The Four Pillars

The Four Pillars

If you have ever seen a birth chart, you know it starts with the year, month, day and hour you were born. Saju uses the same four details, but writes each one as a two-character pillar. This guide builds a chart from the ground up so you can see where each character comes from.

If you are new to the idea, start with What Is Saju?. Here we go one level deeper.

One pillar, two characters

Each pillar has two characters stacked like a tiny tower.

  • On top sits a heavenly stem. There are ten: Gap, Eul, Byeong, Jeong, Mu, Gi, Gyeong, Shin (the yin Metal stem), Im and Gye.
  • Below it sits an earthly branch. There are twelve: Ja, Chuk, In, Myo, Jin, Sa, O, Mi, Shin (the Monkey branch), Yu, Sul and Hae. The two Shins are different characters: one is a stem, the other a branch.

Every stem is either yang (outgoing) or yin (inward), and belongs to one of the five elements. They come in pairs, the yang one first.

ElementYang stemYin stemOur image for each
WoodGapEulOak, Ivy
FireByeongJeongSunshine, Firefly
EarthMuGiRock, Meadow
MetalGyeongShin (stem)Blade, Gem
WaterImGyeOcean, Rain

Branches carry an element as well. In and Myo are Wood, Sa and O are Fire, and Jin, Chuk and Mi are Earth, for example.

The year pillar: it starts in early February

The year pillar is the stem and branch of your birth year. Its branch is your saju zodiac animal.

The catch is when the year changes. In saju, the new year begins at Ipchun, the start of spring, which falls around February 4. It is the first of the 24 solar terms, the points that divide the sun's yearly path into 24 steps of 15 degrees each. (Ipchun, spring, is not the same word as Ipchu, the start of autumn, which comes in August.)

So if you were born in January or the first days of February, your saju year may still be the previous one, even though the calendar year has changed. In some years the opposite also happens: after Ipchun but before Lunar New Year, saju has already moved on while the Chinese-zodiac animal has not. Your saju animal can differ from the one tied to Lunar New Year, so check your Ipchun date.

Here is a near-future example. 2027 is a Jeong-Mi year, the Fire Goat, and it begins at Ipchun (about February 4, 2027), not on January 1. Lunar New Year that year falls on February 7, so a birth on February 5 is already a saju Goat even though the Lunar New Year count has not turned yet.

The month pillar: solar terms, not calendar months

The month pillar does not follow the 1st of each month. It follows the solar terms. A new saju month opens on one of twelve terms, the odd-numbered ones in the list of 24, starting with Ipchun. The month runs until the next of these terms arrives.

TermAboutMonth branch
IpchunFeb 4In
GyeongchipMar 6Myo
CheongmyeongApr 5Jin
IphaMay 6Sa
MangjongJun 6O
SoseoJul 7Mi
IpchuAug 8Shin (Monkey)
BaekroSep 8Yu
HanroOct 8Sul
IpdongNov 7Hae
DaeseolDec 7Ja
SohanJan 6Chuk

The exact day can shift by a day or two from year to year. Our calculator uses the exact moment. A person born on January 3 is still in the month called Ja, which began at Daeseol in early December, because the next term, Sohan, comes a few days later.

The month's stem is not arbitrary. It follows a fixed table tied to the year's stem. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (Academy of Korean Studies) gives an example. If the year stem is Gap or Gi, the first saju month, In, is Byeong-In, and the months continue in order from there. So take a person born in a Gap year, in the third saju month, Jin (roughly April 5 to May 5). Their month pillar is Mu-Jin.

The day pillar: a count that never stops

The day pillar works differently. It does not depend on the year or on the solar terms. Every day of the calendar has its own stem and branch, and the pair moves one step forward each day, cycling through all sixty and then starting again. Traditional readers looked the day up in a perpetual calendar, which lists the pillars for roughly a hundred years at a time.

The stem of the day pillar is your Day Master, the character that stands in for you. The rest of the chart is read in relation to it. Each of our ten Day Master images has its own page, from Oak to Rain.

The hour pillar: twelve blocks of two hours

The day is cut into twelve blocks of two hours each, named after the twelve branches and starting at night.

Adjust your clock time to sun time first (in Seoul, subtract about 32 minutes), then find your block.

Sun-time hours (after adjustment)

BranchAnimalHours
JaRat11 PM to 1 AM
ChukOx1 to 3 AM
InTiger3 to 5 AM
MyoRabbit5 to 7 AM
JinDragon7 to 9 AM
SaSnake9 to 11 AM
OHorse11 AM to 1 PM
MiGoat1 to 3 PM
Shin (Monkey)Monkey3 to 5 PM
YuRooster5 to 7 PM
SulDog7 to 9 PM
HaePig9 to 11 PM

The hour's stem again follows a fixed table, this time tied to the day's stem. The encyclopedia's example: if the day stem is Eul or Gyeong, the Rat hour is Byeong-Ja, and the hours step forward in order. A person with that day stem, born between 5 and 7 AM in the Rabbit hour, has the hour pillar Gi-Myo.

One detail trips people up. The Rat hour straddles midnight. Traditions differ on whether the part before midnight belongs to the same day or the next one. Seoul sits about 32 minutes behind the 135°E standard meridian, so local solar midnight falls near 12:32 AM on the clock. Some methods use that moment, rather than clock midnight, to start the new day. Our calculator makes the sun-time adjustment for you, using your birth city.

If you do not know your birth time, you can still read six of the eight characters. The How We Calculate page lists the rules we use, including how we handle that late-night choice.

Putting the four together

Lay the pillars side by side and you have a chart. Reading it starts with the Day Master. Then readers look at how the elements are spread across the eight characters. Traditional saju values balance and harmony, so a chart with the elements spread fairly evenly reads differently from a chart where one element crowds out the rest.

Some guides link each pillar to an area of life. Practices vary, so we stick to what each pillar is made from rather than promise what it means for you.

A chart is a set of observations, not a forecast. Read it as questions to think about: what do you notice, and what does not fit? It is for entertainment and reflection only.

Try it yourself

Enter your birth date and time in the free Saju calculator to see your four pillars laid out like the ones above. Then open your Day Master page to meet your type, or read the Saju Basics page for a short overview.

For entertainment purposes only. Not medical, legal, financial or psychological advice. Read the full Disclaimer. Questions? Visit our Contact page.

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