Reading a Zi Wei chart from the grid inward
A Zi Wei chart is twelve boxes before it is a life story. What you read is which star landed where, which of them transformed, and which decade currently owns a palace. This page starts with one fixed chart you can click, then shows how each cell was built.
Start with what you are asking
The chart is fixed once the birth data is fixed. Which palace you read depends on the question — so start from the question, not from a star's reputation.
Who am I
What does a chart say about a person's character?
The life palace and the stars in it describe a style of functioning: how someone starts things, what they lean on, what they avoid. It is a description of structure, not a score.
In the example chart the life palace is Chen, holding Tian Ji and Tian Liang with You Bi. Traditionally read as a planning, reflective pairing — described in terms of how decisions are made, not how good they are.
The life palace can share a box with the body palace, or hold no major star at all. Both are normal and change which layer you read next.
Build a chart and follow alongWork
Where does career sit in the grid?
The career palace describes the style of work and the relationship to position. It is read together with the palace opposite it — the travel palace — because career and outward environment are a pair.
In the example the career palace is empty of major stars and holds Wen Qu; its opposite, the travel palace, holds Zuo Fu transforming to Ke. The pairing, not one box, is the unit.
An empty palace is not a missing answer: it means the subject is described by the opposite palace and by the stars that visit.
Build a chart and follow alongRelationships
How is a partner read from the chart?
The spouse palace describes the kind of partnership a person gravitates toward; the friends palace describes peers. Combining or clashing between the two is the usual starting point.
The example spouse palace holds Tai Yang and Ju Men with Ling Xing and Tian Ma: a pairing traditionally described as outward-facing and verbal, with movement in the same box.
A palace describes a pattern of relationship, not a specific person and not a verdict about one.
Build a chart and follow alongTiming
What do decade limits and the annual layer add?
The natal chart is fixed; the decade limits walk the twelve palaces in ten-year steps; the annual layer relabels the same twelve boxes for one year. All three sit on one grid.
In the example the first limit runs ages 6–15 in the life palace, and the 2026 annual life palace falls in Wu. That is a second labelling, not a second chart.
This page computes the layers and keeps them apart. It does not say what will happen in any of them.
Build a chart and follow alongThese cards promise no outcome. They only say which palace a question lands in, and how far that palace can go.
Build a chart for a fixed birth moment
The calculator runs on this site's own endpoint: lunar conversion, life and body palaces, frame, stars, transformations and limits. Every convention it used is printed under the result.
The chart follows traditional placement rules; that does not make those rules verified descriptions of a life. This page makes no prediction and is not medical, legal or financial advice.
Nothing is saved. If you only want the fields explained first, the next section walks through a fixed example chart with exactly the same structure.
What each palace is doing
The chart above is a fixed example's real output, not your chart. Click any palace to highlight the explanation below it.
Example chart: born 8 August 1992, 08:00 (UTC+8), male — lunar 7th month, 10th day, Chen hour. It explains the grid without exposing anyone's birth data.
Click a palace, or use the cards below, to see what that box carries in this chart.
Life palace · Chen
The box the rest of the chart is oriented around.
Here it holds Tian Ji and Tian Liang with You Bi, and its stem is Jia. The life palace is a position, not a personality score: what it fixes is where the other eleven boxes sit and which decade owns this palace first (ages 6–15 in this chart).
Keep reading →Parents palace · Si
Elders, teachers, superiors, and the paper trail behind them.
Zi Wei and Qi Sha sit here, and Zi Wei is the star transforming to Quan this year. The parents palace is read for support and authority from the older generation — traditionally as a pattern, never as a statement about actual parents.
Keep reading →Fortune palace · Wu
Inner ease, interests, what a person does with free time.
No major star here; Wen Chang and Huo Xing visit. An empty palace is described through its opposite — the wealth palace — and through the stars that land in it, which is why this page never leaves a box blank.
Keep reading →Property palace · Wei
Home, the physical environment, and what is kept there.
Di Kong alone, no major star. The property palace is about the container a life happens in; a malefic auxiliary here is a note about instability in that container, not a prediction about real estate.
Keep reading →Career palace · Shen
The style of work and the relationship to position.
No major star; Wen Qu sits here. Read it with the travel palace opposite: career and outward environment form a pair, and the pair carries more than either box alone.
Keep reading →Friends palace · You
Peers, colleagues, subordinates — the people around a life.
Lian Zhen and Po Jun land here. The old name of this palace is the servants palace; the modern reading is the network. Either way it describes the kind of company, not the quality of any friendship.
Keep reading →Travel palace · Xu
The outside world and how a person is seen in it.
Zuo Fu is here and transforms to Ke; Tuo Luo shares the box. The travel palace is the mirror of the life palace: what a person shows outward is read against what the life palace holds.
Keep reading →Health palace · Hai
Constitution and tendencies — never a diagnosis.
Tian Fu and Lu Cun sit here. Traditional health reading names weak points in a constitution; it is not medical evidence, and this page does not turn a star into a symptom.
Keep reading →Wealth palace · Zi
How income arrives and how money is handled.
Tian Tong and Tai Yin with Qing Yang. This is also the body palace in this chart, so the box does double duty: it describes both the way money is earned and a second line of the person.
Keep reading →Children palace · Chou
Children, students, and work that is produced and released.
Wu Qu transforms to Ji here, with Tan Lang. The children palace covers output as well as offspring; a transformation to Ji in it is traditionally read as pressure on that output, not as a fact about a child.
Keep reading →Spouse palace · Yin
The kind of partnership a person gravitates toward.
Tai Yang and Ju Men, with Ling Xing and Tian Ma. Read together with the career palace opposite; the spouse palace describes a pattern of partnership, not a specific partner.
Keep reading →Siblings palace · Mao
Siblings, close peers, and horizontal support.
Tian Xiang with Tian Kui and Di Jie. The siblings palace is about equals rather than elders: what support looks like among people at the same level.
Keep reading →Eight words that hold the system up
If you remember eight, remember these; everything else is a combination.
Twelve palacesTwelve boxes, each naming a subject inside one chart.
A palace is a position, not a verdict. It means something next to the palace opposite it and the stars that landed in it — which is why a single box cannot be read on its own.
Twelve palaces →Life palaceThe anchor: its position fixes the other eleven.
Derived from the lunar month and hour branch. Two charts with the same stars in the same boxes cannot disagree about where the life palace is; moving it moves everything.
Life palace →Body palaceA second line, derived from the hour; may share the life palace.
Traditionally read as where effort concentrates later. This page marks it separately instead of assuming it coincides with the life palace — it often does not.
Body palace →Five-element frameWater 2, wood 3, metal 4, earth 5, fire 6.
From the Na Yin element of the life palace's stem-branch. The number sets the first decade's starting age and the step used to place Zi Wei — the chart's clock.
Five-element frame →Major starsFourteen stars, placed by fixed rules from two anchors.
Zi Wei is computed from the lunar day and frame; Tian Fu mirrors it across the Yin–Shen axis; the other twelve follow from those two. The chart prints both anchors so the mirror can be checked.
Major stars →Auxiliary starsSix auspicious, six malefic, plus Lu Cun and Tian Ma.
Determined by the year stem, year branch, lunar month and hour — not by the frame. Two charts can share every palace and still differ here.
Auxiliary stars →Four transformationsLu, Quan, Ke and Ji, fixed by the year stem.
The natal layer transforms four stars by birth year; the annual layer transforms stars by the year being viewed. Keeping them apart is what makes a statement traceable to a layer.
Four transformations →Decade limitsTen-year periods walking the twelve palaces.
Direction depends on the year's polarity and the gender, which is why the field is required. Ranges are counted in nominal years, not birthdays.
Decade limits →
How one chart is built, in five steps
Not an interpretation diagram: this is the construction order the calculator actually follows. Each step feeds the next, and a wrong frame moves every star.
Life palace
Lunar month and hour branch give the life and body palaces; the life palace stem comes from the year stem by the five-tiger rule.
Life palace →Frame
The Na Yin element of the life palace's stem-branch gives water 2, wood 3, metal 4, earth 5 or fire 6.
Frame →Zi Wei
Lunar day and frame place Zi Wei: the frame is the step, the day decides how many steps in which direction.
Zi Wei →Tian Fu
Tian Fu mirrors Zi Wei across the Yin–Shen axis, so the pair always sits symmetrically.
Tian Fu →Major stars
The other twelve major stars follow from those two anchors, and the auxiliaries are added from the year and month.
Major stars →
The diagram explains construction, not meaning: from birth data to the two anchors to the fourteen major stars. It does not say whether a placement is good — that needs a question, a school and a reading, none of which is computed here.
Twelve palaces, five frames, four transformations: the words on the chart
These are the labels the chart actually prints. Palaces give the subject, the frame gives the clock, the transformations give the year's emphasis.
21 words
Life
The box the other eleven are oriented around. Moving it moves the whole chart, which is why birth-hour disputes matter here more than the chart's size suggests.
Expand →Parents
Support and constraint from the older generation, teachers and superiors. A pattern of relationship, not a report about actual parents.
Expand →Fortune
Inner ease, interests, what a person does when nothing is required. Often empty of major stars — read it with its opposite.
Expand →Property
The container a life happens in: home, physical surroundings, what is accumulated there.
Expand →Career
Style of work and the relationship to position, read as a pair with the travel palace opposite.
Expand →Friends
Colleagues, subordinates, the network around a life. The old name was the servants palace; the subject is the company kept.
Expand →Travel
The outside world and how a person is seen in it; the mirror of the life palace.
Expand →Health
Constitution and tendencies. Traditional reading names weak points; it is not medical evidence and this page does not treat it as such.
Expand →Wealth
How income arrives and how money is handled — a style of handling, not an amount.
Expand →Children
Children, students and work that is produced and released. Output as well as offspring.
Expand →Spouse
The kind of partnership a person gravitates toward. A pattern of relationship, not a specific person.
Expand →Siblings
Siblings and close equals: what support looks like among people at the same level.
Expand →Water 2
The frame comes from the Na Yin element of the life palace's stem-branch. The number is both the age the first decade begins and the step used to place Zi Wei.
Expand →Wood 3
Same rule, different element. Frame is the chart's clock: change it and every star moves, even when the birth data is unchanged.
Expand →Metal 4
Frame determines where Zi Wei lands from the lunar day; it is not a personality category.
Expand →Earth 5
One of the five frames, all derived the same way: Na Yin element of the life palace's stem-branch.
Expand →Fire 6
The example chart uses this frame: the life palace sits on Jia-Chen, whose Na Yin is fire, hence six.
Expand →Lu
One of four stars transforms to Lu each year. It marks where the year's resources are said to gather — natal layer by birth year, annual layer by the year viewed.
Expand →Quan
Marks the star said to carry authority in that layer. Kept separate from Lu because the two answer different questions.
Expand →Ke
Marks reputation and recognition, assigned by the same year stem as the other three.
Expand →Ji
Marks the star said to carry friction in that layer. Not a curse, and not a prediction — a label on a placement.
Expand →A reading order that skips no steps
Fix the birth data, then leave it alone
The lunar date, hour branch and gender decide everything downstream. Changing one field to see what happens produces a different chart, not a sensitivity test.
Check the anchors before reading any star
Life palace position, frame number, Zi Wei and Tian Fu. If these disagree with a book, the difference is here — not in the interpretation.
Then the fourteen major stars
Read each palace's major stars together with the palace opposite. A box with no major star is described by its opposite, not left unanswered.
Add the transformations, layer by layer
Birth-year transformations first, then the annual ones for the year you are asking about. Mixing the layers is how a claim loses its source.
Only then the decades
The decade limit says which palace is emphasised; the annual layer sits inside it. Neither is a prediction of events, and this page does not turn them into one.
FAQ
What is Zi Wei Dou Shu?
A charting system built from a birth moment: the lunar date and hour fix twelve palaces, the life palace's Na Yin fixes a five-element frame, two anchor stars are placed from the day and frame, and the rest follow fixed rules. The chart is computed; reading it is not.
Why does the chart need the lunar date?
Because the lunar month and day place the life palace and Zi Wei. The conversion uses a 1900–2100 lunar table, which is why it runs on the server, and the result prints the lunar date it used so the step can be checked.
Why do two Zi Wei calculators disagree?
Usually one of five things: the lunar year boundary, how a 23:00 birth is counted, the frame source, the decade direction, and which star set is drawn. This page prints all five under the result so a difference can be located.
What is the body palace for?
It marks a second line derived from the hour, traditionally read as where effort concentrates. It can coincide with the life palace; the chart marks both so you can see whether it does instead of assuming.
Can a chart tell me my future?
Not in any verifiable sense. It describes structure and layers at a fixed moment and adds decade and annual labels. Turning a placement into a dated event is interpretation, and this page stops where computation stops.
Zi Wei or BaZi?
Both start from a birth moment. BaZi reduces it to four pillars and reads element balance over long cycles; Zi Wei spreads it over twelve palaces and reads star placements layer by layer. Neither is a substitute for the other, and both need the same birth data.
Chart first, study second
The calculator prints the lunar date, the frame, both anchors and all five conventions. Any field you cannot read links straight to the article that explains it.