The Exact Location of the Wenchang Position

Today is the third day of the second lunar month, which is also the birthday of the Wenchang Emperor. According to the "Records of the Grand Historian: Treatise on the Celestial Officials": "Carrying the basket of six stars atop the Dipper's bowl is the Wenchang star: first the Supreme General, second the Second General, third the Noble Minister, fourth the Controller of Destinies, fifth the Controller of the Center, sixth the Controller of Emoluments." The six Wenchang stars are respectively Supreme General (mighty and martial), Second General (correcting left and right), Noble Minister (managing literary threads), Controller of Destinies (in charge of disasters), Controller of the Center (in charge of rights), and Controller of Emoluments (rewarding merit and advancing scholars), each with its own office, governing the literary fortune and emolument registers of the world. Again according to the "Classic of Stars": "The six Wenchang stars form a half-moon shape, before the Dipper's bowl; each of the six stars has its own name." Where exactly is the Wenchang position? The Wenchang position as described in ordinary bazi differs somewhat from that in star-astrology. Generally speaking, the method for calculating the Wenchang star in star-astrology is: "For Jia and Yi, Si and Wu announce to you; Bing and Wu in the Shen palace, Ding and Ji the rooster; Geng the pig, Xin the Xu, Ren meets the tiger; the Gui person sees the rabbit and ascends the cloud ladder." There is one special case, namely Xin at the Xu palace. Xin's Food God is Gui, yet Gui's emolument is at Zi; here Xu must be taken. According to the explanation in the "Great Completion of Star Learning," Wenchang is also the human element hidden by the heavenly stems generating the earthly branches. Because there are Zi, Chou, Chen, and Wei in the four directions where Wenchang does not arrive—for Wenchang wishes to appear, not to hide, while Zi and Chou are underground and Chen and Wei are storehouses. Adding that Xu is the River Chief, Xin is at Xu. Whether this reasoning holds, one can tell just by laying it out: Jia, Yi Bing, Wu Ding, Ji Gui Xin Ren Geng It can be seen that the positions of Geng and Xin are clearly wrong; here Xin has been forcibly arranged into the Xu position, which actually disrupts the Wenchang position. In Purple Tenuity Astrology (Ziwei Doushu), however, the verse says: "For Jia and Yi, Si and Wu announce to you; Bing and Wu in the Shen palace, Ding and Ji the rooster; Geng the pig, Xin the rat, Ren meets the tiger; the Gui person sees the rabbit and ascends the cloud ladder." This method follows the principles of the five phases. For example, Jia and Yi's Food Gods are Bing and Ding, and Bing and Ding's emoluments are at Si and Wu; Bing and Wu's Food Gods are Wu and Geng, and Wu and Geng's emolument is at Shen; the others follow the same pattern. If one lays this out: Jia, Yi Wei Bing, Wu Chen Ding, Ji Gui Xu Ren Chou Xin Geng Immediately one finds it becomes clear; and Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui do not go to Chen, Xu, Chou, or Wei. Thus the Wenchang star's position has actually shifted clockwise from the original position: when Jia is at Yin and Yi at Mao, they have now jumped onto Si and Wu, moving four places. Therefore the literary star still follows the verse: "For Jia and Yi, Si and Wu announce to you; Bing and Wu in the Shen palace, Ding and Ji the rooster; Geng the pig, Xin the rat, Ren meets the tiger; the Gui person sees the rabbit and ascends the cloud ladder" as the standard.