LESSON P04 / 07 OF 20
Reading with an unknown birth time
An unknown hour is not a broken chart. Here is what you can and cannot read.
Original app lesson · freely available here
Time unknown: keep the three pillars and leave the hour blank.
What still reads
The Day Master stands, so who you are and how you push still reads. The month pillar stands, so upbringing and home ground read too.
With the year pillar as well, three of four give you the main outline.
What to set aside
Later life, children and the private self lean on the hour pillar. Without it, hold those conclusions.
Do not fill the gap with a guess. Wrong data produces a person who does not exist.
How to recover it
Birth certificates and hospital records often record the time. Asking an elder “was it light out?” works better than asking for a clock time.
Add it later and nothing you already read is overturned.
Read one block less rather than inventing data. Three pillars already give the outline.
CHECK YOURSELF
Try the lesson questions
No score. An incorrect first answer enters your review book.
Without the hour, which area should you hold?
Those lean on the hour pillar; the other three still give the outline.
How is it easier to ask an elder about a birth time?
People remember scenes, not clocks. Scene questions recover far more.
Sources and further reading
- Lesson cases and conventions7 January 2000, Taipei, 10:30 / 11:30 / 12:00, civil time. Replayed with a fixed calculation version; not independently validated against an almanac.
- lunar-javascript · Adopted calculation dataVersion 1.7.7 used for replayed cases and correspondence-table checks. Algorithm agreement is not textual collation.
YOUR STUDY / P04
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