An Introduction to Four Pillars / BaZi

You may know that you were born in the Year of the Dragon, Rabbit, Horse or Tiger.

But your birth-year animal represents only a small part of a much more detailed system.

One of the major traditions of Chinese metaphysics is BaZi, commonly known in English as the Four Pillars of Destiny.

Rather than assigning you a single animal based on your year of birth, BaZi creates a detailed birth pattern from the year, month, day and hour of your birth.

It gives Astralway a completely different way of looking at your underlying pattern and the cycles of time interacting with it.

What does BaZi mean?

BaZi translates as Eight Characters.

Those eight characters come from four pairs of Chinese characters calculated from your birth information.

These form your:

Year PillarMonth PillarDay PillarHour Pillar

Each pillar contains two components:

a Heavenly Stem

and an Earthly Branch.

Four pillars containing two characters each create the Eight Characters — the BaZi.

More than your Chinese zodiac animal

The familiar twelve Chinese zodiac animals are associated with the Earthly Branches.

Your birth year therefore gives you one Earthly Branch and its corresponding animal.

But this represents only one of the eight characters in your BaZi chart.

Your Month, Day and Hour Pillars also contain Earthly Branches.

This means you actually have four Branches within a Four Pillars chart, not simply one zodiac animal.

Each pillar also contains a Heavenly Stem, adding another layer.

This is why knowing that someone was "born in the Year of the Horse" tells us far less than examining their complete BaZi chart.

The Four Pillars

The four pillars are derived from different components of your birth time.

Each contributes information to the overall chart.

Year Pillar

The Year Pillar is the part most closely connected with the familiar Chinese zodiac year.

Traditionally, it can be associated with ancestry, heritage, wider social environment and aspects of early life.

It provides context, but it does not define the entire person.

Month Pillar

The Month Pillar has particular importance because BaZi is deeply connected with seasonal cycles.

The month of birth helps establish the seasonal environment into which the chart is born.

This can be significant when assessing the relative strength and condition of the Five Elements within the chart.

This is one reason BaZi cannot be reduced to simply counting how many examples of each element appear.

The same element can operate very differently depending on season and context.

Day Pillar

The Day Pillar contains one of the most important reference points in the BaZi chart.

Its Heavenly Stem is known as the Day Master.

The Day Master represents the central reference point from which many relationships within the chart are understood.

If Astralway tells you that you are a Yin Water Day Master or Yang Wood Day Master, this is where that information comes from.

The Earthly Branch beneath the Day Master is also significant and forms part of the wider interpretation of the Day Pillar.

Hour Pillar

The Hour Pillar adds the final pair of characters.

Traditionally, it can be associated with later life, aspirations, inner motivations, projects, children and what a person creates or develops.

As with every pillar, its meaning depends on its relationship with the rest of the chart.