How to read a Four Pillars chart
Identify the year, month, day and hour pillars, Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches and the Day Master.
Read columns before interpretations
GuanXing shows the columns from year to hour. In each column the stem is above the branch. Ten stems cycle against twelve branches to form sixty possible pairs. A character’s position matters: Jia in the year pillar is not the Day Master unless Jia also appears at the top of the day pillar.
The month is a solar-term month
A BaZi month does not begin on the first of a Gregorian month, and it is not simply the numbered lunar month. This calculator changes months at the twelve Jie boundaries and changes the year at Li Chun. That is why someone born in early February needs an exact boundary check.
Two clocks around midnight
The hour branch changes in two-hour blocks, with Zi covering 23:00–00:59. The selected late-Zi rule determines whether the day changes at 23:00 or midnight and which day stem is used to derive the hour stem. Compare the rule as well as the time when two calculators disagree.
The same birth record, a reproducible chart
Save the result with its time zone, clock correction and late-Zi setting. These are part of the calculation, not incidental preferences. If your time is unknown, leave the hour empty rather than choosing a time because its reading sounds preferable.
Calculation references
- Hong Kong Observatory: stems and branches ↗
- Hong Kong Observatory: 24 solar terms ↗
- lunar-javascript calendar engine ↗