Index · 12 stages · 120 stem landings

The twelve stages of life

The twelve stages are a curve: a stem is born, bathes, takes form, takes office and peaks at Prosperity, then declines through Illness, Death, Tomb and Extinction before gathering itself again in Conception and Nourishment. Yang stems run forward and yin stems run backward, so the ten stems land once each on the twelve branches — 120 cells in all, with every stage taken exactly once by each of the ten stems.

All twelve at a glance

Open any stage for its full page: the ten stem landings, the pillars sitting on it, the direction rule and the common misreadings.

长生 Birth 6 pillars rising 沐浴 Bathing 4 pillars rising 冠带 Attiring 6 pillars rising 临官 Official Post 4 pillars rising 帝旺 Prosperity 6 pillars peak 衰 Decline 4 pillars falling 病 Illness 6 pillars falling 死 Death 4 pillars falling 墓 Tomb 6 pillars falling 绝 Extinction 4 pillars falling 胎 Conception 6 pillars latent 养 Nourishment 4 pillars latent

Computed distributions

Every number here is computed and can be checked item by item against the branch pages:

Pillars per stageBirth 6 · Bathing 4 · Attiring 6 · Official Post 4 · Prosperity 6 · Decline 4 · Illness 6 · Death 4 · Tomb 6 · Extinction 4 · Conception 6 · Nourishment 4 — 60 in total, exactly the sixty-cycle
The patternBirth, Attiring, Prosperity, Illness, Tomb and Conception take 6 pillars each; Bathing, Official Post, Decline, Death, Extinction and Nourishment take 4 — because yang stems run forward and yin stems backward, the two groups interleave
Never at ProsperityBirth and Prosperity are four positions apart, as are Prosperity and Tomb; and Jia, Yi, Geng and Xin never occupy Prosperity on a day branch, because those pillars do not exist in the sixty-cycle
TrinesIn each trine the three branches are exactly the Birth, Prosperity and Tomb of that element's yang stem: Shen-Zi-Chen is where Ren is born, peaks and is buried

Ten stems × twelve stages (one row per stem)

The same table read the other way: across a row is one stem's path through the whole cycle; down a column is which ten stems sit at a given stage. Each row below is one stem.

Stem1
长生		2
沐浴		3
冠带		4
临官		5
帝旺		6
衰		7
病		8
死		9
墓		10
绝		11
胎		12
养
甲 Jia
forward		亥子丑寅卯辰巳午未申酉戌
乙 Yi
backward		午巳辰卯寅丑子亥戌酉申未
丙 Bing
forward		寅卯辰巳午未申酉戌亥子丑
丁 Ding
backward		酉申未午巳辰卯寅丑子亥戌
戊 Wu
forward		寅卯辰巳午未申酉戌亥子丑
己 Ji
backward		酉申未午巳辰卯寅丑子亥戌
庚 Geng
forward		巳午未申酉戌亥子丑寅卯辰
辛 Xin
backward		子亥戌酉申未午巳辰卯寅丑
壬 Ren
forward		申酉戌亥子丑寅卯辰巳午未
癸 Gui
backward		卯寅丑子亥戌酉申未午巳辰

Find the stage of your day pillar

The birth date alone is enough — the day pillar needs no birth time. The calculator reports which stage your day stem occupies on your day branch.

Frequently asked

What are the twelve stages?
A set of terms describing where a stem stands on a given branch: Birth, Bathing, Attiring, Official Post, Prosperity, Decline, Illness, Death, Tomb, Extinction, Conception, Nourishment. They mark twelve points on a curve rather than scoring fortune.
Why do yang and yin stems run in opposite directions?
By convention: yang stems count forward from their Birth branch (Jia on Hai, Bing and Wu on Yin, Geng on Si, Ren on Shen) and yin stems count backward. The immediate consequence is that a given stage lands on different branches for the two groups — the matrix above lists all ten landings.
Why do some stages take only four pillars?
Because only 60 stem-branch pairs legally exist (same polarity only). The theoretical average is 5 pillars per stage; in practice 6 and 4 alternate, summing to exactly 60. That is checkable structure, not sampling.
Is this the same as the favorable element?
No. The twelve stages describe the state of one stem on one branch; the favorable element weighs the month command, rooting, transparency and overall strength. This site does both, but keeps them stated separately rather than reading a stage position as a strength verdict.

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.