八字 BaZi - The Eight Characters

What is BāZì (八字)?

八字 BāZì: The eight characters. “八 Ba” means eight, and “子 Zi” means character. The eight Chinese characters are derived from a lunisolar calendar, which is known as “夏曆 XiàLì Summer/Solar Calendar, the 萬年曆 WànNiánLì Ten Thousand Year Calendar, or "Farming Calendar,” which indicates the season’s transition time and planetary cycles at a given time. The 夏曆 XiàLì calendar is based on a sexagenary cycle (六十花甲 LiùShí HuāJiǎ) also called (干支 GānZhī) the Stem-Branch cycle. Aligning the (Shí TiānGān 十天干) 10 Heavenly Stems cycle with the (Shí'èrDìzhī 十二地支) 12 Earthly Branches cycle in a specific order results in 60 cycle combinations. Each of the 60 cycles is recorded in a stack of two characters; the upper character is taken from the 天干 10 Heavenly Stems cycle, and the lower character is taken from the 地支 12 Earthly Branches cycle. These stacked characters for the four-time units; year, month, day, and hour—are known as the four pillars.   Since each time unit or pillar consists of two characters, the total of the four pillars consists of eight characters; therefore, this system for timekeeping is called 八字 BāZì the eight characters.

Often, the term BaZi is interchangeably used as a reference to the fate calculation methods developed around the Tang dynasty known as 八字 命運 BāZì Mìng Yùn (Eight characters of life) or 四柱 Sì Zhù (The Four Pillars of Destiny).

BāZì, in fact, is primarily a time-keeping system (calendar) to predict meteorological events based on astronomical cycles. The realization of the meteorological effect on the body and mind led to the development of different methods to control time (the use of knowledge of cycles and their effects in a way to achieve expected outcomes).

BaZi, with its applied methods, is a time-based decision-making assistance tool.