Your day master, one of ten
Your day master (日主, also 日元 or “self element”) is the heavenly stem of the day you were born. The other seven characters of your chart are your surroundings; the day master is you. A BaZi reading finds it first, then asks how strong it is in the whole chart and what it needs.
Why the day and not the year?
Readings in the Tang dynasty centred on the year pillar. By tradition it was Xu Ziping, in the Song dynasty, who moved the centre to the day stem, and his method (子平) is the one used today. There are only sixty year pillars, shared by everyone born that year; the day pillar changes daily, and with the month and hour it tells people apart.
The ten day masters
| Day master | Image | Often said to be |
|---|---|---|
| 甲 yang wood | A tall tree | Upright and dependable; grows straight up, doesn’t like to bend |
| 乙 yin wood | Flowers, grass, vines | Supple and adaptable; good at finding support |
| 丙 yang fire | The sun | Warm, generous and open; likes to be seen |
| 丁 yin fire | A candle or lamp | Attentive and warm; focused, lights up the people near it |
| 戊 yang earth | A mountain, a city wall | Steady, reliable, accepting; sometimes stubborn |
| 己 yin earth | Farmland | Practical and careful; looks after people, good at building things up |
| 庚 yang metal | A sword, raw ore | Decisive and loyal; holds to principle |
| 辛 yin metal | Jewellery | Refined and sensitive; cares about quality and face |
| 壬 yang water | A river, the sea | Clever, broad-minded and restless; adapts fast |
| 癸 yin water | Rain and dew | Quiet and perceptive; imaginative, a close observer |
These are traditional images, not verdicts. A 甲 born in spring and a 甲 born in autumn differ in strength, and so in how they come across.
Strong or weak?
A strong day master has plenty of support: the birth season shares or feeds its element, and the chart holds many companions (比劫) and resources (印). A weak one has the opposite. A strong day master usually does well with wealth, officer and output stars to spend and shape its energy; a weak one does well with resources and companions to back it up.
riffos estimates strength by weighing hidden stems and doubling the season’s branch. The model is still being checked against known charts.
How to find yours
Enter your birth date and gender on the riffos home page: the dark pillar in your chart is the day pillar, and its top character is your day master. You don’t need a birth time for it, unless you were born close to midnight. Find your day master
Your day master in 2027
The 丁未 year plays a different ten god for each day master and lights different directions. The ten day masters in 2027