Feng Shui ScanWhat a Kua number is
Eight Mansions (Ba Zhai) is a compass school of Feng Shui. It gives every person a number from 1 to 9, calculated from the year of birth and differing for men and women. There is no Kua 5 in use: a result of 5 is read as 2 for men and 8 for women.
Numbers 1, 3, 4 and 9 form the East group, whose good directions are north, south, east and southeast. Numbers 2, 6, 7 and 8 form the West group: west, northwest, southwest and northeast. Each number then ranks its four good directions and four poor ones in its own order.
The eight directions
The four good directions have traditional names. Sheng Qi is the strongest, associated with vitality and success. Tian Yi is associated with health, Yan Nian with relationships and long life, and Fu Wei with stability and one’s own development. The four poor directions run from Huo Hai, mild mishaps, through Wu Gui and Liu Sha to Jue Ming, the most severe.
These are labels inside a system. They describe how Eight Mansions ranks a direction for you, not what will happen if you sleep facing it.
How people use them
The usual applications are the direction your head points in bed, the direction you face at your desk, and the direction your front door faces. For a bed, most teachers take the direction from the top of your head; for a desk, the direction you look when seated.
Two cautions come from within the tradition itself. First, a household rarely shares one group, and a bed has one direction; teachers usually give priority to whoever the room matters most to, or split bed and desk between partners. Second, form comes first. A desk turned to a favourable direction with its back to the door is not considered an improvement over one in the command position, which the desk placement tool checks. The same holds for a bed.
The year starts in February
Eight Mansions counts the year from Li Chun, the start of spring in the solar calendar, which falls on 3, 4 or 5 February. Someone born on 20 January 1990 is calculated as 1989. Many online calculators use 1 January or the Lunar New Year instead and give a different number for January and early-February birthdays. This one works out the solar term for the year in question and tells you when it has moved your year back.
Kua and BaZi are different methods
Feng Shui Scan does not use Kua numbers. It personalises a home through BaZi, which reads the full birth chart and derives favourable elements, and from those, directions. Kua uses only the year and sex; BaZi uses year, month, day and hour. They are separate systems and they can disagree about the same person. The BaZi calculator will show you your chart so you can compare.
A list of directions is only useful once you know which way your own bed and desk point. Most people guess, and most guesses are off by one compass point.
SEE WHICH WAY YOU FACE
Scan your home and see which way your bed and desk actually point.
Coming to the App Store · iPhone and iPad · submitted for review
What the app does with direction
- Records a compass heading as you scan, so every bed and desk in the plan has a real bearing.
- Notes the direction your head points in bed and the direction you face at your desk.
- Compares both with the favourable elements from your BaZi chart.
- Not read: Kua numbers and Eight Mansions directions. Use this calculator for those, and the app’s bearings to apply them.
Questions
How is the Kua number calculated?
Add the digits of your birth year until you have a single digit. For men, subtract it from 11; for women, add 4. Reduce the result to a single digit. A result of 5 becomes 2 for men and 8 for women. The year is counted from the start of spring, around 4 February.
What are East group and West group?
Eight Mansions sorts Kua numbers into two groups. East group numbers are 1, 3, 4 and 9, with north, south, east and southeast as their good directions. West group numbers are 2, 6, 7 and 8, with west, northwest, southwest and northeast.
My partner and I are in different groups. Which direction does the bed take?
The tradition has no single answer. Common approaches are to favour the person whose sleep or health is the greater concern, or to give one partner the bed direction and the other the desk direction. Most teachers put the command position ahead of either.
Why does another calculator give me a different number?
Usually because of the year boundary. If you were born in January or early February, a calculator that changes the year on 1 January or at Lunar New Year will differ from one that uses the start of spring.
Is the Kua number the same as my BaZi?
No. Kua uses only your birth year and sex. BaZi uses the year, month, day and hour of birth and produces a full chart. They are different systems and can point to different directions.