← All relation pages

Relations · Heavenly Stem Clash

Heavenly Stem Clash: every pair, derived

The heavenly stem clash is the hardest opposition among the ten stems: only four pairs, each pair's elements controlling each other. That Wu and Ji take no clash is a structural fact, not missing data. This page lists all four and contrasts them with the combines.

Computed facts (engine-verified + build-time assertions)

This page is generated from engine vv0.14.0; the pairs follow convention R35 on the methodology page, and the generator refuses to render if any cross-check fails. Audit item by item.

Pairs4 pairs (8 stems)
Stems with no clash戊 Wu and 己 Ji — Earth sits at the center and takes no clash
Contrast with combineboth are five seats apart, yet combines transform while clashes do not — the divide is the element relation, not the distance
SourceSTEM_CLASH (exactly 8 keys, no Wu or Ji — build-time assertion)

The complete table

One row per pair or group: members, nature and a one-step derivation. Nothing omitted — the table is the full set.

PairElement relationOne-step derivation
甲 Jia · 庚 Geng木 vs 金 (Metal controls Wood)five seats apart, same polarity, and the two elements control each other — all three conditions hold
乙 Yi · 辛 Xin木 vs 金 (Metal controls Wood)five seats apart, same polarity, and the two elements control each other — all three conditions hold
丙 Bing · 壬 Ren火 vs 水 (Water controls Fire)five seats apart, same polarity, and the two elements control each other — all three conditions hold
丁 Ding · 癸 Gui火 vs 水 (Water controls Fire)five seats apart, same polarity, and the two elements control each other — all three conditions hold

Scan your own four pillars

Enter your birth moment (time optional). The page finds every hit of this relation among the six pairwise combinations of your four pillars.

A note on what this page deliberately does not do: the popular versions of this material assign a fixed personality to each term — one character per branch, one destiny per stage. This site rejects that framing. What is published here is a structural position: which element sits where, on what kind of ground, with which tenants inside. The same term reads differently under a different month command, and no meaningful judgement exists without the other characters of the chart. Where the tradition offers a reading it is labelled as the tradition's; this site's own contribution is that every number and term on this page is computed, versioned and checkable against the methodology page.

Frequently asked

Why do Wu and Ji take no clash?
The four stem clashes (Jia-Geng, Yi-Xin, Bing-Ren, Ding-Gui) need three conditions at once: five seats apart, same polarity, and controlling elements. Earth sits at the center and its two stems control nothing among the ten — a checkable structural fact, not an omission.
Which weighs more, a stem clash or a branch clash?
This site does not rank severities. What can be checked: all four stem clashes carry controlling elements, while two of the six branch clashes are Earth-Earth (Chen-Xu, Chou-Wei). Both tables are fully listed; the weighing belongs to a full chart.
Is a clash always bad?
No verdicts here. The classics read a clash as opening, stirring or breaking depending on favorability and position — judgments that need the whole chart. This page provides the truth table of the relation itself.

The other seven relation pages

Heavenly Stem Combination →  ·  Six Harmony (Liu He) →  ·  Six Clash (Liu Chong) →  ·  Six Harm (Liu Hai) →  ·  Three Harmony (San He) →  ·  Punishment (Xing) →  ·  Half Combination (Ban He) →

Reference index

Every enumerable component of ba zi has its own page here. Each page is computed by the same engine and can be checked item by item — none of it is a personality table.