Free · BaZi chart generatorFour Pillars of Destiny calculator. Your 8 characters.

Your year, month, day and hour, each written as 2 Chinese characters with plain English beside them. Then your core element and your guardian spirit.

Four pillars, 8 characters

The Four Pillars are your birth year, month, day and hour. Each one is written as 2 Chinese characters: a sky sign on top and an animal sign below. 4 pairs make 8, which is what BaZi (八字) means.

Every character carries one of the five elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal or Water. Reading how they feed and hold each other back across the 4 pairs gives a picture of your temperament, your strengths and the themes your chart keeps returning to.

What each pillar stands for

Pillar	In plain words
Year	Your roots: family line, early life, the face you show the wider world.
Month	Your environment: parents, upbringing, the setting you grow and work in. It also sets the strongest force in your chart.
Day	You. The top character is your core element; the bottom one is often read as your closest partner.
Hour	Your later years: children, legacy, where you are heading.

Don't know your birth hour? The other 3 pillars still find your core element and most of your mix. Read what changes without a birth time.

For the curious: stems, branches and the Day Master

The sky signs are the 10 Heavenly Stems (天干) and the animal signs the 12 Earthly Branches (地支). The stem of the day pillar is called the Day Master (日主). Months start at the solar terms (節氣) and the year at Li Chun (立春), the start of spring.

80 guardians. One is yours.

Your core element picks a family of 8. The strongest force in your chart picks which one.

Meet all 80 guardians

Questions people ask

What are the Four Pillars of Destiny?

The Four Pillars of Destiny (四柱命理, also called BaZi) are your birth year, month, day and hour, written with the Chinese calendar. Each pillar is 2 characters, a sky sign over an animal sign, so the chart has 8 in total. That is why it is called BaZi (八字), 'eight characters'. Together they show the mix of the five elements at the moment you were born.

How are the Four Pillars calculated?

Each pillar comes from turning your birth date and time into the Chinese calendar. The year pillar follows a 60-year cycle and turns at the start of spring, around February 4. The month pillar begins when the sun reaches a new season. The day pillar follows a 60-day cycle, and the hour pillar is one of 12 two-hour blocks, set by where the sun really was in your birth city.

Which pillar is most important?

The day pillar. Its sky sign is your Day Master, your core element: the part of the chart that stands for you. The year pillar is read as your roots, the month pillar as your environment and the setting you grow in, and the hour pillar as your later years and legacy.

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