into leadership. A weak Day Master under heavy Officer can collapse under chronic weight. The question is never "will I be successful?" It is "can this Day Master handle the pressure without breaking?" (Full treatment: Officer Stars in Bazi.)

The Resource Family: Direct Resource and Indirect Resource

Direct Resource (正印) and Indirect Resource (偏印) produce you, offering support, knowledge, and nourishment. They describe how you absorb learning, how you respond to protection, and how much support you can take in before it starts holding you back.

Direct Resource is steady, reliable backing: education, mentorship, a stable environment, formal credentials. People with prominent Direct Resource tend to study before they act, prefer to understand theory before applying it, and feel safer with a clear framework. Indirect Resource is unconventional support: self-directed learning, alternative perspectives, knowledge that arrives through unexpected channels. It appears as strange luck, unexpected insight, or resources that arrive in unusual ways.

The shadow side matters for both. Direct Resource can turn into over-preparation: accumulating knowledge without applying it, staying in training long past the point of usefulness. Indirect Resource can scatter into breadth without depth: exploring widely but finishing nothing, confusing curiosity with integration. (Full treatment: Resource Stars in Bazi.)

Element Mapping by Day Master

The Ten Gods are not abstract; they are specific elements relative to your Day Master. Here is the complete mapping showing which stem corresponds to which Ten God for each Day Master:

Day Master	Friend 比肩	Rob Wealth 劫财	Eating God 食神	Hurting Officer 伤官	Indirect Wealth 偏财	Direct Wealth 正财	Seven Killings 七杀	Direct Officer 正官	Indirect Resource 偏印	Direct Resource 正印
甲 Yang Wood	甲	乙	丙	丁	戊	己	庚	辛	壬	癸
乙 Yin Wood	乙	甲	丁	丙	己	戊	辛	庚	癸	壬
丙 Yang Fire	丙	丁	戊	己	庚	辛	壬	癸	甲	乙
丁 Yin Fire	丁	丙	己	戊	辛	庚	癸	壬	乙	甲
戊 Yang Earth	戊	己	庚	辛	壬	癸	甲	乙	丙	丁
己 Yin Earth	己	戊	辛	庚	癸	壬	乙	甲	丁	丙
庚 Yang Metal	庚	辛	壬	癸	甲	乙	丙	丁	戊	己
辛 Yin Metal	辛	庚	癸	壬	乙	甲	丁	丙	己	戊
壬 Yang Water	壬	癸	甲	乙	丙	丁	戊	己	庚	辛
癸 Yin Water	癸	壬	乙	甲	丁	丙	己	戊	辛	庚

Use this table to quickly identify which elements in your chart play which roles. Notice how the same element means different things in different charts: Fire is always Fire, but in a Bing Fire (丙) Day Master's chart it is the self (Friend); in a Jia Wood (甲) Day Master's chart it is Output (Wood produces Fire); in a Geng Metal (庚) Day Master's chart it is Power (Fire controls Metal). This is why two people with the same visible stems can read nothing alike: their "same" elements play different roles.

How They Are Calculated

The Ten Gods are determined by two factors: the element relationship between the Day Master and the target stem, and whether their Yin/Yang polarity matches.

Here is a chart for someone born on 15 March 1990 at 2:00 AM, with a Ji Earth (己) Day Master:

Example Chart 示例八字

时 Hour

日 Day

月 Month

年 Year

四柱

Four
Pillars

七杀7K

乙

Yi木

日元DM

己

Ji土

比肩F

己

Ji土

伤官HO

庚

Geng金

天干

stems

Heavenly

丑

Chou

牛 Ox

卯

Mao

兔 Rabbit

卯

Mao

兔 Rabbit

午

马 Horse

地支

branches

Earthly

辛

Xin金

食 EG

己

Ji土

比 F

癸

Gui水

才 IW

乙

Yi木

杀 7K

乙

Yi木

杀 7K

丁

Ding火

枭 IR

己

Ji土

比 F

藏干

stems

Hidden

Working through the visible stems:

Stem	Element relationship	Polarity	Ten God
己 (Day Master)	Self	—	—
庚 (Year stem)	Earth produces Metal	Opposite (Yang versus Yin)	Hurting Officer 伤官
己 (Month stem)	Same (Earth)	Same (Yin)	Friend 比肩
乙 (Hour stem)	Wood controls Earth	Same (Yin)	Seven Killings 七杀

Notice how polarity changes the label. The 己 Earth Day Master produces the 庚 Metal year stem. Because 庚 is Yang and 己 is Yin, their polarity is opposite, giving Hurting Officer rather than Eating God. By contrast, 乙 and 己 are both Yin, so the Wood that controls the Day Master becomes Seven Killings. If the Month stem were 戊 (Yang Earth) instead of 己, it would map to Rob Wealth rather than Friend because its polarity would be opposite.

This is why polarity matters. It changes which god a particular element maps to, and that changes how that element is interpreted in the reading. The same element can bring competition or collaboration, discipline or raw pressure, steady management or opportunistic risk, depending on how its polarity lines up with the Day Master.

Where the Ten God Sits: Pillar Positions

Each Ten God can appear in the Year (年柱), Month (月柱), Day (日柱), or Hour pillar (时柱). Traditional Bazi associates those positions with different areas of experience, but a placement is a prompt for investigation rather than a direct description of a relative, partner, or child. A branch may also contain several hidden stems, so no single hidden Ten God speaks for the whole palace. (See The Four Pillars Explained and The Month Branch and Why It Matters.)

Position	Traditional focus	Useful questions
Year pillar	Family roots, early environment, wider social setting	How did this function appear in the person's starting environment or public context?
Month pillar	Season, parents' influence, work and social demands	Is this function prominent and effective in work, authority, or daily responsibilities?
Day stem and branch	The self, inner life, close partnership	How does the branch's full mix of hidden stems and relationships shape intimacy and self-management?
Hour pillar	Aspirations, projects, children, later-life themes	How might this function colour long-term aims or responsibilities without defining another person?

For example, Wealth in the Month pillar makes resources and practical results relevant career questions; it does not promise a steady salary or an entrepreneurial path. Officer in the Day Branch makes structure and pressure relevant to close relationships; it does not describe a partner's personality by itself. Resource in the Hour pillar can raise questions about learning, support, or legacy, but its expression still depends on roots, season, combinations, clashes, and the other hidden stems in that branch.

The Month pillar often carries particular professional weight because the Month Branch supplies the seasonal command and the pillar is traditionally associated with work and social conditions. The Day Branch is the spouse palace, but any relationship reading must examine the entire branch, its hidden stems, and its interactions before drawing a conclusion.

Context Matters More Than Labels

The same god can feel supportive in one chart and overwhelming in another. Seven Killings (七杀) in a strong Day Master's chart might show up as career drive and leadership under pressure. In a weaker chart without support, the same god might feel like constant stress or external demands that outstrip capacity.

Consider a Geng Metal (庚) Day Master with prominent Bing Fire (丙) in the Month pillar. Fire controls Metal, and the same Yang polarity makes Bing the Seven Killings star. Ding Fire (丁), with opposite Yin polarity, would be Direct Officer instead. If the Day Master is well-rooted in Metal branches and backed by effective Earth Resource, the Seven Killings pressure may be easier to channel into disciplined action. With weak roots and little usable support, the same pressure may feel harder to sustain. The full result still depends on combinations, clashes, structure, and timing.

This is why reading individual symbols in isolation leads to shallow or misleading interpretations. A good reading considers how the gods interact with each other, which ones are prominent, which are missing, and how the current luck cycle (大运) activates or tempers them. (See Strong and Weak Day Master for the strength question that underlies every Ten God reading.)

How the Gods Interact with Each Other

The Ten Gods do not sit quietly in their own columns. They form patterns with each other, and those patterns describe real dynamics:

Pattern	Chinese	What it describes
Output producing Wealth	食伤生财	Skill, expression, and creation become the mechanism that earns. Money follows the making.
Wealth supporting Officer	财生官	Resources are converted into authority, position, or institutional standing.
Officer generating Resource	官印相生 / 杀印相生	Pressure is converted into preparation and support.
Resource controlling Output	印制食伤	Support and education restrain raw expression. Too little leaves output undisciplined; too much buries it.
Eating God controlling Seven Killings	食神制杀	Measured output restrains intense pressure. Skill becomes the mechanism that manages force.
Hurting Officer meeting Direct Officer	伤官见官	Self-expression and external authority collide. The result may be productive friction or constant conflict.
Companion seizing Wealth	比劫夺财	Peers and competitors fight for the same pool of resources.

These patterns are where Bazi becomes genuinely useful, because they describe dynamics that people actually live inside. The person who creates well but earns poorly may be running Output without a Wealth channel. The person who studies endlessly but never acts may be under heavy Resource without enough Output. The person who earns well but feels constantly drained may be carrying heavy Wealth over a weak Day Master. Naming the pattern is the first step toward navigating it more deliberately.

What to Pay Attention To

When exploring the Ten Gods in your own chart, a few questions tend to be more useful than others:

Which gods are strongest or most visible? These often describe the dominant themes in your life: where energy naturally flows and where you spend most of your attention.

Which gods are absent or weak? First check the hidden stems and effective relationships. An absent visible god is not automatically a deficiency; the relevant function may be present below the surface, arrive through timing, or simply be less central to this chart's structure.

How do the gods interact? Two gods in conflict might describe an internal tension: for example, wanting creative freedom (Eating God) while feeling heavy external responsibility (Direct Officer). Noticing that pattern is the first step toward navigating it more deliberately.

What is being activated right now? The annual and luck cycle influences can bring certain gods into sharper focus, making a dormant pattern suddenly feel active or a quiet strength suddenly feel available.

Using This Practically

The Ten Gods are not a verdict. They are a vocabulary for understanding the different forces at work in your chart and in your current timing. They help you name what is happening: pressure, opportunity, support, conflict, output, depletion — so you can respond with more awareness instead of reacting on autopilot.

Bazi becomes genuinely useful when it helps someone recognise a pattern they have been living inside of, and then make a slightly cleaner decision because of that recognition. The Ten Gods are one of the clearest entry points for that kind of insight. The names may sound abstract at first, but they describe things you already feel: the pressure of a demanding boss, the ease of work that fits your nature, the tension between wanting freedom and needing structure, the drain of carrying more than your foundation can hold. Learning to see those patterns in your chart is the beginning of working with them rather than being worked over by them.