How to Read a Saju Chart — Four Pillars Basics: Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches, Five Elements & the Day Master

A Saju chart (Myeongsik) is your birth date and time converted — with solar-term and clock-time corrections — into eight characters (four Heavenly Stems + four Earthly Branches), and the stem of your birth day, the Day Master, is "you." "Getting your Saju read" actually begins with turning a birth date and time into those eight characters. Enter yours into the free Saju chart calculator and it lays out the eight-character table automatically — but once you know what the characters mean, the result becomes far more fun to read. This is a beginner's guide to the Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches, Five Elements, and Day Master, written for people with no background at all.

At a glance

• Saju (Four Pillars) means four pillars — year, month, day, and hour — and each pillar carries one Heavenly Stem + one Earthly Branch, for eight characters (Palja) in total.
• Those eight characters arranged as a table are your Myeongsik (natal Saju chart), also called the Wonguk — "casting a Saju" simply means building this chart.
• 10 Heavenly Stems + 12 Earthly Branches pair up to form the 60-Gapja cycle, and the Branches are the same twelve zodiac animals you already know.
• Every character belongs to one of the Five Elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) and carries Yin or Yang — and the stem of your birth day, the Day Master, is "you."
• Want to try it yourself? Put your birth date and time into the free Saju chart calculator.

How a Saju chart takes shape

The birth date and time you enter pass through calendar and solar-term calculations and come out as a table of eight characters. Each of the four pillars is traditionally said to represent its own domain of life.

Of these, the Day Pillar matters most. If you don't know your birth time, a reading is still possible with six characters — minus the Hour Pillar — though it loses some precision.

Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches

The eight characters come in two kinds: Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.

• 10 Heavenly Stems: 甲 (Gap), 乙 (Eul), 丙 (Byeong), 丁 (Jeong), 戊 (Mu), 己 (Gi), 庚 (Gyeong), 辛 (Sin), 壬 (Im), 癸 (Gye)
• 12 Earthly Branches: 子 (Ja), 丑 (Chuk), 寅 (In), 卯 (Myo), 辰 (Jin), 巳 (Sa), 午 (O), 未 (Mi), 申 (Sin), 酉 (Yu), 戌 (Sul), 亥 (Hae)

The Earthly Branches are exactly the twelve zodiac animals you know — 子 is the Rat, 亥 is the Pig, and so on. When someone says they were "born in the year of the Ox," they're naming the Earthly Branch of their birth year. Pair one Stem with one Branch and you get the 60-Gapja cycle (the sexagenary cycle), which takes sixty pairings to come full circle. That's precisely what hwangap, the traditional 60th-birthday celebration, marks: one full lap of the cycle.

The Five Elements and Yin-Yang

Every character falls under one of five energies — the Five Elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. The five relate to one another by either helping or checking.

• Generating Cycle (helping): Wood → Fire → Earth → Metal → Water → back to Wood
• Controlling Cycle (checking): Wood checks Earth, Earth checks Water, Water checks Fire, Fire checks Metal, and Metal checks Wood.

On top of that, each character carries Yin or Yang — a (+)/(−) polarity. 甲 (Gap) is Yang Wood and 乙 (Eul) is Yin Wood, for example: the same Wood with a different grain. Whether the Five Elements in a chart lean heavily to one side or spread out evenly is where interpretation begins.

The Day Master = you

Of the eight characters, the Heavenly Stem of the day you were born — the Day Master — is "you." Nearly all of Saju interpretation unfolds from a single question: "seen from the Day Master (me), what is each of the other characters?" The same 戊 (Mu) is one person's very self, because it happens to be their Day Master, while for someone else it's just a neighboring character. The character directly beneath the Day Master, the Day Branch, is traditionally read as the spouse palace.

A taste of the Sipsin (Ten Gods)

The Sipsin (Ten Gods) map out the relationship each character has with your Day Master — a tool for reading whether a given character stands for money, work, people, or reputation in your life. There are ten in all (Bigyeon, Geopjae, Siksin, Sanggwan, Pyeonjae, Jeongjae, Pyeongwan, Jeonggwan, Pyeonin, Jeongin). No need to memorize them — here's just a taste.

As you can see, the same character becomes a different Sipsin depending on whose Day Master it faces — which is why the same characters read differently for every person.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Day Master, and how do I find mine?

The Day Master is the Heavenly Stem of the day you were born — the upper character of the Day Pillar in your chart. On a Manseryeok (traditional almanac) chart it's often labeled "Ilwon" (日元). This one character is "you," and every other part of the reading is measured against it. If your Day Pillar is Imsul (壬戌), for example, your Day Master is Im (壬), a Water stem.

How do the characters come out to exactly eight?

Each of the four pillars — year, month, day, and hour — carries one Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch. Four times two makes eight, which is where the name Palja ("eight characters") comes from.

Can I still get a reading without my birth time?

Yes — a reading works with six characters, leaving out the Hour Pillar. Since the Hour Pillar covers children, later years, and outcomes, though, the reading loses some precision.

Doesn't the zodiac animal change on January 1 or Lunar New Year?

No. In Saju, the year boundary follows the solar terms, not January 1 or the lunar new year. The year begins at Ipchun, the "Start of Spring" solar term in early February — so anyone born before Ipchun is counted under the previous year's characters. Miss this, and a rough calculation can put entire characters out of place.

So why do rough hand calculations keep going wrong?

Boundary corrections. Year and month boundaries have to be set by the solar terms; every location needs a true-solar-time correction (Seoul runs about 32 minutes behind standard clock time); and births during daylight-saving periods — such as 1987–88 in Korea — need the clock rolled back an hour. It's safest to use a tool that handles all of these corrections automatically.

Related Saju basics worth a read

• How today's fortune is determined — the daily and annual luck that flows over your chart
• The Sipsin (Ten Gods), fully explained — the ten relationships measured from the Day Master
• How to read Five-Element balance in a Saju chart — strong vs. weak charts and the Yongsin (useful element)
• The 16 Saju personality types — reading temperament through the elements and Sipsin

Wrapping up

In the end, a Myeongsik is nothing more than a table: your birth date and time, adjusted for solar terms and clock corrections, laid out as eight characters. Once you know the skeleton — Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches, the Five Elements, and the Day Master — you can read the shape of your own chart for yourself. Start by casting your eight characters with the free Saju chart calculator, then match them against the ideas in this guide. A Saju reading doesn't fix your fate or predict the future with certainty — enjoy it lightly, as a companion for entertainment and self-reflection.