Zi Wei Dou Shu ("Astronomy of the Emperors") is a lunar-based chart system. From your lunar birth date and hour it places 14 major stars and dozens of auxiliary stars into 12 palaces.

Building the chart

  1. The Life Palace and Body Palace are located from the birth month and hour.
  2. The palace stems are derived (Five Tigers Escape method), and the Life Palace stem-branch determines the Five-Elements Bureau (Water 2, Wood 3, Metal 4, Earth 5 or Fire 6).
  3. The Bureau plus the birth day locates the Zi Wei star; every other major star falls at a fixed offset from Zi Wei or Tian Fu.
  4. The year-stem Si Hua (Transformation stars: Lu, Quan, Ke, Ji) mark where the chart's energy flows.

Da Xian (major periods)

Life is then divided into 10-year Da Xian cycles that move through the palaces, starting at your Bureau age — forward for Yang men and Yin women, backward otherwise.

Our engine follows the mainstream Zheng Wu Xin method. Please note: like all metaphysical systems, Zi Wei Dou Shu charts are a traditional interpretive framework, not a verified predictive science.

12 palacesda xianlife palacemajor starszi wei dou shu