Earthly Branch Punishments: How to Identify Three Punishments and Self-Punishments

一 What it is

What Earthly Branch Punishments Are

Think of a calendar reminder that flags two meetings booked at the same time. The flag does not tell you what will happen in either meeting; it simply marks an overlap worth noticing. An Earthly Branches punishment works the same way inside a Bazi chart: it is a named pattern that appears when specific branches sit together, not a verdict about your life.

In this calculator, punishments are detected by lookup. A Three Punishment group is present when all three listed branches appear anywhere in the four pillars, such as 寅, 巳 and 申. A mutual punishment is present when 子 and 卯 both appear. A self-punishment requires the same listed branch to occur at least twice, for example 辰 in both the day and hour positions. These are visible chart labels, separate from any later interpretation you or a reader might attach to them.

Schools differ in wording and in how much weight they give punishments, so treat the label as a starting point for study rather than a conclusion. A punishment match cannot prove a crime, an illness, a disaster, a trauma or any guaranteed event. It also cannot describe your character, relationships, career or finances on its own. The chart shows co-presence; meaning requires context, and context requires judgment beyond a lookup table.

二 Where to find it in your chart

Entering Birth Data and Reading the Bottom Branches

Begin with the calendar details: date of birth, clock time, and birthplace. Year and Month are calculated using China time, while Day and Hour use true solar time, so a distant birthplace can shift the later pillars. If the birth time is unknown, leave it blank; the calculator then shows three pillars and no Hour Pillar rather than inventing one.

Once the chart appears, read each column from top to bottom. The upper character is the stem; the lower character is the branch. These four bottom characters are the Earthly Branches: Year, Month, Day, and Hour. Checking them in order makes patterns easy to spot, including the branch Punishments described in this article.

Compare the branches against the traditional lookup lists:

• Three Punishment group: 寅–巳–申
• Three Punishment group: 丑–戌–未
• Mutual punishment: 子–卯
• Self-punishment: 辰, 午, 酉, or 亥 appearing at least twice

Detection is simply co-presence. A chart holding 寅, 巳, and 申 contains that group; a chart with 辰 in two columns contains a self-punishment. Schools differ in wording and interpretation, so treat these labels as interpretive vocabulary, not as evidence of crime, illness, disaster, or any guaranteed event. Related patterns such as Six Clashes and Six Combinations use the same branch positions, so reading all four columns carefully keeps the comparison consistent. To try it with your own details, calculate your chart.

三 How to read it

How to Identify Punishments Step by Step

Start by listing the four Earthly Branches in their fixed positions: year, month, day and hour. If the birth time is unknown, work with three branches and leave the hour slot empty rather than guessing. Then compare your list against the punishment lookup, one entry at a time.

The lookup contains three kinds of entries. Two are Three Punishment groups: 寅–巳–申 and 丑–戌–未. One is a Mutual punishment pair: 子–卯. Four are Self-punishments, where a single branch repeats: 辰–辰, 午–午, 酉–酉 and 亥–亥.

For a Three Punishment group, check membership in two stages. Complete membership means all three listed branches are present somewhere in the chart. Partial membership means only two of the three appear. Both are detectable, but they are not the same finding, so record which one you have. The same two-stage logic applies to the Mutual punishment pair: both branches present is complete; only one present is no match at all.

For Self-punishment, the test is repetition. The same listed branch must appear at least twice among the four positions. A single 辰 is not a Self-punishment; two 辰 branches are. Count occurrences before concluding anything.

Positions matter for description, not for detection. A pair may sit in adjacent pillars or in distant ones, such as year and hour. Note where each branch falls, because the configuration differs, but do not treat distance as a hidden transformation test. Coexistence also matters: a chart can contain more than one lookup match at once, and each match should be listed separately. A chart may also contain a clash pattern; the Six Clashes are identified by their own separate lookup, not by punishment rules.

Finally, keep interpretation bounded. These labels are traditional vocabulary for describing branch relationships, not verdicts about events. A punishment is not a crime, illness, disaster or guaranteed outcome, and schools differ in wording and emphasis. Your repeatable procedure is simply: list the branches, test each lookup entry, mark complete or partial membership, count repeats for Self-punishment, and record positions and coexistence.

四 When the reading changes

Three Punishment group: 寅–巳–申

A Three Punishment group is detected by co-presence, not intensity. The traditional lookup lists 寅–巳–申 together, so a chart containing all three branches in any four pillars matches the group. In the sample chart 乙丑 / 辛巳 / 甲寅 / 壬申, the branches 丑, 巳, 寅 and 申 appear across year, month, day and hour, and the calculator reports the match. The concrete check is to scan the four branch positions and confirm that 寅, 巳 and 申 each occur at least once. Position matters for reading order but not for detection; a branch in the year pillar and the same branch in the hour pillar both count. The limited meaning is that the listed branches are present together, not a verdict about character, health, money or any scheduled event.

Three Punishment group: 丑–戌–未

The second traditional group is 丑–戌–未, and detection again requires all three listed branches somewhere in the four pillars. A chart with 丑 and 未 but no 戌 does not complete this group, even though two of the three are present. Here repeated labels and hidden-only occurrences need care. A branch written in the visible pillar is not the same as a branch appearing only among hidden stems, because the calculator’s match logic reads branch positions, not hidden-stem lists. If 戌 occurs only as a hidden stem inside another branch, it does not satisfy the visible branch condition. This group can coexist with a Six Clashes relation or with Six Combinations, and coexistence does not cancel either lookup. Treat the result as a structural note about which branches are co-present, not as a forecast.

Mutual punishment: 子–卯

Mutual punishment is a two-branch lookup: 子 and 卯. The check is whether both branches appear in the four pillars. If 子 sits in the year pillar and 卯 in the day pillar, the pair is still detected; if both appear only in hidden stems, the visible-branch condition is not met. Positional differences affect how a reader might describe the chart, but they do not change the lookup itself. This pair can coexist with a Ten-God category such as Direct Officer or Indirect Wealth, and that coexistence is not evidence that the punishment “activates” the Ten God. The limited meaning is co-presence of 子 and 卯, interpretive vocabulary rather than an empirical outcome, and it should not be translated into claims about relationships, career or health.

Self-punishment: repeated 辰, 午, 酉 or 亥

Self-punishment requires the same listed branch to appear at least twice. The lookup lists 辰–辰, 午–午, 酉–酉 and 亥–亥. In the sample chart 癸亥 / 乙丑 / 甲辰 / 戊辰, the branch 辰 appears in the day pillar and again in the hour pillar, so the calculator reports a self-punishment match. The concrete check is to count occurrences of each of the four branches; one occurrence is not enough, and two occurrences in any positions qualify. A repeated branch may also participate in a Six Combinations relation with a neighbouring branch, and the two lookups can coexist without one erasing the other. The limited meaning is repetition of a listed branch. It does not mean a guaranteed event, and it does not replace the five-element totals or Ten-God weights, which remain separate descriptive layers.

五 Worked chart examples

These teaching charts were screened by the site’s current calendar engine. They are not people or client stories. Tables and totals are generated from frozen engine rules; the prose only explains what is shown.

Chart A: Reading the 寅–巳–申 Punishment Group

Chart A has four pillars: 乙丑 in the year, 辛巳 in the month, 甲寅 in the day, and 壬申 in the hour. The day stem is 甲, so the Day Master is 甲 Wood. Each pillar pairs one Heavenly Stem with one Earthly Branch: 丑, 巳, 寅 and 申.

The branches matter here because this chart matches one entry in the punishment lookup: the Three Punishment group 寅–巳–申. Detection is simple co-presence. The 巳 sits in the month, the 寅 in the day, and the 申 in the hour, so all three listed branches appear. No repetition is needed, and no extra rule is applied.

This is a lookup result, not a verdict. A punishment match does not mean crime, illness, disaster or any guaranteed event. It is a structural label that traditional schools word and interpret differently. Read it alongside other branch relationships, such as the Six Clashes and Six Combinations, rather than in isolation.

The supplied five-element totals are Wood 3, Fire 1.5, Earth 1.9, Metal 2.8 and Water 2. These are raw counts, not a strength verdict. The visible Day Master 甲 counts inside those totals. The weighted Ten-God totals are separate: Friend 1, Rob Wealth 1, Eating God 1.5, Indirect Wealth 0.9, Direct Wealth 1, Seven Killings 1.5, Direct Officer 1.3, Indirect Resource 1.5 and Direct Resource 0.5. The Day Master is excluded only from those weighted Ten-God figures.

Hidden stems follow this calculator’s list-order weights of 1.0, 0.5 and 0.3. In 丑: 己, 癸, 辛. In 巳: 丙, 庚, 戊. In 寅: 甲, 丙, 戊. In 申: 庚, 壬, 戊. Chart A therefore shows one clear punishment match, traced from the exact branches and positions above.

Reading Chart B: A Self-Punishment Lookup

Chart B has the pillars 癸亥, 乙丑, 甲辰 and 戊辰. Its branches are 亥, 丑, 辰 and 辰. Using the punishment lookup, the repeated 辰 forms a self-punishment: the same listed branch appears at least twice. That is the whole detection rule here. It is a structural observation, not a claim about crime, illness, disaster or any guaranteed event.

The same chart also shows how other lookups stay separate. 辰 and 丑 are not a listed punishment pair, so no punishment is recorded between them. If you want to compare other branch relationships, see Six Clashes and Six Combinations. Each lookup has its own members and its own wording, and schools differ, so label the match rather than turning it into a verdict.

Contrast With Chart A

Chart A has the pillars 乙丑, 辛巳, 甲寅 and 壬申. Its branches are 丑, 巳, 寅 and 申. Here the match is a Three Punishment group: 寅–巳–申. Chart B instead has a repeated-branch self-punishment. One chart shows three different listed branches co-present; the other shows one listed branch twice. Both are detection results from the same lookup table, not statements about a person’s life.

A Repeatable Observation Method

• List all four branches in order.
• Check each Three Punishment group: 寅–巳–申 and 丑–戌–未.
• Check the mutual punishment pair: 子–卯.
• Check self-punishment by counting repeats of 辰, 午, 酉 and 亥.
• Record only the match you find, then note that interpretation varies by school.

This method keeps the reading bounded. It tells you what is present in the branches, and it leaves outcomes where they belong: outside the lookup.

六 Base-rate boundary

The full enumeration used by this site contains 518,400 valid Four Pillars combinations: 60 year pillars × 12 solar-month slots × 60 day pillars × 12 hour slots. This topic contains several possible labels or thresholds, so a single combined percentage would conceal which exact condition was counted.

Any later frequency must define one exact condition first and report an equal-weight combination-space proportion, not a percentage of people, income outcomes, careers or birth records. The presence of a label is not an event forecast.