Cast & Chart

Ox and Tiger

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

The traditional relations

  • 無 No listed relation

    None of the classical relations apply to this pair.

What tradition says

The year turns between these two, since the Dipper points to 丑 in the twelfth month and to 寅 in the first. They are adjacent on the circle and absent from every relation table we hold, and 三命通會 even mentions 寅 joining 丑 as a match that does not hold. In elements it is wood over earth, and a passage of 論衡 uses exactly that to say the ox is subdued by the tiger.

Popular zodiac books tend to see a clash of tempo, patient Ox against impatient Tiger. Popular charts often score it low, and that score has no table behind it. 論衡 is arguing about why animals overcome each other, a different subject from how people get along.

A turn of the year is a good image for handing over. Ask which of you closes old business and which opens new, and how the handoff goes when the two overlap. If wood parts earth, consider whether change ever arrives here before the ground is ready.

That the tiger subdues the ox is a statement about signs and animals in an Eastern Han book, and two living people are outside its scope.

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.