Free · No account needed
Bazi four pillars chart
Enter your birth date, time and city to cast your Bazi chart — the four pillars of year, month, day and hour — with your day master and five-element balance. Calculated on request; nothing is stored.
Luck pillars run forward or backward depending on this. Leave it unset to skip them.
What is Bazi?
Bazi (八字), also called the Four Pillars, records a birth moment in eight characters: each of the year, month, day and hour pillars carries one heavenly stem and one earthly branch. Those eight characters resolve into the five elements — Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water — and the way they feed and control one another maps temperament and rhythm.
This chart is cast from the sexagenary calendar and the solar terms, so the month pillar turns with the solar term rather than the lunar month. The hour pillar depends on birth time; without it, the other three still stand.
At The Ancient Cycle we read Bazi alongside Western and Vedic astrology, and set all three beside your menstrual cycle so each week has a rhythm you recognise.
See the free three-tradition chart →Find your Vedic moon nakshatra →Your Chinese zodiac by birth year →Chinese zodiac match by year →
Frequently asked questions
- Is this Bazi calculator free?
- Yes. No account, no payment, and your birth details are not stored — the chart is computed on request and returned to your browser.
- What if I don't know my birth time?
- You can still cast the chart. Only the hour pillar is left blank; year, month, day and your day master stay exact.
- What is a day master?
- The day master is the heavenly stem of your day pillar and represents you in the chart. The remaining pillars describe environment, family, work and timing around it.
- How is Bazi different from Western astrology?
- Western astrology reads planetary positions on the zodiac; Bazi reads the sexagenary calendar and the five elements. They describe the same birth moment in two languages, which is why reading them together is useful.
- Do you store my birth data?
- No. Birth date, time and place are not written to any database on this page, and the site runs no ad pixels or trackers.
- Does the Bazi year start at Chinese New Year or Li Chun?
- Bazi changes year at Li Chun, the start of spring (around 3–5 February), not at Lunar New Year. If you were born in January or early February, your year pillar is often the previous year. Everyday zodiac animals are usually counted from Lunar New Year, so the two can differ for births between the two dates.
- What is the difference between my birth-year element and my day master?
- The element people quote for a birth year (1995 is Mountain-top Fire, for example) is the na yin of the year pillar, shared by everyone born that year. The day master is the stem of your day pillar, which is personal to you and is the anchor of a Bazi reading. Two people born the same year can have completely different day masters.
- What are the ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches?
- Stems: Jia, Yi (Wood), Bing, Ding (Fire), Wu, Ji (Earth), Geng, Xin (Metal), Ren, Gui (Water). Branches: Zi (Rat), Chou (Ox), Yin (Tiger), Mao (Rabbit), Chen (Dragon), Si (Snake), Wu (Horse), Wei (Goat), Shen (Monkey), You (Rooster), Xu (Dog), Hai (Pig). Each pillar pairs one stem with one branch, making a cycle of sixty.
- How do the five elements feed and control each other?
- Feeding cycle: Wood feeds Fire, Fire feeds Earth, Earth feeds Metal, Metal feeds Water, Water feeds Wood. Control cycle: Wood controls Earth, Earth controls Water, Water controls Fire, Fire controls Metal, Metal controls Wood. A chart is read by how the elements around the day master feed or control it.
- What is the useful element?
- The useful element is the one that brings the chart closest to balance. A weak day master usually needs its resource element and its own element; a strong one needs elements that drain it (output, wealth and officer). The calculator above finds it with a simple points method and states the rule it used.
- What are luck pillars?
- Luck pillars are back-to-back ten-year periods, each with its own stem and branch. They run forward or backward depending on whether the birth year is yang or yin and on gender (yang male and yin female run forward). Choose a gender above to see yours.
- How is Bazi different from Zi Wei Dou Shu?
- Zi Wei Dou Shu places stars into twelve palaces from the lunar birth date and hour and reads major stars such as Zi Wei and Tian Fu. Bazi uses no stars: it reads eight stem-and-branch characters set by the solar terms and how their elements interact. They are different systems that can be read side by side.