What Is Roadside Earth (Lu Pang Tu)?
In a Nutshell
The NaYin of the Geng Wu and Xin Wei stem-branches: the broad earth that bears all things — soil along the roadside.
Quick facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Stem-branches | Geng Wu, Xin Wei |
| NaYin element | Earth |
| Signature image | The broad earth giving birth to all things, the refuge of the myriad beings |
What is Roadside Earth?
Roadside Earth is one of the thirty NaYin (Melodic Elements) groups of the sexagenary cycle, covering the two stem-branches Geng Wu and Xin Wei. The sixty stem-branches are taken two at a time, in order, forming thirty NaYin groups; the Geng Wu–Xin Wei group is called "Roadside Earth."
A stem-branch's own elements often differ from its NaYin. Geng is a Metal stem and Wu a Fire branch, yet the NaYin here is Earth; within any group, the two stem-branches always share the same NaYin — a basic rule of the system.
"Roadside" fixes the image: the soil along a road. The *San Ming Tong Hui*'s chapter on NaYin images explains Roadside Earth as "the great earth joining the roads, ten thousand qing of flat fields": roads running unbroken, endless level fields — crops depend on it to grow, grasses and trees flourish through it. It takes the image of bearing and nourishing.
How to look it up: match the stem-branch of your Year Pillar or Day Pillar against the NaYin chart. For example, 1990 was a Geng Wu year and 1991 an Xin Wei year, so anyone born in those years carries Roadside Earth as their Year Pillar NaYin; a Geng Wu or Xin Wei Day Pillar works the same way. MoZhu's built-in NaYin lookup tool generates the NaYin of all Four Pillars automatically from a birth time.
Early practitioners gave the Year Pillar NaYin (the "year-destiny") great weight; since the Song dynasty, the Zi Ping school centers on the Day Master, and NaYin mostly serves as auxiliary reference. Names like Roadside Earth are the ancients' evocative nicknames for stem-branch pairs; the imagery helps you read the classics, but nothing should be inferred from the name alone. This page is for study and reference only.
Classical sources
"Roadside Earth: the great earth joining the roads, ten thousand qing of flat fields; crops depend on it for their livelihood, grasses and trees flourish through it."
(Rendered from the classical Chinese original; one qing is a traditional area unit.)
Source: *San Ming Tong Hui* (Comprehensive Treatise on the Three Destinies), *Lun Na Yin Qu Xiang* (On the Images Adopted by NaYin)
Plain-language reading: Roadside Earth takes the image of soil along the road — the great earth joined by roads, endless flat fields: crops depend on it to grow, grasses and trees flourish through it. It means bearing and nourishing.
*For entertainment purposes only.*