BaZi Calculator (Four Pillars of Destiny)

BaZi (八字) means "eight characters." It is a Chinese system for describing a birth moment with four pairs of characters, one pair each for the year, month, day and hour. Each pair is called a pillar, so you will also see it called the Four Pillars of Destiny. The BaZi chart is sometimes described as a Chinese birth chart, though it works very differently from a Western natal chart: there are no planets or houses, only the cycles of the calendar.

Each pillar is made of a Heavenly Stem and an Earthly Branch. The ten stems cover the five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) in yin and yang forms. The twelve branches are the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. Together they give a sexagenary cycle of 60 pairs, the same cycle that has been used to name years and days in China for more than two thousand years.

Enter your birth date, your birth time if you know it, and your birth place. The place is used only to find the time zone. Vela stands your pillars on her table as wooden tablets, and each one is written out in Chinese characters with pinyin and an English name.

The free result shows:

• your year, month, day and hour pillars (the hour pillar only if you enter a time);
• your Day Master, with its element, yin or yang, and a short description;
• a count of the five elements across the stems and branches of your chart.

This is a calculator and a short reading of the basics. It does not include luck pillars (da yun) or a full interpretation of the chart.

• Year pillar. The year changes at Li Chun, the start of spring, when the Sun reaches 315° of ecliptic longitude. That is around February 4. It is not January 1, and it is not Chinese New Year, which follows the moon.
• Month pillar. The month changes at each of the twelve "jie" solar terms, such as Li Chun, Jing Zhe and Qing Ming, so a BaZi month starts around the 4th to 8th of a Western month, not on the 1st.
• Day pillar. The days run in a repeating cycle of 60. The tool counts forward from a fixed reference day in the calendar.
• Hour pillar. The day is cut into twelve two-hour blocks, one per branch, and the first block, Zi, runs from 11 PM to 1 AM. Here the hour from 11 PM belongs to the next day, as in the traditional reckoning. Some modern schools split it and keep 11 PM to midnight with the day just ending, so charts for people born in that hour can differ between sources.

The solar terms are calculated from the Sun's real position, not looked up in a printed table. For the hour, the tool uses the clock time of your birthplace. It does not convert to true solar time, which some practitioners do, so a birth close to a two-hour boundary may land in a different block in their chart.

The animal on the year branch is where the Chinese zodiac comes from, but the BaZi year starts at Li Chun, so it can differ from the animal you get at Chinese New Year. Our Chinese zodiac calculator uses the lunar New Year instead.

Your Day Master is the Heavenly Stem of your day pillar. In most BaZi schools it stands for you: the other seven characters are read as the world around you, seen from the Day Master's point of view. That is why people who ask "what is my Day Master" are usually asking which of the ten stems is the center of their chart.

There are ten possible Day Masters, one for each stem. Jiǎ is yang Wood, often pictured as a tall tree. Yǐ is yin Wood, a vine or a flower. Bǐng is the Sun, Dīng a candle flame, Wù a mountain, Jǐ garden soil, Gēng raw metal, Xīn jewelry, Rén the ocean and Guǐ rain. The calculator gives a short description of yours. These are traditional images, and they are meant as a starting point for thinking about yourself.

BaZi pays attention to how many of each element appear in a chart. The calculator counts the element of every stem and branch in your pillars and shows the total for Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. Practitioners read a chart with a lot of one element, or none of another, as a leaning. A chart heavy in Fire might be described as quick and expressive, and one with no Water as short on rest or reflection.

The count is a simple tally of the characters in your pillars. A full BaZi reading also looks at the season you were born in, the hidden stems inside the branches, and how elements support or restrain one another. This tool does not do that.

BaZi is a traditional Chinese system, and we present it as culture and for reflection. It cannot predict your future, your health or your relationships, and no calculator can decide those things for you. Treat the result as something to think about, not a verdict. The tool is for entertainment purposes only.