Zi Wei Dou Shu
Where is the body palace
The body palace is one of the twelve palaces, not a star. Enter your birth date and time and this page names that palace with the same engine as the full chart.
What the body palace is for
The Life palace leans toward how you react. The body palace leans toward where you spend effort in the world you can see: the room this chart treats as the outward one. It can be the Life palace itself, Money, Career, Outer World, or any of the others, depending on the hour.
It is a coordinate, not a second verdict. A body palace in Money means the body sits in the Money room. You still read the stars there, the opposite, and the trines. "Body palace in Money, therefore wealthy" says more than the coordinate can carry.
Same month, hours counted forward
The month is counted the same way as the Life palace: Yin is month one, then forward to the lunar birth month. The hour is the difference. The Life palace walks backward from that palace. The body palace walks forward. The branch you reach is where the body sits.
The palace name comes from the Life palace. Counterclockwise from the Life palace the rooms are Siblings, Partner, Children, Money, Health, Outer World, Friends, Career, Home, Inner Life, and Parents. In the Zi hour, forward and backward both stay put, so the body palace is the Life palace.
Leap months, the late Zi hour, and true solar time match How the Life palace is found: through the fifteenth a leap month counts as itself, and from the sixteenth it counts as the next month. The late Zi hour does not take that extra step.
The body palace is not the body master
The body master is a star, from the branch of the birth year. It has nothing to do with which room the body palace lands in. The full chart prints the Life master and the body master together in the center. If that star is what you wanted, open the chart and read that line.
The Life master is the star tied to the Life palace branch. Its table is on What is my Life master. Keeping the three words apart is what stops a palace and a star from being read as one field.
If the body palace holds a major star, the result below links to that star. For the whole board, open the free chart with the same birth.
A worked example
Same birth again: 20 May 1990, 08:40, Taipei. The body palace is the forward hour walk, named as a palace by the engine.
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.
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 body palace the same as the body master?
No. The body palace is one of the twelve rooms. The body master is a star taken from the year branch. This page only says which room the body palace is.
Can the body palace be the Life palace?
Yes, and only in the Zi hour. Forward and backward both stay on the birth-month palace, so the body palace and the Life palace are the same room. Every other hour splits them.
Does the palace name decide the outcome?
No. It only places the body. The stars in that room, the opposite, and the trines are still unread. Do not turn the room's name into a fortune.
What if the birth time is uncertain?
Then the room is uncertain too. A double-hour is two hours, and about three hours of doubt can move the body palace. Cast the two likely hours instead of guessing one.