What Are the Four Pillars of Destiny?
The Four Pillars (BaZi, “eight characters”) describe a moment of birth with four stem–branch pairs: the Year, Month, Day and Hour pillars. Each pillar has one Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch — eight characters in total.
Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches
There are ten stems (甲 jiǎ … 癸 guǐ) and twelve branches (子 zǐ … 亥 hài). Each carries one of the Five Elements — Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water — and a yin or yang polarity. Branches also contain one to three hidden stems.
How each pillar is determined
- Year: changes at the exact instant of 立春 (Start of Spring), not on January 1 or Chinese New Year.
- Month: changes at the 12 “jie” solar terms (立春, 惊蛰, 清明 … 小寒).
- Day: a continuous 60-day cycle; on this site the day changes at 23:00.
- Hour: twelve two-hour periods; the hour stem follows from the day stem.
The Day Master
The stem of the Day pillar is the Day Master — the reference point for the Ten Gods. It is only the day stem, not the whole day pillar.
Annotated example
Example only: 1990-05-18 09:30, Shanghai, true solar time. The highlighted column is the Day pillar; the Day Master is 癸 (guǐ).
| Year | Month | Day | Hour |
|---|---|---|---|
Direct Resource 正印庚gēngMetal午wǔFire Hidden stems
| Indirect Resource 偏印辛xīnMetal巳sìFire Hidden stems
| Day Master癸guǐWater未wèiEarth Hidden stems
| Direct Wealth 正财丙bǐngFire辰chénEarth Hidden stems
|
Next: How to read a BaZi chart · Calculate your chart · Methodology