The 1 in your Lo Shu grid: the most common digit, counted and read

A Lo Shu grid is a tally: nine boxes, one per digit, each holding as many marks as that digit appears in your birth date. This page is about one box, the 1. It covers how the engine fills it, where it sits in the square, how often it is empty or crowded, and what the numerology books in this app's library say about it. The general picture, with all nine digits together, is in Missing numbers in your Lo Shu grid.

How the count of 1 is worked out

The rule is in generateLoShuGrid(), in the numerology engine. It writes the date as day, month and year with no leading zeros, splits it into single digits, throws away every 0, and adds one mark to a box for each remaining digit. The 1 box therefore counts every 1 in the day, the month and the year.

• Days that contribute a 1: the 1st, the 10th to the 19th, the 21st and the 31st. The 11th contributes two.
• Months that contribute a 1: January (1), October (10), November (11, two 1s) and December (12).
• Years: every year from 1900 to 1999 contributes at least one 1, from its first digit. Years such as 1911 or 1981 contribute more.

Nothing else goes in: not the Mulank, not the Bhagyank. A count of 0 is reported as a missing number and a count of 2 or more as a "dominant" one. The Lo Shu Grid calculator shows the raw counts; the Numerology Profile adds the missing and dominant lists, the planes and the arrows.

Where the 1 sits and what it belongs to

In the Lo Shu square the engine displays, 4 9 2 on top, 3 5 7 in the middle and 8 1 6 at the bottom, the 1 is the bottom-middle box. Every row, column and diagonal of that square adds to 15.

Because the 1 is so rarely missing, whether an arrow through it appears depends almost entirely on the other two digits. The Arrow of Determination needs 1, 5 and 9, and before 2000 the year alone supplies the 1 and the 9, so a 5 anywhere in the date completes it. The Arrow of the Planner and the Arrow of Practicality also run through the 1.

How often the 1 box is empty, single or crowded

The engine was run over every date from 1 January 1950 to 31 December 2010, 22,280 dates, split at the century.

Three things follow. A missing 1 is impossible for anyone born in the 1900s and occurs only from 2000 on, where the year contributes no 1. A doubled 1 is the single most common state for a 1950s-to-1990s birth: more of those dates have two 1s than one. And the most 1s any date in the range carries is six, on 11 November in 1951, 1961, 1971, 1981 and 1991, where the day, the month and the year each add to the box.

This is why a "strong 1" in a grid of someone born in 1985 says more about the calendar than about the person. The same holds for the 9, discussed on the Lo Shu number 9 page, and in reverse for the 2, which every 2000s year supplies: see Lo Shu number 2.

Worked example: 1 January 1970 and 2 February 2000

These are the first dates the engine's search finds with and without a 1.

1. 1.1 January 1970 is written 1, 1, 1970. Its digits are 1, 1, 1, 9, 7, 0. The 0 is dropped. The 1 box gets three marks; the 9 and the 7 one each.
2. 2.Grid: 1 three times, 7 once, 9 once. Missing: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8. Dominant: 1. No plane is complete, and the Thought plane (4, 3, 8) is entirely absent. No arrow is complete: Determination lacks a 5, Practicality a 4, Planner a 2 and a 3.
3. 3.Mulank 1 (the day); Bhagyank 1 + 1 + 1 + 9 + 7 + 0 = 19, then 1 + 9 = 10, then 1 + 0 = 1.
4. 4.2 February 2000 is written 2, 2, 2000. Its digits are 2, 2, 2, 0, 0, 0. After the zeros are dropped only three 2s remain. The 1 box is empty, and so are seven others.
5. 5.Grid: 2 three times, nothing else. Missing: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. Four planes are absent: Emotional, Practical, Thought and Will. Mulank 2; Bhagyank 2 + 2 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 6.

The same two dates in the Vedic Grid, which drops the century and adds the Bhagyank and the Moolank instead, come out differently. For 1 January 1970 the Vedic grid still has three 1s (from the day, the month and the Bhagyank 1) but no 9, because the 19 of the year is left out. For 2 February 2000 it has two 2s and a 6, the 6 being the Bhagyank. Across all 22,280 dates, the Vedic count of 1 differs from the Lo Shu count on 15,987, and a 1 present in Lo Shu is absent from the Vedic grid on 5,372 dates. The two grids answer different questions and should not be read as checks on each other.

What the books say about the 1 in the grid

• Numerology Masters Notes (Rrachita Gupta, "Life With Number Magick Part 2") gives each box a direction, an element and life areas. The 1 is North and Water; its p.137 diagram lists new opportunities, money and profits, career and business. Its own p.136 list also puts "Career Prospects, Planning" under the 1, while the p.137 diagram puts those words under the 9; the two slides disagree.
• The same book's recurring-number table (p.165) reads one 1 as introvert, two as communicative, three as talkative and four as compassionate, adding high leadership and a "power ego" at four. Numerology: Metaphysical Secrets, Ch. 2, prints the same four words for one to four 1s, without the addition. Neither says anything about five or six 1s, which the sweep above shows do occur.
• For a missing 1, Masters Notes (p.167) lists dependence on others to move ahead, difficulty taking independent decisions and low self-confidence. Its introduction to those slides (p.166) calls missing numbers lessons to be learned. The slide also has a disease column, which this page does not reproduce, and a remedies heading left blank ("To be noted").
• Metaphysical Secrets agrees that the 1 is Water. It describes the Lo Shu as a square whose lines add to 15, then lists placements (1 bottom-left, 9 top-right) that belong to the 3-6-9 / 2-5-8 / 1-4-7 layout instead, a mix-up in the book worth knowing when comparing diagrams.

This app does not show the source's list of deficits. The Health Tendencies calculator rewrites each missing digit as a lesson, in the spirit of p.166. For a missing 1 its wording is: "Deciding for yourself. This gap asks you to move first rather than wait to be led, and to put your own work alongside the work you do for everyone else." The wording is the app's; the framing is the book's.

What the 1 box cannot tell you

The count of 1 is a property of a date. Everyone born on the same day shares it, and for anyone born in the 1900s it is never zero. The readings attached to it are the books' interpretations, and the books disagree with each other in places. Nothing here measures a person, and nothing here is medical. The 1 as a Mulank or a Bhagyank is a different number, covered on Number 1 in numerology; the six planes are defined under Lo Shu planes.

Why do I have so many 1s in my grid?

If you were born between 1900 and 1999 the year gives you at least one 1, and the 1st, the 10th to 19th, the 21st and the 31st, as well as January, October, November and December, add more. From 1950 to 1999, more dates have two 1s than one.

Can a 1 be missing from a Lo Shu grid?

Only for a date with no 1 in the day, the month or the year, which in practice means a year from 2000 on. Of the 4,018 dates from 2000 to 2010, 1,281 have no 1.

My Mulank is 1 but my grid has no 1. Is that an error?

No. The grid counts written digits, not the Mulank. The 28th gives Mulank 1 (2 + 8 = 10, 1 + 0 = 1) without writing a 1, so 28 February 2008 has Mulank 1 and a grid of three 2s and two 8s with no 1 at all. The Life Path calculator shows the Mulank.

What do three 1s mean?

Masters Notes and Metaphysical Secrets both read three 1s as talkative. That is the books' reading of a count; it is not a measurement. The next digit page covers the 3 box.

Does the app suggest remedies for a missing 1?

No. The source slide leaves its remedies blank and lists gemstones and other remedies elsewhere; this app offers none. The Health Tendencies card gives a lesson line and ordinary care suggestions labelled as the app's own.