Zi Wei Dou Shu
How the Life palace is found
Enter your birth date and time. This page uses the same count as the full chart and tells you which earthly branch your Life palace lands on.
What the Life palace is
The Life palace is the first of the twelve palaces. It is the temperament you meet a situation with, not a lucky year and not the Life master star.
The Life master is a second lookup, from the branch of the Life palace: Zi is Tan Lang, Chou and Hai are Ju Men, Yin and Xu are Lu Cun, Mao and You are Wen Qu, Chen and Shen are Lian Zhen, Si and Wei are Wu Qu, Wu is Po Jun. That table has its own page, What is my Life master. The major star sitting in the Life palace is a third fact. Do not fold the three into one sentence.
Count the month forward, then the hour backward
Yin is lunar month one. Walk forward through the branches until you reach the lunar birth month. Treat that palace as the Zi hour, then walk backward to the hour you were born. The branch you stop on is the Life palace.
The month walk is Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, Hai, Zi, Chou. The hours are Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, Hai, two hours each. Backward means the birth-month palace is Zi, and the next step against the month walk is Chou.
The body palace starts from the same month palace and walks the hours forward. The two land on the same branch only in the Zi hour. Where the body palace is uses this same birth.
Leap months, the late Zi hour, and true solar time
In a leap month, the first fifteen days stay in that month. From the sixteenth, the count uses the next month. The late Zi hour, 11 pm to midnight, does not take that extra step. The full chart uses this same rule, so the branch here matches the Life palace you see after you open it.
The city corrects the clock toward true solar time. Near the edge of a two-hour block, a few minutes can move the palace, and the Life master moves with it. For a birthplace in Taiwan, daylight saving in 1946–1961, 1974–1975, and 1979 is corrected automatically. You do not subtract an hour.
What to read after the branch
The branch only places the palace. The temperament is the major star inside it, or the star borrowed from the opposite palace when the Life palace is empty. The 14 main stars are the long notes.
For the whole board, the transformations, and one overview in plain English, open the free chart with the same birth. No account is required. The example under the form walks the count once; then use your own time.
A worked example
Worked count for 20 May 1990, 08:40, Taipei. The month list and the hour walks below are the rule. The palace names are what the chart engine places for this birth.
Clock 08:40, true solar time about 08:49. Lunar month 4, Chen hour.
Month walk from Yin: Yin, Mao, Chen, Si. The birth month lands on Si.
Backward to the Life palace
- Zi hour → Si
- Chou hour → Chen
- Yin hour → Mao
- Mao hour → Yin
- Chen hour → Chou
The Life palace is Chou. The Life master is Ju Men.
Forward to the body palace
- Zi hour → Si
- Chou hour → Wu
- Yin hour → Wei
- Mao hour → Shen
- Chen hour → You
The body palace is the Money palace, branch You.
Questions
Is the Life palace the same as the Life master?
No. The Life palace is a place, counted from the lunar month and the hour. The Life master is the star tied to that palace's branch. The major star sitting in the Life palace is a third fact.
What if I do not know my birth time?
Each double-hour is two hours. A gap of about three hours often crosses into the next one and moves the Life palace. Do not invent a palace. Find the closest documented time, and if you are on an edge, cast both hours.
How does a leap month count?
The same way as the full chart: through the fifteenth, the leap month counts as itself. From the sixteenth, it counts as the next month. The late Zi hour does not take that extra step.
Can I enter a lunar date?
Yes. Choose solar or lunar on the form. The count uses the lunar month and the hour after the true-solar correction, so you do not convert it by hand.