Cast & Chart

Dragon and Dragon

These are traditional rules about the twelve signs. No chart decides a relationship.

The traditional relations

  • 自刑 Self-Punishment

    A branch the old tables list as punishing itself when doubled. The name is a label, not a forecast.

What tradition says

Two Dragons share one branch, 辰, and 辰 is one of only four branches listed under 自刑, Self-Punishment. The Sanming Tonghui explains the name by a kind of remainder: among the four earth branches, 戌, 丑 and 未 punish one another in a cycle and 辰 is left with no partner, so it is counted as punishing itself. A second route lays the water group 申子辰 over the row 寅卯辰, and the last branch lands on its own square. 刑 means punishment or penalty, and here it is a technical name for a pattern of positions.

Expect two confident, big-gestured Dragons competing for the front of the stage in most popular zodiac books. Some popular writers read the pair as thrilling and others as exhausting. Neither view appears in the tables, which say only that the branch meets itself.

If you are both Dragons, try asking who usually gets to decide when you plan something together. Then swap for one small plan, a weekend or a shared meal, and notice how it feels to follow.

Self-Punishment names what the branch 辰 does when it meets 辰, and two Dragons are free to be quite unlike each other.

Where this text comes from

The relation tables follow 五行大義 volume 2 and 三命通會 volumes 2 and 3 on Wikisource. The popular readings are modern and come from neither.

The English here is our own plain wording, not a translation of a single source.