Of the eight characters in a Korean saju chart, one is read as “you”: the day master. Everything else in the chart — wealth, relationships, career, timing — is read in relation to it. Here is how the chart is calculated and what each day master is like.
How the chart is calculated
- Year pillar: the year changes at the solar term of spring (around 4 February), not on 1 January. Born in late January? Your year pillar is the previous year’s.
- Month pillar: months follow the 24 solar terms, so a month starts around the 4th to 8th of each Western month.
- Day pillar: a sixty-day cycle that has run without a break for centuries. Its heavenly stem is your day master.
- Hour pillar: each two-hour block of the day has its own branch. Unknown hour? Six of the eight characters still stand.
The day pillar is the one you cannot work out in your head: it comes from counting days in the sixty-day cycle, which is what a saju calculator does for you.
The ten day masters
- 甲 Yang wood — the tall tree: upright, principled, grows toward a goal.
- 乙 Yin wood — the vine: adaptable, social, finds a way around.
- 丙 Yang fire — the sun: warm, visible, generous, sometimes too much.
- 丁 Yin fire — the candle: focused, perceptive, quietly persistent.
- 戊 Yang earth — the mountain: steady, reliable, slow to move.
- 己 Yin earth — the field: nurturing, practical, absorbs a lot.
- 庚 Yang metal — the axe: decisive, direct, tested by pressure.
- 辛 Yin metal — the jewel: refined, sensitive, high standards.
- 壬 Yang water — the ocean: big-picture, restless, carries others.
- 癸 Yin water — the rain: intuitive, gentle, seeps into everything.
Why the day master alone is not the reading
Two people with the same day master can live very different lives: what surrounds the day master — the season it was born in, the elements that feed or drain it, the ten-year cycle it is walking through — is what turns a type into a person. That is the part a full reading is for.
See your own chart
On SAJUBY, Master Haewol calculates your four pillars from your birth date and hour and opens them before you pay: your day master, the balance of the five elements and where your current cycle stands. The full reading, if you want it, is a one-time payment and stays in your library.
Want the full portrait of one day master? Each of the ten has its own page in The 10 Day Masters.
