On this page
THE SHORT ANSWER
Read a BaZi chart in three passes: check the birth record and calculation settings, identify the four pillars and their relationships, then consider interpretation. A useful beginner chart lets you trace each label to an input or rule. It also makes clear which claims about a person do not follow from the calculation.
- Read the column headings first. Some charts place the year on the right, so the Day Master is not always in the same visual position.
- Visible characters, hidden stems and Ten Gods are separate layers. Keep them separate when checking a chart or counting elements.
- Save the date, time zone and boundary settings with the result. A screenshot of eight characters alone is not a reproducible record.
Four columns show year, month, day and hour. The upper stems are Yi, Wu, Xin and Ren; the lower branches are You, Zi, Si and Chen. Xin is marked as the Day Master, the reference for comparing other stems. The table and worked example below check each character’s element and the resulting counts.
What do the eight characters record?
BaZi, or the Four Pillars, represents a birth year, month, day and hour as four pairs of heavenly stems and earthly branches. The eight characters belong to a traditional Chinese symbolic system. A chart contains more information than a birth-year zodiac animal.
Keep two questions separate: was the calendar calculated correctly, and is an interpretation useful? Calendar mechanics can be checked against dates, time zones and conventions. A correct calculation does not establish that a symbolic interpretation predicts real events.
Start with the Day Master
The heavenly stem of the day pillar is called the Day Master. It provides a reference for relationships among the other symbols. Jia, for example, is yang Wood; Xin is yin Metal. Neither label is a complete description of a person.
Find the Day Master, then look at the month pillar and seasonal context. The Ten Gods describe relationships to the Day Master through element and polarity. Names such as Wealth and Officer are traditional categories, not promises about money or employment.
A first-pass chart checklist
| Check | What the example establishes | What to do next |
|---|---|---|
| Birth record | 2005-12-23, 08:37, Asia/Shanghai | Confirm the calendar and how precisely the time was recorded |
| Conventions | Civil clock; midnight boundary; no solar correction | Match these settings before comparing calculators |
| Four pillars | 乙酉 / 戊子 / 辛巳 / 壬辰 | Identify the year, month, day and hour by their headings |
| Day Master | Xin: yin Metal | Compare other stems with Xin |
| Visible elements | Wood 1, Fire 1, Earth 2, Metal 2, Water 2 | Check that the total is eight; do not add hidden stems |
| Interpretation | The structure is checked; personal claims are not established | Choose one relationship to study next |
On a small screen, scroll the table sideways.
Check the inputs before reading the story
Confirm the Gregorian date, recorded local time, birth time zone and day boundary. BaZi typically changes the year at the beginning-of-spring solar term and changes months at the relevant jie terms. It does not simply change every pillar at Lunar New Year.
- Unknown time: omit the hour pillar instead of guessing.
- Hidden stems: distinguish the branch associations from visible-character counts.
- Element diagrams: ask whether a chart counts symbols or applies a weighting model.
- Different results: compare time zones and conventions before comparing prose.
Compare the reading with a real example
Instead of asking whether a career is destined, ask which concrete experiences a reading brings to mind, and which experiences contradict it. Keeping both kinds of examples is more informative than looking only for confirmation.
Wenbu displays the calculation first and labels optional AI reflections separately. You can use the chart without requesting a reading or saving personal details.
Try it: read one pillar
Generate a chart with the example details. Find the day pillar’s stem, then select its element in the diagram. Describe only what you can see: “This example has … as its Day Master; the diagram counts visible characters.”
Once that is clear, move on to the Ten Gods guide or ask the Agent to explain one stem relationship. You do not need to interpret the entire chart at once.
Turn a birth record into a statement you can verify
This fixed teaching example is not a user profile. It uses December 23, 2005 at 08:37 in Asia/Shanghai, the civil clock, and a midnight day boundary. The pillars were checked with lunar-typescript 1.8.6, the engine used by Wenbu.
Establish the instant. Shanghai was UTC+08:00 on this date, so 08:37 local time corresponds to 00:37 UTC. Enter the recorded local time in the form; do not subtract eight hours yourself and still select Shanghai.
Record the four pillars: Yi You, Wu Zi, Xin Si and Ren Chen. The time falls in the Chen interval, from 07:00 to before 09:00. The Zi month still requires the solar-term calculation; it is not a direct translation of “December.”
Locate Xin in the day column. Compare the year stem Yi, month stem Wu and hour stem Ren with Xin when reading the Ten Gods. Yi, the year stem, is not the reference simply because it appears first.
Count the visible assignments: Wood, Metal, Earth, Water, Metal, Fire, Water, Earth. This gives 1, 1, 2, 2 and 2 in Wenbu’s element order. It is a count of characters, not a measurement of strength.
Write a narrow conclusion: “This example has a Xin Metal Day Master and a Ren Chen hour pillar; the diagram counts eight visible characters.” Ask a separate question if you want to explore a traditional interpretation.
You now have a record that another reader can reproduce and correct. That is useful progress even without an AI reading, and a sound starting point for learning the remaining chart vocabulary.
Key terms
- Four Pillars
- Four stem-branch pairs assigned to the birth year, month, day and hour.
- Day Master
- The heavenly stem of the day pillar, used as the reference for Ten Gods relationships.
- Hidden stems
- Stems associated with a branch by a traditional lookup table; a separate layer from the visible stems.
Common questions
Should I convert my date to the lunar calendar first?
No. Wenbu’s birth-date field takes a Gregorian date. If your original record is lunar, verify the year, month and leap-month status before converting it once. Entering an already converted date as though it were still lunar creates a second, incorrect conversion.
Can different people have the same BaZi?
Yes. The stem-branch combinations are finite, and an hour pillar usually spans a two-hour interval. The same symbols do not record each person’s circumstances, experiences or choices, and do not imply identical lives.
Should I start with luck cycles and annual readings?
Check the birth chart first. Luck-cycle calculations introduce further conventions, including how their start is determined. Do not assume a feature has been calculated if it is absent from the output; begin by asking the Agent to explain the concept and its prerequisites.
Sources and their scope
Documents the inputs, day boundary, counting method and product scope; the worked example was checked against the implementation.
Provides element, hidden-stem and Ten Gods mappings; lookup rules are not evidence of predictive validity.
Explains the astronomical basis of solar terms; BaZi pillar conventions are documented separately in the implementation.
Further reading; not validation of real-world predictions.
Further reading; not validation of real-world predictions.
Further reading; not validation of real-world predictions.
Traditional interpretations are not established predictions. See the source notes for context.
Read this guide with your agent
Get the complete text, diagram descriptions and sources in an open format. These files contain public knowledge only.
ADDITIONAL PRACTICE · 2026-11-13
Why can the same BaZi Day Master have a different Nayin label?
April 6 and April 16 give the day pillars Geng Zi and Geng Xu. Both have Geng Metal as the Day Master because both day stems are Geng. Nayin looks up the whole stem-branch pair, so the first returns 壁上土 and the second 钗钏金. The visible-element diagram counts the individual characters. Changing the branch from Zi Water to Xu Earth moves one count from Water to Earth and leaves the total at eight.
Wenbu · calculation conventions ↗Wenbu · BaZi guide ↗lunar-typescript · official source ↗
- Record the complete day pillar in both charts before comparing its labels.
- Find the day pillar by its field name in the export preview.
- Account for the changed branch before comparing the total counts.
Follow three readings through one chart
- 01Day Master
Read Geng and Metal in calculation.dayMaster.
- 02Day-pillar Nayin
Find the day item in calculation.pillars and read its pair and nayin.
- 03Visible counts
Compare Water and Earth in calculation.elements. The total is eight in both examples.
Wenbu · calculation conventions ↗Wenbu · BaZi guide ↗lunar-typescript · official source ↗
Locate both labels in a single result
Open Export for an agent below the chart. Read the stem and element in calculation.dayMaster. In the pillars array, find the item whose key is day and read value and nayin. Use the key to locate the day pillar in either export.
In the second chart, the Day Master is Metal and the Nayin name ends in 金, the character for Metal. Check the first chart, where the same Day Master appears beside 壁上土. Record the complete day pillar next to both labels to see which input each lookup uses.
Wenbu · calculation conventions ↗Wenbu · BaZi guide ↗lunar-typescript · official source ↗
Change one visible character and account for the count
Use 08:37 in Asia/Shanghai for both runs, with a midnight day boundary and the civil clock. The year, month and hour pillars are Jia Chen, Wu Chen and Geng Chen in both charts. Put the eight characters side by side. Only the day branch changes, from Zi to Xu.
Zi contributes one Water on April 6. Xu contributes one Earth on April 16. The other seven characters give the same counts. Add Wood, Fire and Metal to the changed counts to check that each chart still totals eight.
Wenbu · calculation conventions ↗Wenbu · BaZi guide ↗lunar-typescript · official source ↗
| Check | April 6 | April 16 |
|---|---|---|
| Year, month and hour | Jia Chen, Wu Chen, Geng Chen | Jia Chen, Wu Chen, Geng Chen |
| Day pillar | Geng Zi (庚子) | Geng Xu (庚戌) |
| Day Master | Geng Metal | Geng Metal |
| Day-pillar Nayin | 壁上土 | 钗钏金 |
| Visible elements | Wood 1, Fire 0, Earth 4, Metal 2, Water 1 | Wood 1, Fire 0, Earth 5, Metal 2, Water 0 |
Wenbu · calculation conventions ↗Wenbu · BaZi guide ↗lunar-typescript · official source ↗
Recalculate the fixed pair
These are hypothetical birth inputs for practice. Use the Gregorian calendar, 08:37, Asia/Shanghai, a midnight boundary and solar time off for both.
- Enter 2024-04-06 and open the export preview. Find Geng Zi and its Nayin, 壁上土.
- Change the date to 2024-04-16. Find Geng Xu and its Nayin, 钗钏金. Verify that dayMaster still gives Geng Metal.
- Compare the two diagrams. Water falls by one and Earth rises by one. Wood, Fire and Metal keep their previous counts.
- Match each of the four stems and four branches to a count in the diagram. Every count should trace to a visible character.
The answer key is the same Day Master, different Nayin labels and a one-count shift explained by the changed day branch. If your result differs, check the settings before comparing the labels.
Wenbu · calculation conventions ↗Wenbu · BaZi guide ↗lunar-typescript · official source ↗
Questions you may have
I can see the Day Master on the chart. Where can I find Nayin?
Open Export for an agent on the same chart. The preview shows the nayin value in the day item of calculation.pillars. You can inspect it there before deciding whether to download the file.
Wenbu · calculation conventions ↗Wenbu · BaZi guide ↗lunar-typescript · official source ↗
Can I use the same interpretation for two charts with the same Day Master?
Treat Geng Metal as the shared label and inspect the rest of each chart and the rules of the interpretation. This exercise checks the calculation fields and the count that follows from them.
Wenbu · calculation conventions ↗Wenbu · BaZi guide ↗lunar-typescript · official source ↗
Terms in this guide
- Day-pillar Nayin
- The traditional name looked up from both characters of the day pillar. Geng Zi is paired with 壁上土 in the example.
lunar-typescript · official source ↗Wenbu · calculation conventions ↗
- Visible-element count
- One observation per visible stem or branch, giving eight observations when all four pillars are present.
See the claim and source notes
The day stem supplies the Day Master.
The heavenly stem of the day pillar is called the Day Master.
Wenbu counts each visible stem and branch once.
五行图把每个可见天干和地支各计一次
The calendar library lists Nayin among its supported lookups.
纳音、星宿
Sources and review scope
Wenbu drafted and checked this article in Codex. The source list records the scope of the review.
- Current complete zh canonical article ↗Current public original and earlier additions; add substantial coverage without repeating or replacing them. · 2026-11-13 · Fetched text
- Current complete en canonical article ↗Current public original and earlier additions; add substantial coverage without repeating or replacing them. · 2026-11-13 · Fetched text
- Wenbu · calculation conventions ↗First-party implementation; not evidence of predictive accuracy · 2026-11-13 · Fetched text
- Wenbu · BaZi guide ↗Existing editorial and reproducible chart conventions · 2026-11-13 · Fetched text
- lunar-typescript · official source ↗Calculation implementation and conventions · 2026-11-13 · Fetched text
- Wenbu · versioned public capabilities ↗First-party current tool, convention and privacy contract; not external endorsement or predictive validation · 2026-11-13 · Fetched text
Recalculate both examples in the BaZi tool
Use the April 6 and April 16 inputs to compare the Day Master, the day pillar and the element diagram.
Recalculate both examples in the BaZi tool ↗