Are Saju and Saju Palja different things?

They mean the same thing. Saju means 'four pillars' and Palja means 'eight characters'; with two characters in each of the four pillars, you get eight characters.

Do you need the birth time to read Saju?

Even without it, the three pillars of year, month and day (six characters) give you most of the temperament, Five Elements and 10-year luck reading. Only the parts involving the Hour Pillar, such as children, later life and time-of-day readings, are left out.

Is there a difference between free and paid Saju readings?

If the calculation method is the same, the result is the same. Sajunyang provides everything free, from the natal chart to the full 18-chapter reading and the PDF.

Basics

What is Saju (the Four Pillars of Destiny)?

As of 2026-10-24 · Edited by Sajunyang · about 4000 characters

One-line answer

Saju (四柱, Four Pillars of Destiny) writes the year, month, day and hour of your birth as four pillars in the sexagenary cycle. Each pillar holds one Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch, making eight characters in all, which is why it is also called Saju Palja (四柱八字, 'four pillars, eight characters'). The East Asian tradition of reading innate temperament and the flow of luck in 10-year cycles from the Five Elements balance of these eight characters and the relationships between them (Ten Gods, combinations and clashes, Shinsal stars) is called Myeongri, or BaZi astrology.

What does each of the four pillars of Saju mean?

The Year Pillar (年柱) is the stem-and-branch pair of your birth year. It represents your ancestors and parents' generation, your childhood, and the first impression society has of you. Your zodiac animal is the single branch character of the Year Pillar. The Month Pillar (月柱) is the pair for your birth month. It is the place to read parents and siblings, your formative years and your work environment, and it carries the most weight when judging the strength of the Day Master (strong or weak).

The Day Pillar (日柱) is the pair for your birth day. Its upper character, the Day Master (日干), is 'you', and its lower character, the Day Branch (日支), is the spouse palace and shows your inner self and daily habits. The Hour Pillar (時柱) is the pair for your birth hour. It represents children, later life, and what you produce for the world. If you do not know your birth time, the chart is read with six characters, without the Hour Pillar.

What can the eight characters tell you?

First, temperament. The single Day Master character sets your basic disposition, and the other seven characters amplify or suppress it. Second, Five Elements balance. Among the five energies of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water, the ones in excess and the ones missing show up in your personality, health and the way you spend money. Third, the Ten Gods structure. Taking the Day Master as the reference, the other characters are classified as wealth (Wealth stars), career (Officer stars) or study (Resource stars) to read your patterns in money, work and people.

Fourth, the flow of luck. The 10-year Luck Pillars that change every decade, the yearly luck that arrives each year and the monthly luck that changes each month meet the eight characters of your natal chart, and the periods when they form combinations or clashes are exactly when changes happen in life. Sajunyang's 18-chapter report walks through these four in order.

How is a Saju chart constructed?

To construct a Saju chart you need a Manseryeok, the Korean almanac for Saju. Enter your solar birth date and time, and the almanac finds the stem-and-branch pairs for that moment's year, month, day and hour. Note that the Year Pillar changes not on January 1 but at Ipchun, the Start of Spring (around February 4 in the solar calendar), and the Month Pillar changes not on the first of each month but at the exact moment of each solar term (the 12 terms such as Ipchun, Gyeongchip and Cheongmyeong). So two people born on the same day can have different Month Pillars depending on whether they were born before or after the solar term's moment.

The Hour Pillar is set by the 12 Earthly Branches in two-hour blocks (Ja hour 23:00–01:00, Chuk hour 01:00–03:00, and so on), and it must use the solar time of the birthplace, not the clock. Korea Standard Time is based on 135°E longitude, which runs about 32 minutes ahead of Seoul's actual solar time, and in 1948–1960 and 1987–1988 daylight saving time pushed the clock a further hour ahead. Sajunyang applies all of these corrections automatically.

How much should you trust Saju?

Saju theory is not a science verified by statistics or experiment; it is an interpretive system accumulated over centuries. So a Saju reading is best read not as a prophecy that 'this will happen', but as a reference that says 'you have these tendencies and change tends to come in these periods'. Follow professional judgment for medical, legal and investment decisions.

Within the same system, though, the calculation has to be accurate for the reading to be consistent. If any one of the solar term times, standard time, local mean time or lunar conversion is wrong, an entire pillar changes and a completely different reading comes out. That is why Sajunyang publishes all of its calculation standards.

The four pillars of Saju

The four pillars of Saju
Pillar	Set by	What it represents	Changes at
Year Pillar (年柱)	Birth year	Ancestors and parents, childhood, zodiac animal	Ipchun, Start of Spring (around February 4)
Month Pillar (月柱)	Birth month	Parents and siblings, formative years, work environment	The exact moment of each of the 12 solar terms
Day Pillar (日柱)	Birth day	Yourself (Day Master) · spouse (Day Branch)	Midnight (or 23:00 with the late Rat hour option)
Hour Pillar (時柱)	Birth hour	Children, later life, what you produce	12 branches in two-hour blocks · by solar time

FAQ

Are Saju and Saju Palja different things?: They mean the same thing. Saju means 'four pillars' and Palja means 'eight characters'; with two characters in each of the four pillars, you get eight characters.
Do you need the birth time to read Saju?: Even without it, the three pillars of year, month and day (six characters) give you most of the temperament, Five Elements and 10-year luck reading. Only the parts involving the Hour Pillar, such as children, later life and time-of-day readings, are left out.
Is there a difference between free and paid Saju readings?: If the calculation method is the same, the result is the same. Sajunyang provides everything free, from the natal chart to the full 18-chapter reading and the PDF.

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This article is reference material summarizing traditional Saju theory and does not replace medical, legal or investment judgment. Our calculation standards are published at About Sajunyang.