Four Pillars of Destiny

Common card · No. 217237

The Four Pillars of Destiny (Chinese: 四柱命理; pinyin: sìzhù mìnglǐ), also known as BaZi (Chinese: 八字; pinyin: bāzì; lit. 'eight characters'), is a Chinese astrological and calendrical system that is historically used to analyse an individual's destiny, fate or life path based on the person's date and time of birth. The system derives its name from its core structure: four "pillars", each consisting of a pair of characters that corresponds to the Sanbao theory incorporating one Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch — this theory draws correspondences that align to the year, month, day, and hour of the birth date of a human being. Each pillar contains two Yin and Yang characters when combined together yield eight characters, hence the alternative name BaZi ("eight characters"). The Four Pillars system has been used as one of the principal methods within the broader tradition of Chinese destiny calculation (命理學, mìnglǐxué) it is closely related to other Chinese metaphysical systems including...

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