道教所言諸天，說法分岐，較流行於後世者，約可分為大羅天及三界天兩部分；諸天皆由陽氣所成，其生成各在氣數。三清三天是由始、元、玄三氣所成。三界三十二天，分屬四方，每方八天，分別為東方九氣、南方三氣、西方素氣、北方五氣，中央一氣。三界諸天生成之氣數，依次為：東九、南三、西七、北五、中一。方位與數目之搭配，和《呂氏春秋．十二紀》等書所載五行五數之搭配：東八、南七、西九、北六、中五者不同。溯其源，當是直接沿承漢代讖緯《樂緯》說「五行有生數、壯數、老數」，且採其「老數」之配法而來。

The Heavens in Taoism are discrepant, usually there are two parts such as: Da Luo Tian and San Jie Tian; all Heavens are consist of Yang Chi, its creation has Chi Shu. San Chin San Tian are composed of thre chis such as: Shr, Yuan, Shiuan. San Jie includes 32 Heavens, respectively speaking, there are Nine Chis of East, Three Chir os South, Su Chi of west, Five Chis of North, One Chi of Center. The Heavens of San Jie are created by Chi Shu, following as East Nine, south three, West Seven, North Five, Center One. The arrangement of direction and number are different from those books Liu Shr Chuen Chiou Twele Ji etc which are East Eight, South Seven, West Nine, North Six, Center Five. To investigate the origin, it must inherit the theory of Yue Wei----a book of Chen Wei in Han dynasty, it is said “Wu Shing have Sheng Shu, Juang Shu, Lau Shu” and adopted “lau Shu” to arrange it. The Daoist concept of Heavens (ahutian,諸天) has different interpretations. Among whose which are more well-known now are the Great Net Heaven (daluotian大羅天) and the Three Spherical Heavens (sanjietian, 三界天). Heavens are composed of the material force of yang 陽and each of their existence matches a certain qishu氣數(number of material force). The Three Purities (sanqing三清) and the Three Heavens (santian三天) are composed of three kinds of material force: shi始(beginning), yuan元(origin), xuan玄(profoundity). The three Spheres and the Thirty-two Heavens are distributed to the four directions. Each direction has eight heavens. Respectively, nine is in the easy, Three the west, Seven the west, Five in the north and One the middle. The match pattern between number and direction is different from what is recorded in the “Twelve cords” section in the Spring and autumn of Mr. Lyu (Lüshi chunqiu,呂氏春秋): Eight in the east, Seven the south, Nine the west, Six the north, and Five in the middle. Tracing the difference back to the early period, I find that the subsidiary Classic of Music (Yuewei, 樂緯) of the Han says, “The Five Phases (wuxing, 五行)have numbers of generation, numbers of maturity, and numbers of decadence.” The Daoist match pattern between number and direction should have its origin in the record for the Subsidiary Classic of Music.