The Four Pillars of Destiny (BaZi)

Chinese tradition · traditional, codified in the 8th century

Chinese system that combines the year, month, day and hour of birth with the five elements and the earthly branches.

Each pillar is a pair of heavenly stem + earthly branch. The crossing of wood, fire, earth, metal and water by date and hour rules out reading an animal in isolation.

Finer than the animal alone: BaZi reads eight characters (four pillars) instead of a single branch. It is the technical basis of many Chinese readings today.