Cast & Chart

Rat and Rat

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

Two Rats share one branch, 子, the first of the twelve, which lies in the north and carries water in the fixed scheme of elements. The classical tables in our sources list nothing for 子 meeting 子. Only 辰, 午, 酉 and 亥 punish themselves, and the punishment tied to 子 points at 卯, the Rabbit's branch.

Popular zodiac books tend to give a pair of Rats a lively, quick-minded partnership with a shared eye for thrift. The same books sometimes worry that two such planners will fight for the last word. Those are modern sketches of a sign type.

Since 五行大義 places water at its height in 子, doubling the branch gives more of one thing and nothing to push against. Two Rats could ask who checks the plan when both of you spot the same angle at once. Name one recent decision that nobody questioned and look at it again.

A shared sign is a fact about two calendar years, and it leaves the two people born in them wholly undescribed.

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.