流月／流日起法 (Monthly & daily star method)

• 中文 / Chinese: 流月／流日起法

The Palm Sutra has a common method for the year (the year’s branch fixes the year star); for the month and the day it has none. Both are later layers that the classical texts do not describe. This tool does not pretend otherwise: as with decade luck, the method is a stated option rather than an assumed rule, and the two methods below give different palaces — they coexist, neither is "the" answer. This one setting governs both the monthly and the daily star: the two layers stand or fall together, and choosing separately would only produce a self-contradictory pair.

Conventions 各派做法

• Counted from the year palace (default) (順數法（預設）) — default — Applies the natal counting method to the date: the year palace is the lunar year’s branch, count from it to that lunar month (this is the month palace), then from there to the lunar day (the day palace). The month palace is already the intermediate step of the day palace, so the two layers cannot disagree; and both share the natal chart’s operation — only the date changes.
• By the sexagenary branch (month-build / day branch) (干支法（月建／日支）) — The month takes the branch it "builds" on (first lunar month on Yín, second on Mǎo); the day takes the branch of its sexagenary pillar. This borrows the BaZi notions of month and day pillars — but note the natal "Month" and "Day" pillars here are not sexagenary pillars, they are counted palaces, so this method is imported rather than native; it is offered as an option, not the default.

The reading tool lets you pick the convention; the first option is the common default. Different choices can shift the pillars for births at late Zi or in a leap month.

All schools & conventions · The four pillars · Palm Sutra knowledge base

機器可讀原始檔（供 AI 檢索）：/okf/yizhang/schools/liuri.md