Four pillars, eight characters
The year, month, day, and hour pillars each contain one stem and one branch. Together they form the palja, or eight characters. The hour pillar is omitted when birth time is unknown.
How to read a Saju chart
Saju (사주), also called the Four Pillars, arranges a birth moment into four pairs of Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. This guide explains the chart's basic grammar without treating any single symbol as a fixed verdict.
The Day Master is the reference point
The stem at the top of the day pillar represents the Day Master. Element and Ten-God relationships are described relative to it, but it never tells the whole story alone.
Five Elements describe change
Wood, fire, earth, metal, and water are interacting phases, not physical ingredients. Generation and control cycles help readers describe support, output, pressure, and transformation.
Ten Gods organize relationships
The Ten Gods compare each visible stem with the Day Master by element and polarity. Their names are technical categories—not moral rankings and not literal gods.
The chart follows solar terms
Year and month pillars are separated by seasonal solar-term boundaries. The Saju year begins at Ipchun near February 4, so it can differ from both January 1 and Lunar New Year.
A living Korean practice
Saju remains part of Korean cultural life, including New Year consultations and gunghap compatibility readings. Methods vary by school and practitioner.
Deep dives
Daeun, Seun, and Wolun: Three Levels of Saju Timing
Understand how ten-year, annual, and monthly pillars form a connected timing layer around a natal chart.
Read →How Korean Gunghap Compares Two Complete Charts
Go beyond zodiac animals with spouse palaces, Day Masters, Ten Gods, Five Elements, and cross-pillar relations.
Read →Hidden Stems and Ten Gods: Reading What Sits Inside Each Branch
Learn how hidden stems add depth to the Four Pillars and why their Ten Gods are always calculated from the Day Master.
Read →How to Read Your Four Pillars: A Beginner's Walkthrough
Got your saju chart and don't know where to look first? Read it in this order: day master, four pillars, element balance, ten gods, luck cycles.
Read →Saju vs. MBTI: Why Koreans Check Both
One is a 1,000-year-old calendar system, the other a 20th-century personality questionnaire — yet in Korea they're used for the same social job. A comparison.
Read →Saju vs. Western Astrology: Same Question, Different Machinery
Both start from your birth moment — but Korea's Four Pillars and the Western natal chart read it with completely different tools. Here's a clear side-by-side.
Read →