A Zi Wei Dou Shu chart divides life into twelve palaces (十二宫) — fixed domains arranged around the twelve Earthly Branches: self, siblings, marriage, children, wealth, health, the outer world, network, career, home, the inner life and parents. Your lunar birth month and hour place more than one hundred stars into this grid, and a reading interprets each domain by the stars seated there — their brightness, their transformations, and the palace's trine partners. No palace is read alone: the unit of reading is always the axis.
Twelve domains, one life
Questions, answered
Twelve fixed life domains — Life, Siblings, Spouse, Children, Wealth, Health, Travel, Friends, Career, Property, Fortune and Parents — arranged around the chart. Your lunar birth date and hour place the Life Palace and 100+ stars into the grid; a reading then interprets each domain by the stars seated in it, their brightness and their transformations.
By your lunar birth month and birth hour. Counting from the Yin (寅) position: the month sets one anchor, the hour counts forward or back to fix the Life Palace, and the other eleven palaces follow in fixed order around the twelve branches. This is why accurate birth time matters — one hour off moves the whole palace grid.
Every palace is read together with three others: its two trine partners (four positions away on either side) and its opposite. The Life Palace is read with Wealth, Career and the opposite Travel Palace — the chart's spine. No palace is ever interpreted alone; the trine is the unit of reading.
A palace with no Major Stars borrows the stars of its opposite palace — about a quarter of palaces in most charts. "Empty" is not "nothing happens here": the domain simply takes its character from across the axis, and readers note it as a domain more shaped by relationship than by fixed script.
They answer different questions. BaZi reads element balance and timing from eight characters; Zi Wei Dou Shu reads life domains palace by palace from a star map. The two cross-check each other — serious readings use both, and Yueji AI offers full reports in each system.
See your own twelve palaces
The full Zi Wei reading calculates your star map, matches it to classical verdicts, and writes each palace in plain language — palace by palace, chapter by chapter.
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