Cast & Chart

Rat and Dragon

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

The traditional relations

  • 三合 Three Harmonies

    Two members of a trio of branches that tradition groups together.

What tradition says

申子辰 is the water group among the four 三合, the Three Harmonies, and the Rat and the Dragon hold two of its three seats. 三命通會 assigns the roles: water is born at 申, reaches its height at 子 and is gathered in at 辰. The same chapter says that with one of the three missing the group does not form, so the Monkey's absence matters to anyone reading the rule strictly.

Popular compatibility charts list these two among the best matches in the zodiac, with the clever Rat and the grand Dragon admiring each other. That ranking belongs to popular tradition. The older sources say something narrower, that 辰 is water's storehouse even though its own fixed element is earth.

Position puts the Rat at the crest and the Dragon at the storehouse, which reverses the popular image of the showy Dragon. Who in your pair gets the surge going, and who keeps what came of it? Compare your answer with the signs and see whether it matches at all.

The group is a pattern among three branches, so being a Rat and a Dragon tells you where two years sit and little about two individuals.

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.