How to read your own saju chart, one layer at a time
A saju chart is eight characters in a grid, and most of what a reader tells you comes from four simple checks. Here's how to find your day master, count your elements, and read the five relationships yourself.
The first time you look up your saju chart, you get a grid of eight characters and no idea what to do with it. It looks like it needs years of study, and the deep end does. But most of what a reader tells you in the first ten minutes comes from four checks you can do yourself.
You'll need your chart first. Any saju calculator works — search for "manseryeok," the Korean name for the calendar tables. Enter your birth date, and your birth time if you know it.
Step 1: Learn the grid
The chart has four columns, called pillars. Each pillar has two characters: a heavenly stem on top, an earthly branch underneath.
| Pillar | Comes from | Covers, roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Hour | Birth time | Later life, private plans |
| Day | Birth day | You, and your partner |
| Month | Birth month | Work, environment, early years |
| Year | Birth year | Family, background |
One thing trips everyone up: Korean apps usually print the chart right to left. The year sits on the far right and the hour on the far left. If your "year" pillar doesn't match your birth year, you're probably reading the wrong end. (Or you were born in January, before the saju year turns over around February 4 — more on that here.)
Step 2: Find your day master
Look at the top character of the day pillar. That's your day master — the element the whole chart is read around.
It will be one of ten: wood, fire, earth, metal or water, each in a yang (bigger, outward) or yin (finer, inward) version. Everything else in the chart gets interpreted by how it relates to this one character. All ten are described here, from the Tall Tree to the Rain.
Step 3: Count your elements
Every one of the eight characters belongs to an element. Go through them and tally how many of each you have.
What you're looking for isn't a perfect five-way split — almost nobody has one. You're looking for the extremes:
- An element you have a lot of (three or more) tends to show up loudly in how you act.
- An element you have none of is often described as the thing you keep reaching for in other people, or the area that takes you the most effort.
This single count is the backbone of most readings, and it's also the basis of gunghap, or compatibility: a partner whose chart fills your empty element is traditionally considered a good sign.
A small caveat: branches also carry "hidden" elements inside them, so a reader's count can come out slightly different from yours. Your simple tally still gets you most of the picture.
Step 4: Read the five relationships
This is the step that sounds advanced and isn't. Every other character in your chart relates to your day master in one of five ways, depending on its element:
| If the element… | It's called | What it usually describes |
|---|---|---|
| Is the same as yours | Companion | Friends, siblings, rivals, your own drive |
| Is one you feed | Output | Expression, talent, what you make |
| Is one you control | Wealth | Money, results, what you go after |
| Controls you | Officer | Rules, job, pressure, reputation |
| Feeds you | Resource | Support, learning, the people who back you |
"Feed" and "control" follow the two element loops. Wood feeds fire, fire feeds earth, earth feeds metal, metal feeds water, water feeds wood. Wood controls earth, earth controls water, water controls fire, fire controls metal, metal controls wood.
So if you're a Fire day master and your chart is full of water, you have a lot of Officer — readers would talk about pressure, structure, and responsibility. Full of wood instead? A lot of Resource: support, learning, maybe someone who looked after you a bit too much.
Traditional saju splits each of these five into two (same or opposite yin-yang), which is where the famous "ten gods" come from. The five-way version above is the part that does most of the work.
What you can't get from the grid alone
Two things need more than a static chart:
- Luck cycles. Saju also runs ten-year periods that shift the emphasis of your chart over time. Their start age differs from person to person, so a calculator has to work them out.
- Judgment. Whether a heavy element is a strength or a strain depends on the rest of the chart. That's the part a good reader adds, and the part no checklist replaces.
And as always: saju is a tradition, not a science. Treat it as a vocabulary for talking about yourself, not a forecast.
The fast way to start
If you want to skip the calculator for now, the day master quiz finds which of the ten day masters you act like in twelve questions. Then look up your real chart and compare — when the two don't match, steps 3 and 4 usually explain why.