TL;DR: Khâm Thiên Tứ Hóa is the name of a way of interpreting Tử Vi (Vietnamese astrology) that belongs to the group of schools taking Tứ Hóa as their axis (what Từ Tăng Sinh collectively calls the Tứ Hóa school and the Phi Tinh school), reading the four transforming energies Lộc, Quyền, Khoa and Kỵ rather than reading only the meaning of each star. Its core difference from the Tam Hợp school is that it uses the heavenly stem of each palace in the chart to fly the transformations, forming a network that moves among the twelve palaces, instead of stopping at the tứ hóa placed according to the birth-year stem. The concepts of birth-year tứ hóa, flying transformation, self-transformation and lai nhân cung are the foundation stones for reading a chart in this way. The tứ hóa table for the stem Canh is not consistent: the site's utility table uses Thiên Đồng transforming into Khoa and Thái Âm transforming into Kỵ, so no stem makes Thiên Đồng transform into Kỵ, matching what Vương Đình Chi says about the Mân school; while the song for placing Tứ Hóa in Tử Vi Đẩu Số Toàn Thư, the book Đẩu số tinh thành and the examples of Từ Tăng Sinh all give Thái Âm transforming into Khoa and Thiên Đồng transforming into Kỵ, and Vương Đình Chi states that the Trung Châu school also keeps Thiên Đồng transforming into Kỵ. Lộc and Quyền for the stem Canh are the same in every version. The stem Nhâm also has a variant version: Toàn Thư gives Thiên Phủ transforming into Khoa, while the site's table and Đẩu số tinh thành give Tả Phụ transforming into Khoa.
What is Khâm Thiên Tứ Hóa and where does it come from?
Khâm Thiên Tứ Hóa is the name of a way of reading Tử Vi (Vietnamese astrology) that takes the four transforming energies Hóa Lộc, Hóa Quyền, Hóa Khoa and Hóa Kỵ as its axis. Từ Tăng Sinh relates that among the surviving Tử Vi schools there is a Tứ Hóa school and a Phi Tinh school, and says each school has its own rules of interpretation, not entirely the same. The name Khâm Thiên is tied to a Tứ Hóa lineage that formed in Taiwan in the 20th century, not to an ancient tradition: Tử Vi Đẩu Số Toàn Thư (the four volume edition on Wikisource) has a song for placing Tứ Hóa by the heavenly stem of the birth year, but it has no such school name and no terms phi hóa (飛化), tự hóa (自化) or lai nhân cung (來因宮). The section below restates the Tứ Hóa approach as set out in Từ Tăng Sinh's books.
In other words, if the reading familiar to many people is to look up which stars sit in the Mệnh palace, which stars sit in the Tài palace, then Khâm Thiên Tứ Hóa asks one more question: what energy are those stars transforming into, from which palace are they flying to which palace, and what does that flight say about the person and the course of their life.
What do the four transforming energies Lộc, Quyền, Khoa and Kỵ mean?
Tử Vi Đẩu Số Toàn Thư (volume 1) describes the four transformations in an answer attributed to Hi Di tiên sinh: Hóa Lộc is the god of fortune and virtue (禄为福德之神), and when a minor limit meets it, it governs joy in money and in the path of office; Hóa Quyền is the star that holds the power to judge life and death (权星掌判生杀之神); Hóa Khoa is the star of examinations, governing writing and scholarship (科星上界应试，主掌文墨之星); Hóa Kỵ is the god of many affairs (忌为多管之神), and the book says that if it holds the body and the destiny, a whole life will not run smoothly. People who read Tứ Hóa today usually sum it up briefly: Lộc is ease and wealth; Quyền is power and initiative; Khoa is reputation and learning; Kỵ is obstruction and entanglement.
The point to note is that a star is not fixed to one transformation: Thái Dương is turned into Lộc by the stem Canh but into Kỵ by the stem Giáp. Interpretation therefore has to read in pairs and along the flight lines, not star by star in isolation.
How do sinh niên tứ hóa, phi hóa, tự hóa and lai nhân cung differ?
Sinh niên tứ hóa are the four transformations placed by the heavenly stem of the birth year, the base layer of Tứ Hóa in a chart. The book Đẩu số tinh thành Tập 1 phần 1 records the method of placing Tứ Hóa by the birth year stem; for example, for a person born in a Giáp year, Hóa Lộc is Liêm Trinh, Hóa Quyền is Phá Quân, Hóa Khoa is Vũ Khúc and Hóa Kỵ is Thái Dương. In the same table, a person born in a Nhâm year has Thiên Lương hóa Lộc, Tử Vi hóa Quyền, Tả Phụ hóa Khoa and Vũ Khúc hóa Kỵ.
The book TVĐS Mệnh vận phân tích by Từ Tăng Sinh also divides Tứ Hóa into four layers: by birth year stem, by the Mệnh palace, by the major limit and by the annual limit, in which the Tứ Hóa of the birth year is only the sowing of an image, neither auspicious nor inauspicious, a static state, while it is the interaction between the layers that produces good and bad fortune, which is dynamic.
Phi hóa is a further step: taking the heavenly stem of any palace in the chart to place the four transformations, and seeing how the energy from that palace flies to the other palaces. Tự hóa, according to Từ Tăng Sinh, is when the stem of a palace itself causes a star sitting right in that palace to transform, and the book classifies tự hóa as a state of dispersal: the energy goes out and cannot be gathered back.
Some students of Tứ Hóa call the palace whose heavenly stem matches the heavenly stem of the birth year the lai nhân cung and treat it as the starting point when reading a chart. This is the current usage among students of Tứ Hóa; Tử Vi Đẩu Số Toàn Thư has no such concept. For example, if the Mệnh palace carries a heavenly stem matching the birth year stem, then the Mệnh palace is itself the lai nhân cung.
How does Khâm Thiên Tứ Hóa differ from the Tam Hợp school?
Từ Tăng Sinh notes that there is a school that specialises in looking at star combinations without reading Tứ Hóa, and a school that specialises in looking at the circulation of Tứ Hóa, and that the reasoning rules of the schools are entirely different; the Tứ Hóa approach reads the movement of energy along the phi hóa lines.
Another difference is that Khâm Thiên Tứ Hóa uses the stem of each individual palace, not only the birth year stem. This is what makes the network of phi hóa dense and many layered, and it is also why this school requires the student to have a firm grasp of the phi hóa rules before interpreting.
Do the tứ hóa tables for the stem Canh and the stem Nhâm differ between schools?
Yes. This is one of the points on which Tử Vi schools do not agree, and a student needs to know which table they are following before interpreting. Comparing the song for placing Tứ Hóa in Tử Vi Đẩu Số Toàn Thư, the mnemonic verse in Đẩu số tinh thành tập 1 and the table used on the site, eight stems are the same, including the stem Tân (Cự Môn, Thái Dương, Văn Khúc, Văn Xương); the differences lie in Hóa Khoa and Hóa Kỵ for the stem Canh and in Hóa Khoa for the stem Nhâm.
So when reading an interpretation or using a chart casting tool, one should check which tứ hóa table is being used. If the tables differ, the phi hóa results will differ right from the base energy layer, and the whole interpretation behind it will shift accordingly. The table of ten stems at the end of this article is the core table used by the site.
How many versions of Tứ Hóa are there for the stem Canh, and which is correct?
The books cited here show two versions with Khoa and Kỵ reversed for the stem Canh, and there is no basis for saying which is wrong, since each school follows its own transmission. The Lộc and Quyền of the stem Canh are the same in every version: Thái Dương hóa Lộc, Vũ Khúc hóa Quyền. The difference lies only in Hóa Khoa and Hóa Kỵ.
The first version is the chart utility table currently used on the site: Thái Dương hóa Lộc, Vũ Khúc hóa Quyền, Thiên Đồng hóa Khoa, Thái Âm hóa Kỵ. In this table no stem makes Thiên Đồng hóa Kỵ; Vương Đình Chi records that according to the Mân school, Thiên Đồng does not transform into Kỵ.
The second version is that of the song for placing Tứ Hóa in Tử Vi Đẩu Số Toàn Thư (庚日武阴同, Canh: Thái Dương, Vũ Khúc, Thái Âm, Thiên Đồng), which is also the version in Đẩu số tinh thành Tập 1 phần 1 (tứ hóa table p. 28, mnemonic verse Canh Dương Vũ Âm Đồng pp. 36 to 37), that is, Thái Âm hóa Khoa and Thiên Đồng hóa Kỵ. The examples in TVĐS Mệnh vận phân tích by Từ Tăng Sinh also use the stem Canh to make Thiên Đồng hóa Kỵ.
Vương Đình Chi reports that the Trung Châu school holds that Thiên Đồng can still transform into Kỵ, unlike the Mân school. The Toàn Thư has a line about the star Thiên Đồng: in the land of Hợi, a person born in a Canh year is a lower case.
The site's chart utility uses the first version. The stem Nhâm also has variant versions: the song in the Toàn Thư records Thiên Phủ hóa Khoa (壬梁紫府武), while the table on the site and Đẩu số tinh thành record Tả Phụ hóa Khoa.
What steps does one need to master to read a chart by Khâm Thiên Tứ Hóa?
Following Từ Tăng Sinh's layering, one can proceed as follows. First place the Tứ Hóa by the birth year stem to get the base layer. Then place the stems for the twelve palaces by Ngũ Hổ Độn and carry out phi hóa by the stem of each palace, paying attention to the palaces that tự hóa. Finally superimpose the Tứ Hóa of the major limit and the annual limit to see the interaction between the layers. Those who use the term lai nhân cung should identify that palace from the start as well.
The tứ hóa lookup table and the site's phi tinh utility
The tứ hóa table for each stem is at the end of this article; the utility at /tien-ich/tu-vi-mach-noi computes the network of flights between the twelve palaces. You can enter a date and time of birth for the system to place the stars, then view the phi hóa lines directly instead of looking up each palace by hand. This makes it quick to cross check between the tứ hóa table in use and the phi hóa results shown on the chart, avoiding confusion when schools use variant versions for the stem Canh and the stem Nhâm.
Things to keep in mind when studying Khâm Thiên Tứ Hóa
Khâm Thiên Tứ Hóa is a system of interpretation with a tight structure, but it is also a field in which the schools do not fully agree with one another. The tứ hóa tables for the stem Canh and the stem Nhâm are the clearest example. A student should note clearly which table they follow and which book, so that when discussing with others there is no situation where each side interprets a different result and then considers the other wrong.
Besides this, concepts such as phi hóa, tự hóa and lai nhân cung are all rules of interpretation of one school, not yet verified, not a fixed verdict.
Which stars do the ten stems transform?
The table below is the Tứ Hóa table used by the site's chart and phi tinh utilities. The stem Canh and the stem Nhâm have variant versions between schools, so a chart cast according to another school may yield different transformed stars for these two stems.
| Stem | Hóa Lộc | Hóa Quyền | Hóa Khoa | Hóa Kỵ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Giáp | Liêm Trinh | Phá Quân | Vũ Khúc | Thái Dương |
| Ất | Thiên Cơ | Thiên Lương | Tử Vi | Thái Âm |
| Bính | Thiên Đồng | Thiên Cơ | Văn Xương | Liêm Trinh |
| Đinh | Thái Âm | Thiên Đồng | Thiên Cơ | Cự Môn |
| Mậu | Tham Lang | Thái Âm | Hữu Bật | Thiên Cơ |
| Kỷ | Vũ Khúc | Tham Lang | Thiên Lương | Văn Khúc |
| Canh | Thái Dương | Vũ Khúc | Thiên Đồng | Thái Âm |
| Tân | Cự Môn | Thái Dương | Văn Khúc | Văn Xương |
| Nhâm | Thiên Lương | Tử Vi | Tả Phù | Vũ Khúc |
| Quý | Phá Quân | Cự Môn | Thái Âm | Tham Lang |
The schools place Tứ Hóa differently for the stem Canh and the stem Nhâm. The table above has no stem that makes Thiên Đồng hóa Kỵ, which matches what Vương Đình Chi says about the Mân school. The book Đẩu số tinh thành Tập 1 phần 1 (tứ hóa table p. 28, mnemonic verse Canh Dương Vũ Âm Đồng p. 37) and the book TVĐS Mệnh vận phân tích by Từ Tăng Sinh record the opposite: Thái Âm hóa Khoa, Thiên Đồng hóa Kỵ. The song for placing Tứ Hóa in Tử Vi Đẩu Số Toàn Thư also makes the stem Canh turn Thiên Đồng into Kỵ, and Vương Đình Chi reports that the Trung Châu school keeps Thiên Đồng hóa Kỵ; for the stem Nhâm specifically, the Toàn Thư gives Thiên Phủ hóa Khoa instead of Tả Phụ. The Lộc and Quyền of the stem Canh are the same in every version: Thái Dương hóa Lộc, Vũ Khúc hóa Quyền.
