The 4 in your Lo Shu grid: the digit most often missing

In a Lo Shu grid each digit has a box that holds one mark per appearance in the birth date. The 4 box is the one most often left empty, which makes it the box most often written about as a "missing number". This page sets out exactly how it fills, how often it does not, and what the books in this app's library say. For the full grid, see Missing numbers in your Lo Shu grid.

How the count of 4 is worked out

generateLoShuGrid() writes the date as day, month and year without leading zeros, drops the zeros and counts what is left. Each 4 adds a mark to the 4 box. The sources of a 4 are few:

• Days: the 4th, the 14th and the 24th. Only three days of the month.
• Months: April only.
• Years: those with a 4 in the last two digits, such as 1954, 1964, 1974, 1984, 1994 and 2004, and the 1940s and 2040s. The century digits never give one.

A box with no marks is listed as missing, two or more as "dominant". The Lo Shu Grid calculator shows the counts; the Numerology Profile adds the lists, planes and arrows.

Where the 4 sits and what it belongs to

In the displayed square (4 9 2 / 3 5 7 / 8 1 6) the 4 is the top-left box, the first digit of the square's first row.

What an empty 4 box rules out

• The Mental and Thought planes cannot be complete.
• The Arrow of Willpower and the Arrow of Practicality cannot appear.
• The 4 goes on the missing list read by the Health Tendencies card.

The counts over the same 22,280 dates show the effect. The Willpower arrow (4, 5, 6) appears on only 421 dates, the fewest of the eight arrows, because it needs the 4, the 5 and the 6, three digits that are each missing on most dates. The Thought plane is complete on only 304 dates, the fewest of the six planes, and absent on 6,452, the most. The Mental plane, by contrast, is complete on 2,472 and never absent: every date in the range has a 9 or a 2 from its year, so the Mental row always has at least one mark even when the 4 is missing.

How often the 4 box is empty, single or crowded

Every date from 1 January 1950 to 31 December 2010, 22,280 in all, was run through the engine.

The 4 is missing on 16,622 of 22,280 dates, about three in four, and on about three in four on each side of 2000. No other digit is missing as often; the 3 comes next, at 15,690. Three 4s need the day, the month and the year to contribute one each, as on 4, 14 and 24 April 1954, and only 18 dates in the range have them. No date has four.

Worked example: 4 January 1970 and 1 January 1970

The first dates the engine finds with and without a 4:

1. 1.4 January 1970 is written 4, 1, 1970. Digits: 4, 1, 1, 9, 7, 0. Dropping the 0 leaves a 4, two 1s, a 9 and a 7.
2. 2.Grid: 1 twice; 4, 7 and 9 once each. Missing: 2, 3, 5, 6 and 8. Dominant: 1. No plane is complete or absent: the 4 alone keeps the Thought plane from being empty.
3. 3.Arrows: 1, 4 and 7 are all present, so the Arrow of Practicality is reported. Willpower is not, lacking the 5 and the 6.
4. 4.Mulank 4 (the day). Bhagyank: 4 + 1 + 1 + 9 + 7 + 0 = 22, kept as a master number.
5. 5.1 January 1970: digits 1, 1, 1, 9, 7, 0, no 4. Grid: 1 three times, 7 and 9 once. The Thought plane is absent, and no arrow appears; the 1-4-7 line is one digit short.

A single 4 is the whole difference between the two dates' arrows. In the Vedic Grid, which drops the century and adds the Bhagyank and Moolank at single digits, 4 January 1970 has two 4s, one from the day and one from the Bhagyank 22 read as 4. The Vedic grid never loses a 4 that Lo Shu has, but on 3,259 of the 22,280 dates it gains one the Lo Shu grid lacks; the two counts differ on 4,156 dates.

What the books say about the 4 in the grid

• Numerology Masters Notes (Rrachita Gupta) puts the 4 in the South-East with the Wood element and lists wealth, prosperity and growth. Metaphysical Secrets agrees on Wood, listing it as 4 and 3. Masters Notes also names the diagonal through the 4, 5 and 6 as the "Fortune", "Good Luck" or "Golden" plane; the engine checks only rows and columns and does not report it.
• The recurring table in Masters Notes (p.165) reads one 4 as orderly, stable and disciplined, two as pragmatic and three as hardworking, with a harsher remark at four that this page does not repeat. Metaphysical Secrets reads one to four 4s as stable and orderly, pragmatic, hardworking and physical activity. No date from 1950 to 2010 has four 4s.
• Metaphysical Secrets describes the Lo Shu square, with lines adding to 15, but its list of where each digit goes puts the 4 in the bottom-middle box. That is the 3-6-9 / 2-5-8 / 1-4-7 arrangement the engine's arrows use, not the Lo Shu, so a diagram copied from that book will not match the one the app displays.
• For a missing 4 (p.170) Masters Notes lists a lack of direction, mental knots and anxiety, trouble keeping to a routine, untidy surroundings and promises not kept, and closes with a need to develop tolerance, organising skills and patience. Its introduction (p.166) frames every missing number as a lesson to be learned. The disease column is not reproduced here, and the remedies heading is blank.

This app's Health Tendencies calculator keeps the lesson framing and drops the list of faults. For a missing 4 it reads: "Structure. This gap asks for a routine you actually keep, an order to your surroundings, and promises sized to what you will really do." The wording is the app's own.

What the 4 box cannot tell you

The count is a property of the calendar date, shared by everyone born that day. The readings are the books' interpretations, and nothing on this page is a measurement or a medical statement. The 4 as a Mulank or Bhagyank is a different number, on Number 4 in numerology. Neighbouring digits are on Lo Shu number 3 and Lo Shu number 5, and the planes are defined under Lo Shu planes.

Why is the 4 missing from my grid?

A 4 can come only from the 4th, 14th or 24th, from April, or from a year with a 4 in its last two digits. 16,622 of the 22,280 dates from 1950 to 2010 have none of those.

My Mulank is 4 but there is no 4 in my grid.

The 13th, 22nd and 31st all give Mulank 4 (1 + 3, 2 + 2, 3 + 1) without writing a 4. The grid counts written digits; the Mulank is a sum. Check both on the Life Path calculator.

Why does the Vedic Grid show a 4 when the Lo Shu grid does not?

Because the Vedic Grid adds the Bhagyank and the Moolank at their single digits. A Bhagyank of 22 or 4, or a Moolank of 4, puts a 4 there even when no 4 is written in the date.

Does the app show the "Golden plane"?

No. Numerology Masters Notes names the 4-5-6 diagonal the Fortune or Golden plane, but the engine's plane list has only the three rows and three columns. The same three digits do form the engine's Arrow of Willpower, which appeared on 421 of the 22,280 dates from 1950 to 2010.

What does one 4 mean?

Both books read a single 4 as orderly and stable. That is their reading of a count, not a measurement.

Should I do something about a missing 4?

This app prescribes nothing. The book leaves the slide's remedies blank, and the app's card offers a lesson line and ordinary suggestions labelled as its own.