Eight Mansions
Kua Numbers: Your Personal Feng Shui Directions
Your Kua Number (命卦, Míng Guà, "destiny trigram") links you to one of the eight trigrams and gives you four favourable and four unfavourable compass directions. It comes from your birth year and gender.
How to calculate your Kua Number
The quickest way is the Destiny Kua calculator. To do it by hand:
- Take your birth year. If you were born before Li Chun (about 4 February), use the year before.
- Add the last two digits, and keep adding until you reach one digit. For 1985: 8 + 5 = 13, then 1 + 3 = 4.
- Men born before 2000: 10 minus that digit. Men born from 2000: 9 minus that digit (0 becomes 9).
- Women born before 2000: that digit plus 5. Women born from 2000: that digit plus 6. Reduce to one digit.
- There is no Kua 5 in Eight Mansions. Men with 5 use 2; women with 5 use 8.
Worked example for 1985: a man gets 10 − 4 = Kua 6; a woman gets 4 + 5 = Kua 9.
East group and West group
Kua 1, 3, 4 and 9 form the East group; their lucky directions are North, South, East and Southeast. Kua 2, 6, 7 and 8 form the West group; their lucky directions are West, Northwest, Southwest and Northeast. Couples in the same group share all four good directions, which makes arranging a bedroom or home office simpler.
The eight stars
| Star | Type | What it governs | Best use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sheng Qi 生氣 | Best | Growth, success, wealth | Desk facing, front door |
| Tian Yi 天醫 | Good | Health | Bed direction, dining |
| Yan Nian 延年 | Good | Relationships, harmony | Bedroom, family room |
| Fu Wei 伏位 | Good | Stability, personal growth | Study, meditation |
| Huo Hai 禍害 | Unfavourable | Mishaps, irritations | Storage, bathroom |
| Wu Gui 五鬼 | Unfavourable | Conflict, gossip | Storage, stove |
| Liu Sha 六煞 | Unfavourable | Setbacks | Bathroom, laundry |
| Jue Ming 絕命 | Worst | Total loss | Avoid for bed and desk |
Formulas follow the Eight Mansions (Ba Zhai) school, the most common system for personal directions. Some teachers use Chinese New Year rather than Li Chun as the year boundary; we explain why we use Li Chun in this guide.