Chinese birth chart · Four PillarsFree BaZi calculator. Meet your guardian.

BaZi is the Chinese art of reading your birth moment. From your birth date, time and city, the calculator writes your birthday in 8 Chinese characters (the Four Pillars of Destiny) and shows your core element (your Day Master), your mix of the five elements, the strongest force in your chart, your 10-year chapters, and your guardian spirit: one of 80 archetypes.

They are your birth year, month, day and hour, each written as 2 Chinese characters: a sky sign on top and an animal sign below. That makes 8 characters, which is what BaZi (八字) means. Year is your roots, month your environment, day is you, and hour your later years.

Your Day Master (日主) is your core element: the sky sign of the day you were born. There are 10, a Yang and a Yin form of each element: the tree and the vine (Wood), the sun and the candle (Fire), the mountain and the soil (Earth), the sword and the jewel (Metal), the ocean and the rain (Water).

Wood grows and plans, Fire shines and expresses, Earth holds and cares, Metal cuts clean and keeps standards, Water flows and senses. Everyone carries all five in a different mix, including the elements hiding inside each animal sign. Your mix describes your natural tendencies.

They are guardian spirits, like the Water Seer or the Fire Rebel. Your core element picks a family of 8, and the strongest force in your chart (set by your birth month, the classical Ziping way, 月令取格) picks which one. 10 core elements times 8 forces makes 80.

Your 8 characters come from the same calendar traditional readers use, with months set by the sun's 24 seasons. We also correct for your birth city's time zone, daylight saving and your real birth time (we set the hour by where the sun really was). The personality texts are a modern reading of classical ideas. Use them to reflect, not to predict.

It helps, because the hour adds 2 of your 8 characters. Without it, choose “I don't know my birth time”: the hour stays blank, and your year, month and day still find your core element, the strongest force in your chart and your guardian.

In classical BaZi, gender only decides whether your 10-year chapters run forward or backward through the calendar. It never changes your 8 characters, your elements or your guardian. If you prefer not to say, we show your chart without the 10-year chapters.