The house of conception (胎元) in bazi is an additional pillar consisting of two characters that is used to supplement the main reading of a person’s bazi.
As the name suggest, this is the pillar that forms during the time when one was conceived.
Looking into the house of conception, or conception palace as some would call it, enables one to discover a person’s innate nature before the world has any influence on him or her. It can also sometimes be referred to as the early heaven palace.
It is mostly used in bazi to look more closely into one’s self-element strength ,and in some cases details on siblings and children. Some bazi readers also use it to analyze spiritual virtues.
Because a person’s birthday would be about 9 months after conception, deriving the house of conception pillar is simply referencing the heavenly stem and earthly branch on the month pillar and going backwards by 9 months.
And because ganzhi is made up of 10 stems and 12 branches which moves in a repeating cycle, the stems and branches of the house of conception (HOC) can be simply calculated by using a couple of basic formulas.
- 1 stem after the heavenly stem of the month of birth
- 3 branches after the earthly branch of the month of birth
This leads to the following two tables.
Month Stem |
HOC Stem |
H1 | H2 |
H2 | H3 |
H3 | H4 |
H4 | H5 |
H5 | H6 |
H6 | H7 |
H7 | H8 |
H8 | H9 |
H9 | H10 |
H10 | H1 |
.
Month Branch |
HOC Branch |
E1 | E4 |
E2 | E5 |
E3 | E6 |
E4 | E7 |
E5 | E8 |
E6 | E9 |
E7 | E10 |
E8 | E11 |
E9 | E12 |
E10 | E1 |
E11 | E2 |
E12 | E3 |
Legend of the symbols can be referenced here.
This means that if an individual has a bazi with the month pillar consisting of H4-E6, then the house of conception pillar would be H5-E9.
Month Pillar |
HOC |
H4 (丁) – Fire |
H5 (戊) + Earth |
E6 (巳) – Fire |
E9 (申) + Metal |
It must be noted that the house of conception palace is more advanced bazi. And usually erected together with the house of life.
It is not necessary for basic feng shui analysis of a house when conducting an audit.
And is usually only accessed when there is a need to delve much deeper into a person’s bazi to uncover certain types of information.