Everything in BaZi starts with the chart - four pillars, eight characters, computed from your birth moment. You need two things: your birth date and your birth time. The rest is arithmetic the tool does for you. Here is how to get a correct chart and read the first thing on it.
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Download free PDFWhat you need
Your birth date gives the year, month, and day pillars. Your birth time gives the hour pillar - BaZi divides the day into twelve two-hour periods (Zi hour is 11pm-1am, Chou 1-3am, and so on). Date alone gives you six of the eight characters; the hour completes the chart.
A calendar warning
BaZi does not use the lunar calendar the way most people expect. The year pillar changes at Li Chun (立春, around February 4), not at Lunar New Year, and the month pillars follow the solar terms (節氣), not the lunar months. Someone born on February 2 is still in the previous BaZi year. The tool handles this; just know it is solar-term based.
Use the free tool
Open the BaZi chart tool, enter your birth date, time, and place, and it returns the four pillars with stems on top and branches below. Free, no account, runs in your browser. Double-check the hour against your birth record - a wrong hour is the most common source of a wrong chart.
Read the first thing
Find the day pillar and look at its top character - the stem. That is your Day Master (日主): the character that represents you, and the anchor every reading starts from. Learn what yours means in Day Master Meaning, or start from zero with What Is Your BaZi?
When the hour is unknown
Many people do not know their birth hour. That is fine: the year, month, and day pillars still give a working chart, and most structural reading starts from the Day Master anyway. Do not guess an hour to "complete" the chart - a wrong hour is worse than a missing one.
For guidance and self-awareness purposes only. This lesson explains Chinese astrology as a cultural and philosophical framework - what it is, where it came from, and how its vocabulary works. It is not a prediction of your future, a medical or financial opinion, or a substitute for professional advice.