Meaning
The 全書's dialogue begins:
廉貞屬火，北斗第五星也。在斗司品秩，在數司權令。
In our translation: Lian Zhen belongs to fire, the fifth star of the Northern Dipper. In the Dipper it governs rank and grade; in the numbers, authority and command.
No star gets a sharper portrait. Its epithet is 囚, confinement, and when it stands in a weak palace the text says it 「化囚為殺」, turns from confinement into killing: a blessing that cannot be measured, a harm that cannot be undone. Its company changes it more than its place. 「逢帝座執威權，[…]遇文昌好禮樂」: beside the emperor it wields authority, and with Wen Chang it loves rites and music (with its line on 富貴 left out). In the Life or Body palace it is the "second peach blossom", after Tan Lang.
The 形性賦 gives it broad brows, a wide mouth and 「為人性暴，好忿好爭」, a hot temper, quick to anger and to quarrel: a type, never a reading of anyone's body or character.
Our chart calls it Integrity, after the first character, 廉, incorruptible; the second, 貞, steadfast or chaste, is why English Wikipedia says Chastity, a name we avoid because it misleads. Our gloss reads: intense and principled yet passionate; ambition needing self-control.
The name
廉貞 is the Sui 五行大義's name for the fifth star of the Northern Dipper, 玉衡 (Alioth), and the Daoist Northern Dipper scripture repeats it. On the board it is placed by counting; nothing is observed. Chinese feng shui gives the name to the number five of the nine stars, the star Nine Star Ki calls Five Yellow Earth.
On the board
Lian Zhen is eight palaces behind Zi Wei, which is four ahead of it. It shares a palace with Tian Xiang in 子 or 午, Qi Sha in 丑 or 未, Po Jun in 卯 or 酉, Tian Fu in 辰 or 戌 and Tan Lang in 巳 or 亥, and stands alone in 寅 and 申, where it is brilliant (廟). It is fallen (陷) in 巳 and 亥. In the common table it takes 化祿 in a 甲 year and 化忌 in a 丙 year. It is the Life Master (命主) when the Life Palace is in 辰 or 申.
What this page leaves out
The 全書's dialogue on Lian Zhen runs through gambling, lawsuits, injuries and worse. We note that the text speaks so, more of this star than of any other, and repeat none of it.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- 諸星問答論, the opening line
- 「廉貞屬火，北斗第五星也。在斗司品秩，在數司權令。」 Lian Zhen belongs to fire, the fifth star of the Northern Dipper. In the Dipper it governs rank and grade; in the numbers, authority and command sourced
- 形性賦, form and nature
- 「為人性暴，好忿好爭」 a hot-tempered person, quick to anger and to quarrel; a sketch of a type, never a reading of anyone's body sourced
- Namesake in the sky (symbolic)
- 玉衡, the fifth star of the Northern Dipper (Alioth, ε Ursae Majoris), named 廉貞 in the Sui 五行大義's quotation; the chart does not read it sourced
- Dipper by series
- Listed as a Northern Dipper star on some practitioner pages because it belongs to the Zi Wei series; the 全書 agrees, but for its own reason, the Dipper seat disputed
- Element, modern tables
- Fire with wood in one practitioner table, fire with water in another; fire alone in the 全書 disputed
- English names elsewhere
- Chastity (English Wikipedia), which we avoid because it misleads in modern English; judge (iztro); Integrity, Pride and Reformer on other sites sourced
- Our short name and gloss
- Integrity: Intense and principled yet passionate; ambition needing self-control. our construction
How the schools read it
- 紫微斗數全書, 諸星問答論
- Governs rank in the Dipper and authority in the chart; "beside the emperor it wields authority ... with Wen Chang it loves rites and music". Not bright, it "turns from confinement into killing".
- 紫微斗數全書, 形性賦
- Broad brows and a wide mouth; "a hot-tempered person, quick to anger and to quarrel". A sketch of a type, never a reading of anyone's body.
- 紫微斗數全書, the dialogue on the Life palace
- In the Life or Body palace it is the "second peach blossom" (次桃花), after Tan Lang: a star of attraction, in the text's idiom.
- Three-harmony practice (三合派)
- Reads it above all by its company: with Zi Wei, with Tian Fu or Tian Xiang, with Tan Lang, Qi Sha or Po Jun, the star takes a different colour.
- English teaching
- Chastity, Integrity, Pride, Reformer, Judge: the names pull in different directions, as the two characters do.
- EsoTerrier
- Short name Integrity; our gloss keeps the double edge, ambition that needs self-control. No reading of outcome.
Claims about it
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Lian Zhen is the fifth Dipper star, and the chart reads where it stands.
disputedWhat the record shows: The name is the fifth Dipper star's in the Sui 五行大義; the chart places Lian Zhen by counting from Zi Wei and observes nothing.
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The text's lines on Lian Zhen foretell disputes, punishment and bloodshed.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: The 全書 speaks that way about this star more than any other. Those lines are its historical language, and none of them is ours.
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Lian Zhen is a Northern Dipper star because it belongs to the Zi Wei series.
falseWhat the record shows: Its Dipper seat comes from its name; the series is a placement grouping.
Elsewhere on EsoTerrier
- Tan Lang 貪狼 the first peach blossom, which shares a palace with Lian Zhen in 巳 or 亥
- Tian Xiang 天相 which the text says softens Lian Zhen; the two share a palace in 子 or 午
- Five Yellow Earth Nine Star Ki's star 5, which Chinese feng shui also calls 廉貞
- Jiǎ 甲, yang Wood in a 甲 year Lian Zhen takes 化祿; the stem's own page, in BaZi
