Korean saju · The day pillar

The 60 day pillars

In Korean saju, a Four Pillars tradition shared across East Asia, the day you were born gets two characters. That pair is your day pillar, and it knows your habits better than you’d like. There are sixty. Here are all of them.

Find your own day pillar — free

Birth date only. No sign-up.

What a day pillar is

A saju chart has four pillars: the year, month, day and hour you were born. Each pillar pairs a heavenly stem, one of ten (five elements, each in a yang and a yin form), with an earthly branch, one of twelve, each with its animal.

The day pillar is the pair for your birth day. Its stem is the day master, the character the whole chart is read around. That’s why people start here, and why I do too.

Ten stems and twelve branches turn together, so sixty pairs go by before the cycle repeats. Same pillar, same tendencies. What you do with them is your business. I just hold the red pen.

All sixty, by element

Twelve pillars per element. Look up yours, or the one belonging to someone you’re trying to figure out.

Wood

growth, reach, starting things

12 pillars

Fire

warmth, visibility, expression

12 pillars

Earth

steadiness, holding, keeping things together

12 pillars

Metal

edges, standards, decisions

12 pillars

Water

depth, rest, listening

12 pillars

Don’t know yours?

Give me your birthday and I’ll work out your day pillar and the rest of your chart. Free, and the calculation runs in your browser.

Find your own day pillar — free

Birth date only. No sign-up.