Four Pillars calculator
In China, Korea and Japan, a birth is written as four pillars — year, month, day and hour — each carrying a stem, a branch and an animal. At their center stands your Day Master: the element you are made of. Computed from the true solar calendar (the year turns at Lichun, not at New Year). Free, on screen.
The five elements in your chart
The Eastern world is opening
Your pillars, read the way the East reads them — the Day Master's story, the Ten Gods, the seasons of your luck — written for your chart alone. Be the first to know when the lanterns light.
Gently answered
Why does my animal differ from the restaurant placemat?
Placemats flip the animal at Chinese New Year. Classical BaZi turns the year at Lichun — the solar "Beginning of Spring," around February 4th. If you were born in January or early February, the true solar calendar may give you the previous year's animal — and it is the correct one for Four Pillars work.
What is a Day Master?
The heavenly stem of your day pillar — the element and polarity the whole chart is read against. It is the closest thing the East has to "your sign": not the year animal, but the element you are made of.
What are the Luck Pillars?
Da Yun — the ~10-year seasons of a life, unfolding from your month pillar. The classical direction rule uses the year stem's polarity together with the chart's yin/yang designation; that's the only reason we ask.
Is this really computed, not looked up?
Yes — our own solar-longitude astronomy (the same math used for solar terms), the validated sexagenary day cycle, and historical time-zone handling for your birthplace. Zero external services.