四柱八字Eight Characters

Cast Your Chart free · no sign-up

命理 About Saju

Saju (사주, 四柱) is the Korean art of the Four Pillars of Destiny. Your birth year, month, day and hour each form one pillar, and each pillar carries two characters — a heavenly stem and an earthly branch. Four pillars, eight characters: in Korean, saju palja. For over a thousand years, East Asian astrology has read the blend of energies in these eight characters as a map of inborn temperament, talent and timing. Saju is not a verdict on your future — it is closer to an old, well-worn language for understanding yourself and reading the season you are in.

There are ten heavenly stems — the five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water), each in a yang and a yin form — and twelve earthly branches, better known in the West as the twelve zodiac animals. Paired in order they produce sixty combinations, the sexagenary cycle, which names every year, month, day and two-hour period. Unlike the Western calendar, the Saju year begins at Ipchun (the "start of spring" solar term, around February 4), and months change at solar-term boundaries — because Saju follows the Sun.

The elements feed one another in a cycle of creation — Wood feeds Fire, Fire makes Earth, Earth bears Metal, Metal collects Water, Water grows Wood — and check one another in a cycle of control. Neither cycle is "good" or "bad": an unchecked force grows coarse, and an unfed one goes hungry. Reading which elements crowd your chart and which run thin is the heart of a Saju reading.

Each character is translated into a relationship with your day master — the stem of your birth day, which stands for you. These ten relationships, the "ten gods," group into five families: Companions (peers and independence), Output (expression and talent), Wealth (practicality and assets), Authority (duty and position) and Resource (learning and support). Through them, an abstract balance of elements becomes a story about work, money, honor and relationships.

The element that rights your chart's particular imbalance is called the useful god (yongsin, 用神). Decade by decade, the luck pillars bring new elements into play; when they carry your useful god, tradition reads the season as a tailwind — when they feed its opposite, as a time to lower your sails. The ten-year luck pillars, yearly, monthly and daily currents are all read this way.

This calculator computes real astronomy in your browser: solar-term boundaries from the Sun's ecliptic longitude and lunar months from actual new-moon times (the same method as the Korean manseryeok almanac). Nothing you enter is sent to a server or stored anywhere — the entire reading happens on your device. Calculations follow Korean conventions (UTC+9); if you were born far from that time zone within a few hours of a solar-term boundary, a pillar can shift by one step.