What is the Incorporation of the Celestial Stems in Taoism? 什么是纳甲

It is a doctrine of the Yijing learning in the Han Dynasty that combines the Eight Trigrams with the Ten Heavenly Stems and the Five Elements.

Jing Fang, Yu Fan and other scholars deduced it into the Five Elements Yijing, which became the foundation for the Divination School of Taoism.

What is the Incorporation of the Celestial Stems in Taoism?

Jia aligns with Qian and Yi with Kun, corresponding to the Azure Dragon of the East and the Wood element; Bing with Gen and Ding with Dui, corresponding to the Vermilion Bird of the South and the Fire element; Geng with Zhen and Xin with Xun, corresponding to the White Tiger of the West and the Metal element; Tian Ren and Di Gui correspond to the Black Tortoise of the North and the Water element; Wu with Kan and Ji with Li, corresponding to the Earth element of the Central Position. Cantong Qi (The Kinship of the Three) further integrates Stem-Binding with the laws of the moon's movement to explain the celestial cycle fire timing of Internal Alchemy and external alchemy, as well as the principle of Yin and Yang transformation in the elixir-forming process.

Cantong Qi states: "On the third day, the moon emerges in clarity, and Zhen ☳ aligns with Geng in the West. On the eighth day, Dui ☱ aligns with Ding, the first quarter moon flat as a cord. On the fifteenth day, Qian ☰ is fully formed, brimming and aligning with Jia in the East.... On the sixteenth day, the succession shifts, Xun ☴ aligns with Xin and appears at dawn. Gen ☶ stands with Bing in the South, the last quarter moon on the twenty-third day. Kun ☷ aligns with Yi on the thirtieth day, the East loses its radiance. When the period ends, the succession passes on, and the dragon is reborn in the succeeding form. Ren and Gui match Jia and Yi, Qian and Kun encompass the beginning and the end."

In this way, six trigrams are used to correspond to the new moon, crescent, quarter and full moon phases of the 30-day lunar month. The remaining two trigrams, Li ☲ and Kan ☵, represent the sun and moon in the innate Taiji diagram of heaven. Thus, Qian aligns with Jia and Ren, Kun with Yi and Gui, Zhen with Geng, Xun with Xin, Gen with Bing, and Dui with Ding—each has a fixed position and resides in one direction. Kan, with no fixed position, aligns with Wu, and Li aligns with Ji, corresponding to the Earth of the Central Palace.

The Stem-Binding doctrine unites the Eight Trigrams with the Ten Heavenly Stems, becoming a fundamental theory of Taoist numerical arts.