Four Pillars四柱八字

Turns the year, month, day and hour of birth into eight characters and reads them from the day stem.

辛亥

What it is

The school sets out four pillars by the solar terms, then reads the balance of elements and the relations of stems and branches. The eight characters took shape in the Song. In the Tang, Li Xuzhong still used only three pillars.

How it developed

  1. TangLi XuzhongReads fate from year, month and day; later taken as the founder.
  2. SongXu ZipingThe eight-character method takes his name.
  3. YuanLi QinfuAnnotates the Zi Ping texts in 1307.
  4. MingWan MinyingBecomes the standard compendium.
  5. QingRen TieqiaoAnnotates Di Tian Sui with worked charts.

Sources Siku Quanshu Zongmu Tiyao.