How to Read a Bazi Chart: A Worked Example

Example birth data (fictional): a woman born on 15 June 1990 at 14:30 in Johor Bahru, Malaysia (UTC+8). You can enter the same data into the free Bazi calculator and compare.

The calculator uses the local clock time you enter. See why Bazi calculators give different results for the choices behind that.

A Bazi chart has four pillars: year, month, day and hour. Each pillar is one Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch, so there are eight characters in total (that is what Ba Zi, "eight characters", means).

The year pillar changes at Lichun in early February and the month pillar at the solar terms, not on calendar dates. This birthday is in mid-June, well inside the Wu month, so there is no boundary question here. Learn the terms in the glossary.

The Day Master is the stem of the day pillar, and it is the centre of the chart. In this example it is Xin (辛), yin Metal. Every other character is read in relation to it.

What each Day Master is traditionally associated with is covered in What is a Day Master? and on the Xin yin Metal page. A Day Master is a starting point, not a verdict on a person.

Counting the stems and branches gives the balance of the five elements in the chart:

Here Metal and Water are strong (two each), Fire is present twice through the two Wu branches, and Wood and Earth appear once each. A reader does not stop at counting. They look at where each element sits, how it relates to the Day Master and which element they consider most useful to balance the chart. Schools differ on that last step, which is called the Useful God.

The Ten Gods describe how every other stem relates to the Day Master. They are labels for the kind of relationship, not good or bad marks. For Day Master Xin:

The day stem is the Day Master itself, so it has no Ten God label.

Each branch contains one to three hidden stems. Readers use them to add detail to the picture.

• Wu (午) in the year and month pillars hides Ding (丁, Seven Killings) and Ji (己, Indirect Resource).
• Hai (亥) in the day pillar hides Ren (壬, Hurting Officer) and Jia (甲, Direct Wealth).
• Wei (未) in the hour pillar hides Ji (己, Indirect Resource), Ding (丁, Seven Killings) and Yi (乙, Indirect Wealth).

This is why the same chart can look quite different once the hidden layer is included.

Luck Pillars are ten-year cycles. For this example the first one starts at about age 3 years 1 month. The first pillars are:

A reader compares each Luck Pillar, and each year, with the natal chart to see which relationships are stressed or supported. Read more in Luck Pillars explained.

• It is not a prediction. A chart is a structure to reflect on, not a script of what will happen.
• It does not decide for you. It does not replace professional medical, legal or financial advice.
• It does not know your situation. The same chart reads differently for a student, a parent or a business owner. That is why the questions you bring matter.

A calculator gives you the chart. A reading is the interpretation: which parts matter for your questions, what the current Luck Pillar and year bring into focus, and where your birth time or school conventions change the result. If you would like your own chart read, Master Mandy Lim offers a 60-minute one-to-one online reading with up to 10 questions and a written report, in English or Chinese. See the online Bazi reading and pricing.