Da Liu Ren (大六壬, “the Great Six Ren”) is a Chinese oracle that answers a question from the exact moment it is asked. Nothing is thrown or drawn: the date and hour themselves are converted into a chart of two rotating plates, and the reading comes from where the twelve earthly branches land on each other. Together with Qi Men Dun Jia and Tai Yi, it is one of the San Shi (三式), the “three cosmic boards” of classical Chinese divination — and of the three it is the one most concerned with the human affairs behind a question: a lawsuit, a journey, a lost object, a match. This article explains what the system is, how a chart is built step by step, and how to read the first layer of one. If you only want a chart, the free Da Liu Ren calculator builds one for any moment.
One of the three cosmic boards#
The three boards share a physical ancestor: the shi (式), a divining board made of a round “heaven” disc that turned on a square “earth” base. Han-dynasty examples survive — the best known came out of the tomb of the Marquis of Ruyin at Shuanggudui in Anhui, sealed in 165 BCE, which held both a Liu Ren-type board and a Tai Yi nine-palace board. The physical board has long since given way to paper and software, but the logic of a disc turning over a fixed base is still exactly how a Da Liu Ren chart works.
By the Tang dynasty the three methods were distinguished by name. The Tang administrative code (Tang Liu Dian, in its section on the office of the Grand Diviner) lists three shi, and notes that while the other two were restricted to official use, the Liu Ren board was open to ordinary people. That difference in audience is still visible today:
| Tai Yi (太乙) | Qi Men Dun Jia (奇门遁甲) | Da Liu Ren (大六壬) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical scale | states, eras, weather | strategy, timing, direction | personal questions |
| Chart frame | sixteen spirits, nine palaces | nine palaces, eight gates | twelve branches, two plates |
| Built from | year and accumulated years | solar term and hour | monthly general, day and hour |
For the nine-palace system, see What Is Qi Men Dun Jia?.
Why “Six Ren”#
Ren (壬) is the ninth of the ten heavenly stems: yang water. In the sixty-pair cycle of stems and branches, ren combines with six branches — ren-shen, ren-wu, ren-chen, ren-yin, ren-zi and ren-xu — hence “six ren”. The traditional explanation for choosing water, and ren in particular, is cosmological: in the Chinese number diagrams, water is the first thing heaven produces, and ren is its yang, active form. The name, in other words, claims to start the oracle at the origin of things. The “Great” (Da) was added to distinguish it from the much simpler “Little Liu Ren” (小六壬), a finger-counting folk method that shares little but the name.
Step 1: the heaven plate over the earth plate#
The earth plate never moves: the twelve branches sit in fixed positions around the chart, zi (子) at the bottom (north), wu (午) at the top (south), running in order like the hours on a clock.
The heaven plate is a second ring of the same twelve branches that is rotated before each reading. Two things set the rotation:
- the monthly general (月将), a branch that changes about once a month, at each of the twelve “mid-month” solar terms. It moves backwards through the branches: after the Frost Descent term in late October the general is mao (卯); after Minor Snow in late November it becomes yin (寅);
- the hour of the question, expressed as one of the twelve double-hours.
The rule is short: place the monthly general over the hour. Everything else on the heaven plate follows in order. Because the general shifts monthly and the hour shifts every two hours, the plate is constantly turning — which is the whole point. The chart is a snapshot of one particular moment, not of a person.
Step 2: the four lessons#
The four lessons (四课) are read off the two plates using the day of the question. Take the day’s stem and branch; each lesson is a pair, “upper over lower”:
- The first lesson takes the day stem’s home branch on the earth plate (each stem is assigned one) and records which heaven-plate branch sits above it.
- The second lesson takes that upper branch, finds it on the earth plate, and records what sits above it.
- The third lesson does the same starting from the day branch.
- The fourth lesson repeats the step once more from the third lesson’s upper branch.
Two lessons describe the asker’s side (from the day stem), two describe the matter or the other party (from the day branch). Each upper and lower branch has an element, so every lesson carries a relationship: one element producing, overcoming or matching the other.
Step 3: the three transmissions#
From the four lessons the system derives the three transmissions (三传) — the first, middle and last branch — which are read as the beginning, development and outcome of the matter. Choosing the first transmission is the technical heart of Da Liu Ren. The basic rule looks for a lesson in which one element overcomes the other, preferring a lower branch that overcomes its upper (a “thief” from below) over an upper that overcomes its lower. When several lessons qualify, tie-breaking rules apply in a fixed order, each with its own name; the named pattern that results is called the chart’s lesson type (课体). Once the first transmission is found, the middle is whatever sits above it on the heaven plate, and the last is whatever sits above the middle.
The full rule set is intricate, but finite: for every combination of the sixty days and the twelve possible rotations there is exactly one answer, which is why classical manuals could print the results as a table of 720 lessons — and why a calculator can produce them without error.
Step 4: the twelve heavenly generals#
Finally, a third ring is laid on top: the twelve heavenly generals (十二天将), spirits who colour each position. They start from the Noble One (贵人), whose position depends on the day stem and on whether the question is asked by day or by night, and proceed either clockwise or counter-clockwise:
| General | Traditional colour |
|---|---|
| Noble One 贵人 | help, authority, good fortune |
| Soaring Snake 腾蛇 | alarm, anxiety, strange events |
| Vermilion Bird 朱雀 | documents, news, quarrels |
| Six Harmony 六合 | agreements, marriage, mediation |
| Hooked Array 勾陈 | delays, disputes, lawsuits |
| Green Dragon 青龙 | wealth, celebration |
| Heavenly Void 天空 | deceit, emptiness |
| White Tiger 白虎 | injury, illness, mourning |
| Grand Constancy 太常 | food, clothing, ceremony |
| Dark Warrior 玄武 | theft, loss, hidden things |
| Great Yin 太阴 | secrets, private matters |
| Heavenly Empress 天后 | women, kindness, the household |
A reading combines all three layers: the element relationships in the lessons and transmissions, the generals sitting on them, and how each branch relates to the day stem (as wealth, officer, resource, peer or output).
A worked example#
Here is a real chart, produced by the site’s own calculator, for a question asked on 1 November 2026 at 10:00 (Beijing time):
- The day is ji-mao (己卯); the hour is si (巳, 9–11 a.m.); the monthly general, after Frost Descent, is mao (卯).
- Heaven plate: mao is placed over si, so every heaven branch sits two places ahead of its earth position.
- Four lessons: the stem ji lodges at wei (未); above it sits si → first lesson si over ji. Above si sits mao → second lesson. From the day branch mao, above it sits chou (丑) → third lesson. Above chou sits hai (亥) → fourth lesson.
- Selecting the first transmission: in the third lesson the lower mao (wood) overcomes the upper chou (earth); in the fourth, the lower chou (earth) overcomes the upper hai (water). Two “thieves from below”, and both upper branches share the day stem’s yin polarity — so the tie goes to the deepest tie-break, and the lesson type is She Hai (涉害, “wading through harm”).
- Three transmissions: chou → hai → you (酉). Relative to the earth-element day stem, these read as peer → wealth → output, carried by the Soaring Snake, the Heavenly Empress and the Dark Warrior.
- One more detail a reader would note at once: the day ji-mao belongs to the ten-day week in which shen and you are “empty”, so the last transmission, you, falls into emptiness (空亡) — traditionally a sign that the outcome lacks substance or does not arrive as expected.
A practitioner would go on from there, but even this first pass shows the method’s character: a chain of three concrete steps, each with a spirit attached, all derived from a timestamp. To try a different moment, open the calculator and use the previous-hour and next-hour buttons to watch the plates turn.
Calculator versus reading#
A calculator settles the mechanical part completely: plates, lessons, transmissions, generals and void branches are deterministic, and the tool reproduces the classical 720-lesson table. What it cannot do is the interpretation — deciding which branch stands for the question, how the generals modify it, and how the transmissions answer this particular matter. Traditional texts are explicit that the same chart reads differently for a lawsuit than for a lost cat. Treat the chart as the board, not the verdict.
Compared with Western horary astrology#
The closest Western relative is horary astrology, systematised in William Lilly’s Christian Astrology (1647): a chart cast for the moment a question is asked, read for that question alone. The parallel is real — both treat the moment of asking as meaningful, both answer one concrete question, both use a “significator” for the asker and for the matter. The difference lies in the sky. A horary chart places the actual planets on the zodiac at that minute; a Da Liu Ren chart contains no astronomy at all beyond the solar terms. It is built entirely from the calendar, and reads the moment through the relationships of the twelve branches.
Related: cast a chart with the Da Liu Ren calculator · What Is Qi Men Dun Jia? · Stems and branches · back to Divination