Cast a Zi Wei Dou Shu Chart by Hand: The Twelve Palaces and the Fourteen Main Stars

Casting a chart takes no time at all now: enter a birth time and it appears in a second. So why should anyone still learn to cast one by hand?

Because reading a chart and building one are two different things. Work it through once yourself and you will know why the Life Palace (命宮) falls in the cell it falls in, and why Zi Wei (紫微) sits in the palace it sits in — those seemingly mysterious positions are all worked out, step by step, from your own birth time, each link fastened to the next, with nothing arbitrary anywhere. Understand that much and your own chart looks entirely different: no longer a picture somebody handed you, but a line of reasoning you can check for yourself.

This piece takes apart the most essential stretch of it: how the twelve palaces are set, and how the fourteen main stars are seated. A single example runs the whole way through — the lunar year 1990, fifth month, twenty-third day, the 巳 hour, male — so take paper and pen and follow the working as it goes.

Before You Begin: Three Things to Have at Hand

First, a lunar birth date. Zi Wei Dou Shu works from the lunar calendar (not the solar one), and it wants the year, the month, and the day complete. If all you have is a solar date, convert it first against a perpetual calendar; and take particular care with a leap month, which different lineages handle a little differently.

Second, the hour of birth. A day holds twelve double-hours (時辰), two clock hours each: the 子 hour (Zi) runs 23:00–01:00, the 丑 hour (Chou) 01:00–03:00, and so on around the ring. The hour is the hinge of the whole chart — one hour out and the Life Palace shifts a cell, and the whole chart shifts with it. This is exactly why the birth time is the one thing a person asking about their life should most take pains to establish.

Third, a blank twelve-palace plate. Draw a four-by-four grid; leave the four cells in the middle empty for the basic particulars, and the twelve cells around the rim are the seats of the twelve palaces.

Step One: The Plate Beneath, Which Never Moves

Many people assume at first that the chart itself changes with the person. In fact the plate beneath is fixed: twelve cells around the rim, one for each of the twelve earthly branches (地支) — 子 (Zi), 丑 (Chou), 寅 (Yin), 卯 (Mao), 辰 (Chen), 巳 (Si), 午 (Wu), 未 (Wei), 申 (Shen), 酉 (You), 戌 (Xu), 亥 (Hai) — in an order that never varies and is the same for everyone.

The seats run like this: along the bottom row, left to right, 寅, 丑, 子, 亥; up the left column, bottom to top, 寅, 卯, 辰, 巳; along the top row, left to right, 巳, 午, 未, 申; down the right column, top to bottom, 申, 酉, 戌, 亥. Each corner is shared by two of the sides, so the twelve branches ring the plate clockwise, head joined to tail. Draw it once and it stays with you.

What changes is not the branches but which cell is the Life Palace. On the same plate your Life Palace may fall in 丑 and another person’s in 酉; the twelve palace names shift accordingly, and the stars take their seats accordingly. Every variation begins with the setting of the Life Palace.

Step Two: Setting the Life Palace and the Body Palace

The formula for the Life Palace: from the 寅 palace count the first lunar month, and count forward to your birth month; then, from the palace you have landed on, count the 子 hour, and count backward to your birth hour.

Take the example. The birth month is the fifth lunar month: 寅 is the first month, 卯 the second, 辰 the third, 巳 the fourth, 午 the fifth — the birth month falls on 午. Now start at 午 as the 子 hour and count backward: 午 is the 子 hour, 巳 the 丑 hour, 辰 the 寅 hour, 卯 the 卯 hour, 寅 the 辰 hour, 丑 the 巳 hour. The birth hour is the 巳 hour, so the Life Palace is in 丑.

The Body Palace (身宮) is worked almost identically, with one word changed: again begin at the birth-month palace as the 子 hour, but this time count forward to the birth hour. 午 is the 子 hour, 未 the 丑 hour, 申 the 寅 hour, 酉 the 卯 hour, 戌 the 辰 hour, 亥 the 巳 hour — the Body Palace is in 亥. The Life Palace is the ground-tone you are given; the Body Palace is where the later effort of a life is spent. One counted backward, one counted forward: sometimes the two share a cell, sometimes they stand apart.

Hold on to this contrast and you are unlikely to go wrong: the Life Palace counts backward, the Body Palace counts forward.

Step Three: Placing the Twelve Palaces

With the Life Palace set, the remaining eleven follow of themselves. Starting from the Life Palace, place them running backward through the branches — counter-clockwise around the plate — in this order: the Life Palace (命宮), the Siblings Palace (兄弟宮), the Spouse Palace (夫妻宮), the Children Palace (子女宮), the Wealth Palace (財帛宮), the Health Palace (疾厄宮), the Travel Palace (遷移宮), the Servants Palace (僕役宮, also called the Friends Palace, 交友宮), the Career Palace (官祿宮), the Property Palace (田宅宮), the Well-being Palace (福德宮), and the Parents Palace (父母宮).

In the example the Life Palace is in 丑, so, running backward: 丑 is the Life Palace, 子 the Siblings Palace, 亥 the Spouse Palace, 戌 the Children Palace, 酉 the Wealth Palace, 申 the Health Palace, 未 the Travel Palace, 午 the Servants Palace, 巳 the Career Palace, 辰 the Property Palace, 卯 the Well-being Palace, 寅 the Parents Palace. Twelve cells filled, not one over and not one short.

By this point the chart has its skeleton: ask about love and you know to look at 亥; ask about work and you know to look at 巳. What remains is to invite the stars in.

Step Four: Finding the Five-Element Class

Before Zi Wei can be seated there is one more gate to pass: the five-element class (五行局). It decides where the counting for Zi Wei begins, and it is the step most easily got wrong in the whole casting, so take it slowly.

The class is read from the stem and branch of the cell the Life Palace occupies. The branch you already have (丑, in the example); the heavenly stem is still missing — and the stem comes from the rule of the Five Tigers (五虎遁). It runs: in a 甲 or 己 year the 寅 palace begins at 丙寅; in a 乙 or 庚 year, at 戊寅; in a 丙 or 辛 year, at 庚寅; in a 丁 or 壬 year, at 壬寅; in a 戊 or 癸 year, at 甲寅. That is to say: the stem of the birth year fixes the stem of the 寅 palace, and from there the stems run forward around the palaces in order.

The example was born in a 庚午 year, so the year stem is 庚. By the rule, a 庚 year starts the 寅 palace at 戊寅, and the stems run on: 寅 戊, 卯 己, 辰 庚, 巳 辛, 午 壬, 未 癸, 申 甲, 酉 乙, 戌 丙, 亥 丁, 子 戊, 丑 己. The Life Palace is in 丑, so the Life Palace stem and branch are 己丑.

With the pair in hand, look up its 納音 (na yin) element — the element traditionally assigned to each stem-and-branch pair. The 納音 of 己丑 is 霹靂火, Thunderbolt Fire, which belongs to fire, and answers to the Fire 6 class. Each of the five classes carries its own number: Water 2, Wood 3, Metal 4, Earth 5, Fire 6. That number is the divisor for the step that follows.

Step Five: Seating Zi Wei

Zi Wei is the emperor star of the whole chart, and the other thirteen main stars are all set by reference to it; seat this one rightly and everything after it runs smoothly.

The rule: divide the lunar day of birth by the class number. If it divides evenly, the quotient is the number of palaces to count forward from the 寅 palace (寅 counting as the first palace). If it does not divide evenly, add the smallest number that makes it divide evenly — that added amount is called the borrowed number. Count the quotient forward from 寅 exactly as before; then, having arrived, look at whether the borrowed number is odd or even. If the borrowed number is even, move forward from that palace by that many palaces; if it is odd, move backward by that many.

The example is the Fire 6 class, born on the 23rd day. 23 does not divide by 6; add 1 to make 24, and 24 ÷ 6 = 4, with a borrowed number of 1. First count 4 palaces forward from 寅: 寅 is 1, 卯 is 2, 辰 is 3, 巳 is 4 — we arrive at 巳. The borrowed number 1 is odd, so we move backward one palace: 巳 back to 辰. Zi Wei is in 辰.

This odd-and-even advance or retreat is the thing most often remembered the wrong way round. If the answer feels off, check two things before anything else: whether the class number was taken correctly, and that the borrowed number is the amount added to reach an even division — not the remainder.

Step Six: Seating Tian Fu, and the Fourteen Main Stars Take Their Places

With Zi Wei fixed, Tian Fu (天府) follows of itself. 天府 stands symmetric to 紫微 about the axis drawn between the 寅 and 申 palaces: 紫微 in 寅 and 天府 is in 寅 also; 紫微 in 申 and 天府 is in 申 also; in every other case the two sit on opposite sides of that axis, at equal distance from it. In the example 紫微 is in 辰, and mirrored across the axis, 天府 is in 子.

The stars are then placed in two series. The 紫微 series starts at 紫微 and runs backward, seating five stars: one palace back is 天機 (Tian Ji), three back is 太陽 (Tai Yang), four back is 武曲 (Wu Qu), five back is 天同 (Tian Tong), eight back is 廉貞 (Lian Zhen). (Two back, six back, and seven back stay empty; no star is placed in them.)

The 天府 series starts at 天府 and runs forward, seating seven stars: one palace on is 太陰 (Tai Yin), two on is 貪狼 (Tan Lang), three on is 巨門 (Ju Men), four on is 天相 (Tian Xiang), five on is 天梁 (Tian Liang), six on is 七殺 (Qi Sha), ten on is 破軍 (Po Jun). (Seven on, eight on, and nine on stay empty.)

Now finish the example. 紫微 is in 辰, so 天機 is in 卯, 太陽 in 丑, 武曲 in 子, 天同 in 亥, 廉貞 in 申; 天府 is in 子, so 太陰 is in 丑, 貪狼 in 寅, 巨門 in 卯, 天相 in 辰, 天梁 in 巳, 七殺 in 午, 破軍 in 戌. With that, all fourteen main stars are in their seats.

After the Casting: Checking the Work, and the Common Mistakes

The first check: there must be exactly fourteen main stars, no more and no fewer, distributed among the twelve palaces. You will find some cells holding two of them (in the example, 紫微 and 天相 together in 辰, and 太陽 and 太陰 together in 丑), and other cells holding none at all — this is called an empty palace (空宮), and it is an inevitable result, not a mistake in the casting, and certainly not a poor fate. Sort fourteen stars into twelve cells and some cells were always going to come away with none. There is a piece of its own on this elsewhere; here it is enough to know that an empty palace is no cause for alarm.

The second check: within each of the two series, the 紫微 series and the 天府 series, the intervals between the stars are fixed. If you find two stars whose distance does not match the formula, the odd-and-even move in the Zi Wei step has most likely been made in the wrong direction.

The three commonest mistakes, in order, are these: using the solar calendar instead of the lunar one; misremembering the hour, or reading it straight off the clock without converting; and taking the wrong five-element class (above all, miscounting the cells while running the stems out by the Five Tigers rule). Go astray at any one of these three and the entire chart goes astray with it — which is why every step is worth pausing over and checking once.

As for the auxiliary stars, the lesser stars, the Four Transformations (四化), and the decade and annual cycles — those are lessons further along the road. But with the skeleton standing, every layer you add from here you will know to be resting upon something.

The Chart in Your Hand Is One You Worked Out Yourself

From one birth time to the twelve palaces and the fourteen main stars, not a single step along the way relied on guesswork. This is where Zi Wei Dou Shu differs most from many arts of divination: it is not an image drawn at random from the present moment, but a line of reasoning that can be checked again and again, and that ought to come out the same in anyone’s hands. Walk it through once yourself, and you will understand where that steadiness — the plain fact that it can be worked out — actually comes from.