A BEGINNER’S COMPANION
Start with the parts.
Then see the pattern.
A guide to the labels in your BaZi chart.
Create a free BaZi chart →Four pillars, not four separate forecasts
A BaZi chart expresses a birth date and time through four pairs of symbols. The pillars are named Year, Month, Day, and Hour. Each has a heavenly stem above an earthly branch, giving eight characters in all. The same building blocks repeat across charts; the chart is an arrangement within a traditional calendar system.
Begin by confirming the date, time zone, and day-boundary method printed with your result. A mislabeled birth time can change a pillar before any interpretation begins. If you do not know the hour, an incomplete chart is a more useful starting point than an invented one.
Your Day Master
The Day Master is the heavenly stem of the day pillar. It supplies a reference point for comparing the other stems. It is not the same as the element of your animal year. For instance, Jia is Yang Wood whether it occurs in a year stem or a day stem, but only its position in the day pillar makes it the Day Master.
| Stem | Name | Polarity | Element |
|---|---|---|---|
| 甲 | Jia | Yang | Wood |
| 乙 | Yi | Yin | Wood |
| 丙 | Bing | Yang | Fire |
| 丁 | Ding | Yin | Fire |
| 戊 | Wu | Yang | Earth |
| 己 | Ji | Yin | Earth |
| 庚 | Geng | Yang | Metal |
| 辛 | Xin | Yin | Metal |
| 壬 | Ren | Yang | Water |
| 癸 | Gui | Yin | Water |
The Five Elements as relationships
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water are commonly called the Five Elements, or Five Phases. In this framework, they describe relationships and transformations. The generating cycle runs Wood → Fire → Earth → Metal → Water → Wood. The controlling cycle runs Wood → Earth → Water → Fire → Metal → Wood.
Our bars count visible stems and the principal element of each branch. Four complete pillars give eight counts. They do not show seasonal weighting or hidden stems. A zero in this simple count does not establish that an element is absent from every layer of a chart, and it does not prescribe a remedy.
What are the Ten Gods?
These names describe how another stem’s element and polarity relate to the Day Master. “Gods” is a conventional English label for these ten relationships. Translators use different names, so it helps to look at the relationship alongside the label.
| Our label | Relationship | How to read the label |
|---|---|---|
| Friend | Same element, same polarity | A peer relationship within the chart. |
| Rob Wealth | Same element, opposite polarity | Another peer label; the name does not mean someone will steal from you. |
| Eating God | Produced by the Day Master, same polarity | One of the two output relationships. |
| Hurting Officer | Produced by the Day Master, opposite polarity | The other output relationship. |
| Indirect Wealth | Controlled by the Day Master, same polarity | One of the two wealth relationships. |
| Direct Wealth | Controlled by the Day Master, opposite polarity | The other wealth relationship, not a financial forecast. |
| Seven Killings | Controls the Day Master, same polarity | One of the two controlling relationships; not a literal threat. |
| Direct Officer | Controls the Day Master, opposite polarity | The other controlling relationship. |
| Indirect Resource | Produces the Day Master, same polarity | One of the two supporting relationships. |
| Direct Resource | Produces the Day Master, opposite polarity | The other supporting relationship. |
The calculator shows this relationship for each visible non-day stem. The day stem is labeled Day Master. Hidden-stem relationships are outside this first version.
Why two calculators may disagree
Check whether each uses civil time or true solar time, the same birth-place time zone, and the same rule for 23:00–23:59. Also distinguish a solar-term month from a lunar month. Our calculator’s method section specifies its choices, including how it handles an unknown hour or a repeated civil clock time.
Using the chart thoughtfully
Learn one layer at a time. Read the eight characters, identify the day stem, and follow one relationship through the generating or controlling cycle. That is enough for a first visit. Personality descriptions, useful-element analysis, and luck-cycle interpretation involve additional assumptions; they do not follow automatically from the bar chart.
For a different kind of exploration, an I Ching reading begins with a question and a cast rather than birth details. A lunar date conversion simply names the same day in another calendar.
Original English guide by KarmaAwake, September 21, 2026. Technical labels and relationships follow the lunar-javascript tables used by our calculator. Corrections welcome.