The last post covered the Stems & Branches alphabet. This one shows how they assemble into a Bazi chart.
The Four Pillars
Bazi = the four groups of stems-and-branches at your birth moment — year, month, day, hour. Each group is one stem + one branch, eight characters in total, hence “Eight Characters” (八字).
- Year pillar: the year changes at Start-of-Spring, marked by the Gregorian year’s stem-branch (e.g. 2026 Bing-Wu).
- Month pillar: changes at the solar terms, not on the 1st of each Gregorian month.
- Day pillar: the most important “self”, derived from the exact date.
- Hour pillar: by the birth two-hour period (Zi 23–1, then sequentially).
The Ten Gods: translating relations into plain words
Taking the day stem (representing “me”) as the base, the five-element giving/receiving relationships between it and the other seven characters are summarized into ten “roles” — the Ten Gods:
- Friend / Rob Wealth: same as me — like siblings, peers.
- Eating God / Hurt Officer: what I output — talent, expression, children.
- Direct Wealth / Indirect Wealth: what I control — resources, money, the object of mastery.
- Direct Officer / Seven Killings: what controls me — rules, pressure, bosses.
- Direct Seal / Indirect Seal: what nurtures me — shelter, learning, the maternal.
Heads up: a real chart must account for solar terms, time zones and true solar time — easy to get wrong by hand. The site’s Birth Card only gives the year pillar (Gregorian-year approximation) on purpose, to avoid handing you a chart that looks precise but may be off.
⚠️ The Ten Gods are a “role map” for self-reflection — fun as a mirror; as a verdict on fate, not so much.
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