Reference
The sixty day pillars
A BaZi chart is built from four pillars, and the third one is the day. Its upper character is the day master — the stem everything else in a reading is arranged around.
There are sixty possible combinations, not a hundred and twenty: the ten stems and twelve branches only pair up when their polarity matches. Each page below gives the two characters, their elements, the hidden stems inside the branch, the nayin image, and the dates in the coming year that fall on that pillar. Structural data is checkable against any almanac; anything marked as interpretation is not.
Wood day masters
Stems 甲 and 乙. Growth, direction, the impulse to extend.
Fire day masters
Stems 丙 and 丁. Visibility, warmth, outward expression.
Earth day masters
Stems 戊 and 己. Weight, containment, the ground others stand on.
Metal day masters
Stems 庚 and 辛. Boundaries, refinement, the decision to cut.
Water day masters
Stems 壬 and 癸. Movement, depth, what flows or gathers.
Not sure which one is yours?
The day pillar depends on the date and on true solar time, so the place of birth matters as much as the clock. The free test gives you all four pillars in about two minutes, calculated in your browser. If the day pillar is the only thing you need from a given date, any page here lists the upcoming dates for its own pillar — useful for checking a date rather than a birth.
What a day master is · 30 worked reference charts · Where a chart is decided by minutes