Kua number calculator (命卦)
This page works out your Kua number, the Eight Mansions label for you.
You need only your birth date and sex.
You get your number, East or West group and eight directions.
Step 1 · Birth date and sex
What you will get: your Kua number, East or West group,
and the eight directions on a compass.
How to read this
Green sectors are favourable and red sectors are to avoid. The headboard direction is the direction the top of your head points when you lie in bed. The whole-home audit also weighs the sector each room sits in.
Your Kua number
Your eight directions
North is at the top of the compass.
Best headboard directions
Best desk facing
How to use it
- Put the head of the bed on one of your good directions, against a solid wall, not under a window or in line with the door.
- Face a good direction when you sit at your desk, with a solid wall or support behind your chair.
- Your Kua is one input. The whole-home audit also weighs the sector each room falls in.
What is a Kua number?
The idea behind the calculator, in two paragraphs and a table.
The Kua number ("life trigram") is the Eight Mansions (八宅) label for a person. It is one of eight trigrams, numbered 1 to 9 with 5 skipped, taken from the birth year counted from Start of Spring and from the person's sex. Each trigram belongs to the East group (東四命: 坎 (north) 1, 震 (east) 3, 巽 (south-east) 4, 離 (south) 9) or the West group (西四命: 坤 (south-west) 2, 乾 (north-west) 6, 兌 (west) 7, 艮 (north-east) 8).
The trigram fixes eight directions around you: four favourable (Vitality (生氣), Heavenly Doctor (天醫), Longevity (延年), Stability (伏位)) and four to avoid (Mishap (禍害), Six Killings (六煞), Five Ghosts (五鬼), Severed Fate (絕命)), by the Eight Mansions wandering-year line-change rule (八宅大遊年). The calculator applies the same table the home audit uses, so the two always agree.
| Group | Trigrams | Favourable directions |
|---|---|---|
| East group | 坎 1 · 震 3 · 巽 4 · 離 9 | N, E, SE, S |
| West group | 坤 2 · 乾 6 · 兌 7 · 艮 8 | NE, SW, W, NW |
Worked example and lookup table
Check the result by hand.
A fictional man born 15 March 1988 in Singapore: the year 1988 counts in full because Start of Spring fell on 4 February 1988. Its digits add to 26, then to 8; for a man the number is 11 minus 8, so his Kua is 3, the trigram 震 (east), East group. His best headboard directions are south (Vitality), north (Heavenly Doctor) and south-east (Longevity). The number 5 is never assigned: a man who computes 5 takes 2 (坤) and a woman takes 8 (艮).
| Kua | Trigram | Group | Vitality | Heavenly Doctor | Longevity | Stability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 坎 Kan | East | SE | E | S | N |
| 2 | 坤 Kun | West | NE | W | NW | SW |
| 3 | 震 Zhen | East | S | N | SE | E |
| 4 | 巽 Xun | East | N | S | E | SE |
| 6 | 乾 Qian | West | W | NE | SW | NW |
| 7 | 兌 Dui | West | NW | SW | NE | W |
| 8 | 艮 Gen | West | SW | NW | W | NE |
| 9 | 離 Li | East | E | SE | N | S |
The four directions not listed for your number are the ones to avoid: Mishap, Six Killings, Five Ghosts and Severed Fate. In Singapore and Malaysia an HDB flat or condominium bedroom usually offers only two solid walls, so pick the better of the two available directions rather than the best on paper.
