Zi Wei Dou Shu Chart

Twelve-palace chart

Zi Wei Dou Shu spreads a birth moment over twelve palaces set on the twelve branches. Each palace carries its own stem-branch pair, its Main stars, Auxiliary stars and Other stars, a brightness grade beside the stars, and a transformation label on the four stars the year stem moves. The form takes gender, a solar or lunar date (lunar charts allow the leap month), the birth hour and the birth city; the chart is built on the page.

Life and Body palaces

The Life Palace comes from the birth month and the birth hour. The Tiger palace counts as month one; counting forward to the birth month and then backward from the Rat hour to the birth hour lands on the Life Palace. Counting forward from the same palace to the birth hour gives the Body Palace. For 15 March 1990 at 07:30 — a lunar second month and a Chen hour — the month palace is Mao, and the backward count lands on Hai, so the Life Palace sits at Hai; the forward count lands on Wei. Palace stems open from the year stem: a Geng year starts at Wu in the Tiger palace, which makes this Life Palace Ding Hai.

Bureau, transformations and profile

That pair sets the Five Elements Bureau, and the bureau sets the age at which the first Life Phase opens. Ding Hai is an Earth bureau here, so the first decade starts at nominal age 5. The year stem also decides the Birth-Year Transformations: a Geng year sends wealth to the Sun Star, power to Wu Qu, fame to the Moon Star and obstruction to Tian Tong; because Tian Tong is the main star of this Life Palace, that palace carries the obstruction label. Chart core lists the bureau, Life Master, Body Master, the four pillars (see BaZi Chart), solar and lunar dates, gender and zodiac; chart references add the sign, hour segment, Dou Jun, Life Master and Body Master stars, palace branches, and true solar time when a city is set. Birth-Year Transformations, Minor Cycle by Palace and Twelve Attendant Stars follow.

Life phases, horoscope and flying stars

Life Phases list twelve ten-year spans with the palace each runs through. A male chart from this birth goes 5 to 14 at Hai, 15 to 24 at Zi and 25 to 34 at Chou; a female chart from the same birth hour goes 5 to 14 at Hai, then 15 to 24 at Xu and 25 to 34 at You, because the direction comes from the polarity of the year stem together with gender. Pick a date to resolve its Life Phase, Annual, Monthly, Daily and Hourly cycles and overlaid palaces. Flying stars between a palace and a target return Transformation paths, Self-transformation, Four Palaces and Opposite.

Birth city and true solar time

The city field changes the chart. Clock time folds into true solar time using longitude, and the hour segment is taken from the folded value. On the same 07:30, Beijing at 116.4 degrees east corrects by -24.1 minutes to 07:06, still a Chen hour, so nothing moves. At Urumqi, 87.6 degrees east, the same clock time corrects by -139.3 minutes to 05:11, a Mao hour, so the Life Palace shifts from Hai to Zi, the bureau becomes Fire with the first decade at age 6, and the main star of the Life Palace changes from Tian Tong to the Purple Star. With the city empty no correction applies: the chart uses the entered clock time, and the true solar time line does not appear.

Unknown birth hour

When the birth hour is unknown, selecting Birth hour unknown casts the chart for the Wu hour at 12:00 noon; the Life Palace and the whole palace ring are counted from noon, and noon is what the result link stores. Everyone born in the same month and hour segment gets the same chart. What this page gives is which stars sit in which palace, not a verdict on a person's health, money or family.

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