What Is Saju? Korean Four Pillars & BaZi Explained

Each pillar combines one Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch. Four pairs produce eight characters. In many contemporary readings, the day stem, often called the Day Master or ilgan, is a central reference for relationships among the symbols.

The month pillar follows solar-term boundaries in the common seasonal method; it is not simply the number of the civil month or the lunar month. That distinction matters especially when a birth falls close to a seasonal boundary.

Prepare the birth date, recorded local birth time if known, birthplace, and whether the original date was recorded in a solar or lunar calendar. A lunar record may also need its leap-month status.

Historical time zones, daylight saving, late-night day boundaries, and optional solar-time corrections can change a chart near a boundary. A responsible service explains its convention instead of silently changing the time or inventing an unknown hour.

Saju is the Korean term and cultural context; BaZi is a Chinese term referring to the eight characters. Both commonly work with stems, branches, five phases, and timing cycles. Neither label identifies one uniform school.

Differences can include terminology, favored interpretive techniques, luck-cycle conventions, or how a practitioner handles solar time. Compare stated methods and the resulting pillars instead of assuming that every Korean chart must differ from every Chinese chart.

A reading may organize questions about work, relationships, or timing through the tradition’s symbolic vocabulary. Ask the reader to connect a claim to a particular chart feature and explain alternatives, rather than offering a fixed verdict about your character.

For example, “I need clearer boundaries at work” can lead to an observable experiment. “My chart guarantees a promotion next month” is a much stronger claim that the chart alone does not establish.

First compare the input date and calendar conversion. Then compare time zone, day-boundary rule, and the solar-term boundary used for the year and month. Only after the pillars match should you compare interpretation.

If the birth hour is unknown, keep it unknown. A partial chart can support a more limited discussion, but it should not be presented as an equally precise four-pillar reading. An OpenFate BaZi chart is a way to inspect the shared structure, not a claim to reproduce every Korean school.