How to Read a BaZi Chart (Four Pillars), Step by Step — Korean Saju Edition
A BaZi chart — saju (사주) in Korean — looks like eight mysterious characters in a grid. It is easier to read than it looks. Here is how to read your Four Pillars chart in six steps, the way Korean saju does it. Make your own chart first with the free calculator, then follow along.
Step 1: Four Pillars, Eight Characters
Your chart has four columns, or pillars: year, month, day and hour of birth. Korean charts are usually written right to left — year on the right, hour on the left — so you read them like a timeline from your roots to your later life.
Each pillar has two characters. The top one is a heavenly stem (one of ten); the bottom one is an earthly branch (one of twelve, the zodiac animals). Four pillars × two characters = eight characters, which is exactly what BaZi (八字) means in Chinese.
Step 2: Find Your Day Master
The top character of the day pillar is your Day Master — the heart of the chart, the element that is you. Everything else in the chart is read in relation to it.
There are ten Day Masters: Yang and Yin versions of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. Yang Wood (甲) is pictured as a tall tree, Yin Wood (乙) as a flowering vine, Yang Fire (丙) as the sun, Yin Fire (丁) as a candle, and so on.
Make your Four Pillars chart
Year, month, day and hour pillars with the Ten Gods and your five-element balance — Korean saju method, in English.
Step 3: Count the Five Elements
Every stem and branch carries one of the five elements. Count them across your eight characters and you get your element balance — which elements are plentiful, and which are quiet or missing.
Saju does not stop at counting. It asks what would balance you, given the season you were born in and how strong your Day Master is. The element your chart needs most is often the one you are drawn to in people, places and work.
Step 4: Read the Ten Gods
The Ten Gods (십신) name each character's relationship to your Day Master: the same element is a Friend or Rob Wealth; the element you produce is Eating God or Hurting Officer (expression); the element you control is Wealth; the element that controls you is Officer or Seven Killings (structure and pressure); the element that produces you is Resource (support and learning).
Where these sit matters. A Resource star in the month pillar suggests support from your environment and education; an Eating God in the hour pillar points to creative expression in later life and private projects.
Step 5: Know What Each Pillar Covers
Year pillar: roots, family background and the first impression you give. Month pillar: career, your environment and how you work in the world — it also sets your birth season. Day pillar: your core self and closest partnership (the day branch is called the spouse palace). Hour pillar: inner world, personal projects and later life.
No birth time? Leave the hour pillar empty. Six of your eight characters come from the date alone, and your Day Master does not depend on the hour.
Step 6: Add Time — Luck Cycles and Years
A chart is not static. Every ten years a new luck pillar (대운, daeun) begins, and every year brings its own pillar — 2027 is 丁未, the Red Fire Goat. Readers look at how these incoming elements meet your chart: do they bring what you need, or more of what you already have?
That is why the same person can feel very different in different decades. Saju describes seasons and tendencies, not fixed events — choices are always yours.
Make your Four Pillars chart
Year, month, day and hour pillars with the Ten Gods and your five-element balance — Korean saju method, in English.
Questions people ask
Is a BaZi chart the same as a Korean saju chart?
Yes. Both are the same Four Pillars — eight characters from your year, month, day and hour of birth. Korean saju has its own reading traditions and usually counts the year from Ipchun (around February 4).
Why are the months different from the calendar?
Saju months follow the twelve solar terms. The month pillar changes around the 4th–8th of each calendar month, at the exact moment of the solar term.
Do I need my exact birth time?
It helps, but it is not required. Without a time you still get six of eight characters and your Day Master. A precise reading also converts your time to true solar time at your birthplace.
What is the most important part of the chart?
Your Day Master — the stem of your day pillar. It is the reference point for the five elements, the Ten Gods and every compatibility check.
More guides
Read your whole chart
Your day pillar is one of eight characters. See all four pillars, your five elements and your 2027 — the first chapters are free.