My Daily Saju · What is saju?

The name, decoded

The Four Pillars of Destiny

“Four Pillars of Destiny” is just the English name for a chart most of Asia knows by other names — saju (사주) in Korea, BaZi (八字) in China. Same method, one translation.

The four pillars, literally

The four pillars are the year, month, day, and hour you were born. Each is written as a pair — a heavenly stem over an earthly branch — drawn from a 60-part cycle. Four pillars × two characters = eight characters, which is why the Chinese name BaZi means exactly that: “eight characters.”

The pillar that reads as you

The stem of the day pillar is your Day Master — the character that stands for you. There are ten of them; we read each as a nature archetype (the Mountain, the Ocean, and so on). The other seven characters describe the world your Day Master moves through.

Saju vs BaZi

If you've read about BaZi and wondered whether saju is different: it's the same chart. Korea inherited the four-pillars method and developed its own reading tradition around it. So a Korean saju and a Chinese BaZi of the same birth start from identical characters — they just get talked about a little differently. (For the Western-astrology comparison, see saju vs astrology.)

FAQ

Is BaZi the same as saju?

They're the same method — the four pillars, eight characters — under two names. BaZi (八字) is the Chinese name; saju (사주) is the Korean. The traditions read the same chart with somewhat different emphases and vocabulary.

What are the four pillars?

Year, month, day, and hour of birth. Each pillar is a pair: one heavenly stem and one earthly branch. Four pairs make the eight characters the reading is built from.

What's the difference between the Four Pillars and the Chinese zodiac?

The Chinese zodiac is your birth-year animal — one of twelve. The Four Pillars use all four of your birth coordinates (year, month, day, hour), so the year-animal is just one branch out of the full eight characters.

Meet the ten Day Masters: Tall Tree · Wildflower · Sun · Candlelight · Mountain · Garden Soil · Steel · Jewel · Ocean · Morning Rain

What is saju? · Saju vs astrology · Saju compatibility · Four Pillars of Destiny

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