Four Pillars of Destiny (aka Eight Characters)

Ba Zi is a system of Chinese astrology that can foretell a person’s destiny and life path. In this system, a person’s date and time of birth is expressed as eight characters comprising of four heavenly stems and four earthly branches (which equals eight characters).

Ba Zi literally means ‘eight characters’ in Chinese.

Each component of a person’s date and time of birth namely the year, month, date and hours are expressed as a set comprising of a heavenly stem on top of an earthly branch. The result is four columns of two characters each. This explains why Ba Zi is also known as the Four Pillars of Destiny.

Four Pillars
Four Pillars

An experienced practitioner can reveal a lot of your destiny by simply evaluating your Eight Characters. However to determine your life path or luck cycle, the eight characters are read in conjunction with a additional set of pillars 6-7 pillars, each of which represents a decade in your life. They are called Decade Luck Pillars.

In addition each of the earthly branches of the Four Pillars can be represented by between 1-3 stem equivalents that may or may not be explicitly written down. They are called the Hidden Stems.

The Eight Characters, Hidden Stems and Decade Luck Pillars form the components of a Ba Zi (of Four Pillars of Destiny) Chinese Astrology Chart.

The stem and branch that represents the day is called the Day Master. It represents the person and is the most important component. It is compared with the other pillars, hidden stems and decade luck pillars to reveal a person destiny and luck cycle.

You can download a free Ba Zi software charter at
http://www.fourpillars.net/

You should not confuse this with the year pillar which is commonly used to determine your yearly animal zodiac sign. Example whether you are a tiger, horse, dog etc. The heavenly stem of the year pillars determine your year element. For example if you are born in Geng Xu year then you are a Metal Dog as Geng belongs to the metal element while Xu is dog.

For more information on the stems and branches.

Ba Zi uses the Chinese Solar Calendar and it should not be confused with the Chinese Lunar Calendar which is used by other Chinese astrology systems such as Zi Wei Dou Shu or the Purple Star Astrology system.

Feng Shui Buy House Guide
Click here to Download

More from my site

  • Four Pillars and Me by Master Peter Leung I don't even remember how many 4P charts or ZWDS charts I have spent hours staring at. The past 10 years, I have focused my research mainly on personality […]
  • Eight Mansion’s Wandering Stars Part 1 by Master HC Hung Location location location, that’s the battle cry of today’s real estate business. Interestingly the same could have been an issue with the Wandering Stars of […]
  • Feng Shui Bedroom Mirrors Feng Shui Bedroom Mirrors? A lot has been written in about the mirror in the bedroom. Windows Is it bad Feng Shui to have a mirror in the bedroom? What is the design rules governing […]
  • What is my Personal Element? This can often be very confusing. One practitioner tells you that you belong to the element metal while another tells you that you are fire. Who is right? Well, both of them are likely […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *