How Are Mai Hoa Dịch Số and Lục Hào Nạp Giáp Different?

You open cast a hexagram and see two choices: Mai Hoa Dịch Số and Lục Hào Nạp Giáp. Same question — which one do you cast with?

The difference isn't about reading closely versus reading loosely — on maihoathon, both give you the exact same full Lục Hào Nạp Giáp reading once you're done casting. The difference is in how the hexagram gets built: Mai Hoa uses a number, a moment in time, or text you type; Lục Hào uses six coin tosses. Once you know how each one works, you can pick whichever fits what you're asking.

What is Mai Hoa Dịch Số

Mai Hoa takes a number, a moment in time, or a bit of text you type — then works out the hexagram with a fixed formula. All three inputs land in the same place: two numbers map to two trigrams (upper, lower), and one number points to which line is changing.

• By numbers: the digits you type are split in half. The first half, summed and taken mod 8, gives the upper trigram; the second half gives the lower trigram; both halves summed together, mod 6, give the changing line.
• By time: the moment you cast converts to the lunar calendar (year, month, day, hour branch), summed with its own formula to produce both trigrams and the changing line. The hour only feeds into the lower trigram and the changing line — it doesn't touch the upper trigram.
• By text: the text is split in half, and each half's character codes are summed separately into the two trigrams; the changing line sums both halves plus the text's length, then takes mod 6.

Whichever way you enter it, the formula always leaves exactly one changing line — never zero, never more than one. From the original hexagram (the main hexagram), Mai Hoa also builds a changed hexagram (flipping that one changing line) and a mutual hexagram (drawn from lines 2-3-4 and 3-4-5) for extra perspective.

In the classical texts, the Mai Hoa reading usually stops here: comparing the Five Elements between the Body (the trigram that isn't moving) and the Function (the trigram with the changing line — the thing you're actually asking about). On maihoathon, though, the six lines you just calculated don't stop at Body/Function — they feed straight into the same full Lục Hào Nạp Giáp reading below, exactly as if you'd tossed the coins.

What is Lục Hào Nạp Giáp

Lục Hào works the other way around: you cast six times, three coins per toss, from the bottom line up — each toss gives you one line, landing directly into one of four states depending on how many coins land heads versus tails. The main hexagram is built straight from those six lines — no trigram-calculation step like Mai Hoa.

Each line changes (or doesn't) independently, so the number of changing lines can be anywhere from 0 to 6, not fixed. Casting zero changing lines is completely normal — when that happens, there's no changed hexagram.

Lục Hào also attaches a whole extra layer of information Mai Hoa doesn't have:

• The Eight Palaces: the hexagram you just cast belongs to one of 8 fixed palaces, each carrying a fixed element (a few palaces share the same element).
• Self line / Response line: the position of "you" and "the other party" among the 6 lines, set by where the hexagram sits in its palace's sequence of 8 — the Response line is always exactly 3 lines away from the Self line.
• Nạp Giáp: each line is assigned a specific Stem-Branch pair, not just a shared element.
• Liuqin: comparing the palace's element against each line's element gives 5 roles — Parents, Siblings, Children, Wealth, Officers.
• Liushen: 6 positions (Azure Dragon, Vermillion Bird, Hooking Serpent, Coiling Serpent, White Tiger, Black Tortoise) assigned in a fixed order, starting point set by the casting day's Heavenly Stem.
• Void: the "empty" Branch pair for the casting day's cycle — a line that falls into this pair gets marked separately.

Each line also carries a dozen other details: how strong or weak it is relative to the month, whether it's broken or combined by the day/month, whether a changing line generates or overcomes its changed form, and a handful of star influences like Noble Person, Fortune Star, Travel Star, Peach Blossom.

Where the casting methods actually differ

Mai Hoa works out the trigrams first and the lines second: once the two trigram numbers are calculated, the 3 lines each come straight out of a fixed lookup table. Lục Hào works out the lines first and reads the trigrams second: six coin tosses give six independent lines, and the "trigram" is just a name for looking at those six lines in groups of three.

The moment you cast also plays a different role in each. In Mai Hoa's "by time" input, the moment IS the input that generates the hexagram. In Lục Hào, the moment is always used, but it doesn't decide which hexagram comes out — the coins decide that entirely; the moment only supplies the day/month Stem-Branch needed to work out Void, star influences, and strength/breaking/combination.

Both share the same underlying Eight Trigrams numbering (Càn 1 … Khôn 8) — that's really the only thing they have in common; everything else is completely separate.

Does the reading itself come out different?

No. On maihoathon, whether you type a number, pick a moment, type a few words, or toss six coins, the resulting 6-line hexagram runs through the exact same reading: palace, Self line/Response line, Nạp Giáp for each line, Liuqin, Liushen, Void, and the Useful Spirit matched to whichever topic you picked.

That's actually a departure from how the two methods were traditionally used separately in the classical texts — where Mai Hoa usually stopped at comparing Body/Function, and only Lục Hào went deeper into Nạp Giáp. maihoathon merges the reading side: here, Mai Hoa is really just a different way of generating a hexagram, not a different way of reading one.

The real difference is in the hexagram you end up with. Same question, different number typed in or different coin toss, and you'll get two completely different hexagrams — because the input differs, not because the reading method differs.

Which one to pick for what you're asking

Since the depth of the reading is now identical either way, the choice isn't "read closely versus read quickly" anymore — it's about how you want the hexagram generated.

Mai Hoa fits when you already have a number on hand (the current time, a license plate, a birthdate) or just want to type a few words describing what you're asking — no extra tools needed, done in one tap.

Lục Hào fits when you want to keep the hands-on ritual — six coin tosses, one line at a time, the same three-coin method that's always been used.

Want to try it yourself? Cast a hexagram, try both ways with the same question, and compare what comes out.