BaZi · free tool
BaZi calculator: your four pillars, your Day Master, your luck pillars
BaZi writes the moment of birth as four pairs of a heavenly stem and an earthly branch - year, month, day, hour. Those eight characters are the chart. Enter a birth date and time and this page casts it.
Cast the chart
Local clock time. The chart is computed in the browser; nothing is sent anywhere.
A worked example
Born 1 January 2000 at 12:00, male. The chart reads below as it is cast by this page: the year pillar is 己卯, the month pillar 丙子, the day pillar 戊午, the hour pillar 戊午 - a 戊 Earth Day Master, with the day and hour carrying the same pair.
| Year | Month | Day | Hour | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ten God | Rob Wealth | Indirect Resource | Day Master | Companion |
| Stem | 己 | 丙 | 戊 | 戊 |
| Branch | 卯 | 子 | 午 | 午 |
| Hidden stems | 乙 Direct Officer | 癸 Direct Wealth | 丁 Direct Resource · 己 Rob Wealth | 丁 Direct Resource · 己 Rob Wealth |
| Element | Earth · Wood | Fire · Water | Earth · Fire | Earth · Fire |
| Stage | Bathing | Conception | Peak | Peak |
Day Master: 戊 · Earth · The first luck pillar begins 2008-03-11 - 8 years 2 months 10 days after birth.
Wood 1 · Fire 3 · Earth 3 · Metal 0 · Water 1
Where the four pillars come from
The year pillar pairs the stem and branch of the birth year; the month pillar is set by which solar term the birth follows; the day pillar counts days in the same sixty-day cycle that has run without a break; the hour pillar is built from the day stem and the two-hour branch the birth falls in. Written together, day and hour first, they read as eight characters.
What the ten gods are
Every other character in the chart is named by how it stands to the Day Master: the same element as a Companion or Rob Wealth, what it feeds as Eating God or Hurting Officer, what it controls as Indirect or Direct Wealth, what controls it as Seven Killings or Direct Officer, what feeds it as Indirect or Direct Resource. The names describe relationships, not good or bad luck.
How the elements are counted
Five-element counts vary between schools because they disagree on how much weight a hidden stem carries. This page counts the plainest way and states it: the four stems one each, the four branches one each by their primary element, and then shows a second count that adds every hidden stem, so you can see the difference instead of guessing which rule was used.
Why the solar terms matter
Two births a day apart can land in different months, and two births either side of 立春 in different years. The month pillar changes at the twelve 节 - 立春, 惊蛰, 清明 and so on - not on the first of the calendar month, and the year pillar changes at 立春, not on 1 January. That is why the boundary is printed with the chart.
How to read the luck pillars
The luck pillars are ten-year spans laid over the life, each with its own stem and branch, running forward or backward from the month pillar depending on gender and birth year. The first one starts at a computed age - the interval from birth to the nearest 节, counted at three days to a year - so the starting age is a number worth checking before reading the rest.
Questions
Is BaZi the same as the Chinese zodiac?
No. The zodiac takes one character out of the year pillar - the animal of the birth year. BaZi reads all eight characters across the four pillars, and the day pillar carries as much weight as the year.
What is the Day Master?
The stem of the day pillar, and the one character the whole chart is read against - the other seven are named by their relation to it. It is usually described by its element and by whether it is a yang or yin stem.
Why does my month pillar differ from other calculators?
Three usual causes: the solar-term boundary (this page uses the exact term time), whether the birth is read on clock time or corrected true solar time (this page uses clock time), and how a birth between 23:00 and 01:00 is handled (this page keeps the day pillar on the birth date). All three are printed with the chart so the difference is visible.
Do I need my exact birth time?
For the hour pillar, yes. The three pillars of year, month and day can be cast without it, but the hour pillar and the luck pillars both move with it, so a chart cast without a time is incomplete.
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