solar term · 節氣
Guyu 谷雨 — Grain Rain
Guyu (谷雨), or Grain Rain, is the sixth of the twenty-four solar terms and the last of the six that make up spring — the moment the sun reaches 30° of celestial longitude, named for rain that falls onto sown grain.
A name that is a verb, and a term that closes a season
The name is doing something grammatically that its usual English rendering hides. In the definition below, the author stops the exposition to insist on a pronunciation: 雨 here is read in the falling tone, the reading that makes it a verb — to rain something down — and he anchors it with a line from the Odes, "rain upon our public fields". So the term does not describe rain that happens to fall during the grain season. It says that the sky is raining the grain down, sowing from above, and the seed and the water arrive as one act.
That distinction is most of the definition's length, and it turns on something English cannot hear. The same character carries the rising tone when it means the rain that falls and the falling tone when it means to rain something down, and the author cites the Shuowen to argue which came first. A reader coming to the entry for a description of the season finds instead a short argument about how to say a word — because in this case the pronunciation is the definition, and getting it wrong turns an act into a weather report.
In 2026 it falls on April 20, 2026, and in 2027 on April 20, 2027.
This is a closing term rather than an opening one. Spring is six terms long, and this is the sixth: fifteen days after it begins, Start of Summer opens the next season and the next month together. Its content is correspondingly valedictory — the text looks backward, opening with what has happened since Rain Water rather than announcing something new. The earth's richness has been stirring in the soil since then, it says, and only now does the water reach the seed.
That gives spring two rain terms as bookends, and they are named for different things. The earlier one is about a change of state, water no longer arriving frozen. This one is about a use: water arriving where a crop has been put. Between them sits everything the season is supposed to accomplish.
The three pentads are a working farmer's checklist rather than a set of images. Duckweed begins to grow, and the text pauses to derive both of its names — it lies level with the water, and it drifts with the wind. Then the calling dove beats its wings, and the passage identifies it as the same bird the hawk was said to have become back at Awakening of Insects, now driving straight upward and crying while the urgency of the farming year peaks; its common name means "broadcast the grain", which is close to an instruction. Then the hoopoe alights on the mulberry trees — the signal that silkworms are about to hatch, which sets the whole sericulture year in motion.
Its customs cluster around what the rain is for. New tea picked before this date is sold as pre-Grain-Rain tea and prized for it, which makes the term a commercial boundary as much as a calendrical one. On the Shandong coast fishing families have long kept the day as the opening of the sea season, with offerings made before the first boats go out. In parts of Shaanxi and Shanxi the day is for pasting up a printed charm against scorpions, which come out with the warmth. And in Baishui county the term carries a ceremony for Cangjie, the legendary inventor of writing — the Huainanzi records that when he made the characters, heaven rained down millet and the ghosts wailed in the night, which is as direct an etymology for the name as tradition offers.
Nothing in a chart moves here. Grain Rain is a middle term, sitting inside the month that Clear and Bright opened, so the month pillar it falls under is the same one on either side of it. The next boundary is fifteen days later, and it is a large one: Start of Summer ends the season, turns the month, and moves the whole framework of the year into its second quarter.
What the classical text says
The four passages below are the entry for this term in Collected Explanations of the 72 Pentads — its definition, then the three pentads that carry spring to its end.
The edition is traditional throughout, so the term appears there as 穀雨 rather than the 谷雨 used elsewhere on this page. The two are one term; the simplification merged 穀 into the character 谷.
穀雨【去聲】，三月中。自雨水後，土膏脉動，今又雨其穀于水也。雨讀作去聲，如‘雨我公田’之雨，蓋穀以此時播種自上而下也。故《說文》云雨本去聲，今風雨之雨在上聲，雨下之雨在去聲也。
Grain Rain (the character "rain" here read in the falling tone), the mid-month term of the third month. After Rain Water, the earth's richness stirs in the soil; now rain falls upon the grain seeds in the water. The word "rain" is read in the falling tone, as in the phrase "rain upon our public fields," because grain is sown from above downward at this time. Hence the Shuowen says that "rain" was originally in the falling tone: the "rain" in "wind and rain" carries the rising tone, while the "rain" meaning "to rain down" carries the falling tone.
萍始生。萍，水草也，與水相平，故曰萍。漂流隨風，故又曰漂。《歷解》曰：萍陽物，靜以承陽也。
Duckweed begins to grow. Duckweed is a water plant; it lies level with the water, which is why it is called ping (duckweed). It drifts and floats with the wind, which is why it is also called piao (floating). The Lijie says: duckweed is a yang thing, resting still so as to receive the yang.
鳴鳩拂其羽。鳩，即鷹所化者，布穀也。拂，過擊也；《本草》云：拂羽飛而翼拍其身，氣使然也。蓋當三月之時，趨農急矣，鳩乃追逐而鳴，鼓羽直刺上飛，故俗稱布穀。
The calling dove beats its wings. The dove is what the hawk transforms into — it is the cuckoo (the "broadcast-grain" bird). Beat means to strike in passing; the Bencao says: it beats its wings in flight, the wings slapping its body, driven by its qi. In the third month, the urgency of farming is at its peak, and the dove pursues its calling and cries out, drumming its wings and driving straight up into the air — hence its common name, "broadcast-grain."
戴勝降于桑。戴勝一名戴鵀，《爾雅註》曰：頭上有勝毛。此時恆在于桑，蓋蠶將生之候矣。言降者，重之若天而下，亦氣使之然也。
The hoopoe alights on mulberry trees. The hoopoe is also called dai ren. The commentary to the Erya says: it has crest feathers on its head. At this time it is always found on mulberry trees — this is a sign that silkworms are about to emerge. The word "alights" (here meaning descends) is used because the bird is regarded with such weight that its coming is as if from heaven above; this too is brought about by the qi of the season.
Collected Explanations of the 72 Pentads · 元 吳澄《月令七十二候集解》 · 維基文庫 · text retrieved 2026-07-30
The Chinese is reproduced as printed in that edition, including the modern punctuation its editors added. Interlinear notes in the original are the author's own. The English is our own translation, made for this archive.
Grain Rain at fengshuiHQ
In the traditional calendar this is the middle term of the third month and the last of spring, and its observances are practical: tea, boats, silkworms, a charm on a doorframe. Where a term like Clear and Bright gathers a national festival, this one gathers trades — the people who keep it are the ones whose work starts or stops on it.
At fengshuiHQ, the day appears in one place and changes nothing behind the scenes. The daily almanac at /huangli prints the term across the top of the card on the day it begins, and the four pillars are untouched, because a middle term does not move a boundary. It is worth knowing which of the two kinds a term is before assuming a date matters to a chart: of the six spring terms, only Start of Spring, Awakening of Insects and Clear and Bright move anything, and this is not one of them.
Related concepts
The month holding this term was opened by Qingming (清明). Spring opened at Lichun (立春) and its other rain term is Yushui (雨水). Start of Summer, which follows this one and ends the season, has no page yet; the pages that do exist are listed on the Learn index.
See today's almanac
The almanac names Grain Rain on the day it arrives, and Start of Summer fifteen days later.
the daily almanac →