Eight Mansions · Kua Number
Kua Number 5: Why It Becomes 2 or 8
Updated
If your sum came out as 5, nothing went wrong. The formula can produce a 5, but Eight Mansions has no Kua 5. Men with 5 use Kua 2; women with 5 use Kua 8. Both are Earth, both are in the West group.
Why there is no Kua 5
Kua Numbers are positions in the Lo Shu (洛書), the three-by-three magic square behind Eight Mansions feng shui. Eight of its nine squares sit on a compass direction and carry one of the eight trigrams. That link is what gives every Kua its four lucky and four unlucky directions.
The number 5 sits in the centre square. The centre has no compass direction and no trigram of its own, so a person cannot "face" it or sleep with their head toward it. A Kua 5 would have no directions to give you, which makes it useless for arranging a desk, bed or door. The tradition solves this by sending the centre out to one of the two Earth trigrams, because 5 is also the number of Earth in the five-element scheme.
Why men get 2 and women get 8
The two Earth trigrams are 坤 Kūn (Southwest) and 艮 Gèn (Northeast). Assigning Kūn to men and Gèn to women is a convention handed down in Eight Mansions teaching rather than something the arithmetic produces on its own. It is the rule most teachers follow, and it is what the Destiny Kua calculator uses.
A small number of teachers assign 2 to both, or 8 to both. If a consultant has given you a different answer, ask which convention they follow. The two Earth Kua share the same four good directions, so in practice the choice mostly changes which of those four is your "best".
Your directions if your Kua is 5
| Star | Men (use Kua 2) | Women (use Kua 8) |
|---|---|---|
| Sheng Qi 生氣 · growth | Northeast | Southwest |
| Tian Yi 天醫 · health | West | Northwest |
| Yan Nian 延年 · relationships | Northwest | West |
| Fu Wei 伏位 · stability | Southwest | Northeast |
| Jue Ming 絕命 · worst | North | Southeast |
Notice that both columns contain the same four good directions: Northeast, Southwest, West and Northwest. That is why a couple where he has 5 and she has 5 can arrange a shared bedroom easily. For the full room-by-room advice, go to the Kua 2 page or the Kua 8 page.
Birth years that give Kua 5
These use the Chinese solar year, which starts at Li Chun (about 4 February). If you were born before Li Chun, use the previous year.
| Men: 5 becomes Kua 2 | Women: 5 becomes Kua 8 |
|---|---|
| 1941, 1950, 1959, 1968, 1977, 1986, 1995, 2004, 2013, 2022 | 1945, 1954, 1963, 1972, 1981, 1990, 1999, 2008, 2017, 2026 |
Worked examples
A man born in June 1986: 8 + 6 = 14, then 1 + 4 = 5. Men born before 2000 subtract from 10: 10 − 5 = 5. There is no Kua 5, so he uses Kua 2.
A woman born in March 1990: 9 + 0 = 9. Women born before 2000 add 5: 9 + 5 = 14, then 1 + 4 = 5. She uses Kua 8.
A woman born on 20 January 1991: she was born before Li Chun, so she uses 1990 and also gets 5, which becomes Kua 8. Using 1991 by mistake would give her Kua 6.
Kua Numbers come from the Eight Mansions school. Other schools, such as Flying Stars, use different methods. Use your directions as a gentle guide, not a rule.