The nine-palace grid and bagua ring on Home Check plans follow Later Heaven, with north at the top like a map.
Glossary · Compass & qi theory
Early Heaven and Later Heaven bagua先天八卦 · 后天八卦
Explanation
The Shuo Gua commentary of the I Ching describes Early Heaven as "Heaven and earth set their places, mountain and lake exchange their breath, thunder and wind stir each other, water and fire do not oppose" — each pair of trigrams faces across the centre. Later Heaven begins "the Lord comes forth in Zhen": energy rises in the east and travels through the four seasons.
Home feng shui uses Later Heaven to assign trigrams to the eight directions; Early Heaven appears in some water methods and trigram pairings.
Classical source: I Ching — Discussion of the Trigrams (Shuo Gua)
How Home Check uses it
Questions
Should a home use Early Heaven or Later Heaven?
To assign a direction to each room, home feng shui uses Later Heaven. Early Heaven still appears in some calculations, but not to divide a house into eight sectors.
Why do old books draw south at the top?
Traditionally the reader faces south, so south is drawn at the top. Home Check draws north at the top to match maps and architectural plans; the trigrams stay in the same places.
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Markdown version of this page Index for machine readers (llms.txt)