tài yī tiān fú
Also rendered: The great unity heaven tally (this site; literal, and it keeps 太一 as the undivided one rather than as a star or a deity) · Tai yi tian fu (transliteration; used when the three agreements are listed as terms)
Reviewed · 2026-10-06
At a glance
Both agreements at once: a year that is a heaven tally — the circuit agreeing with the qi that presides above — and a year meeting — the circuit agreeing with the branch — at the same time. The chapter names it in answer to a question the base text gives without 帝曰 in front of it: 天符歲會何如？ Of the three, it is the honoured one, and the chapter grades the three as offices: the heaven tally holds the law, the year’s position issues commands, and the great unity is the person himself. The severity follows the rank — struck by the holder of the law the illness is swift and perilous, by the issuer of commands slow and lingering, and by the honoured one sudden and fatal.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
| This site | the great unity heaven tally | literal from 太一 and 天符; both agreements hold at once, and the chapter's own image for it is a person rather than an office |
| Transliteration | tai yi tian fu | how the phrase appears in writing on the 運氣 doctrine; right about the referent, and it drops both the unity and the warrant |
| Descriptive | the year of double agreement | exact as to what it is, and it loses the grading — this is the one that kills suddenly |
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