What is Four Pillars of Destiny 四柱八字 [Si Zhu Ba Zi]
In recent years, Chinese metaphysic subjects such as 風水 Feng Shui and Four Pillars of Destiny are capturing worldwide attention. According to this ancient Chinese metaphysics, when you were born on the year, the month, the day, and they hour to this world, your Four Pillars of Destiny already set up your destiny of life. Your parent gave birth to you, but your destiny runs through these four pillars. What are these four pillars? Four pillars (Ba Zi = eight characters) consist of ‘year pillar’ 年柱 [Nian Zhu], ‘month pillar’ 月柱 [Yue Zhu], ‘day pillar’ 日柱 [Ri Zhu], and ‘hour pillar’ 时柱 [Shi Zhu] as the picture shown to you below: It is a unique system of fortune telling base on the person’s birthday (like Zi Wei Dou Shu also).

This is the four pillars of a newborn baby born in 1st May 2008. Below is the luck pillar which will add flower to this baby’s life. Luck pillar indicates the ups and downs fortune of the owner of the chart. There is also a yearly pillar which will influence only one year. The chart will reflect the individual’s predictable destiny besides revealing the person personality, career direction, health, marriage, family, and romance relationship.
What about other baby born on the same date as the baby above? Do they have the same destiny? No. Four Pillars of Destiny just make up around 80% of our destiny because there are still other factors such as good efforts and hardworking, choice of career to pursue, good feng shui residence, suitable geographical location, etc. Free will plays an important role.
The Chinese believe that everything in this world is made up of five basic elements: Metal, Wood, Fire, Earth and Water. These elements are constantly interacting following the cycle of destruction and cycle of birth. By understanding these two cycles, we can make logical deduction about events in the future.

The calendar that the system adopted is Hsia calendar or Farmer’s calendar 农民历 [Nong Min Li] - a calendar of elements, composed of two sets of Chinese characters called Heavenly Stems 天干 [Tian Gan] and Earthly Branches 地支 [Di Zhi]. This system is invented by Yellow Emperor about 2,697 BC. Hence, 2,697 BC is regarded as the starting point of the Four Pillars of Destiny.

The five elements itself are associated with various areas of daily lives as the above chart shown.
The following table below shows 22 essential Chinese characters called Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.

The Heavenly Stems is representing the influence from Heaven and the Earthly Branches is representing the influence from the Earth where we stand. As the characters are always written with Heavenly Stems on top and Earthly Branches on bottom, it makes a pillar shape. That is why we call them as Four Pillars.
The ten Heavenly Stems and the twelve Earthly Branches go in pairs, so there are only 60 pairs. Why not 120? Because there is a rule that Yang Heavenly Stem can only combine with Yang Earthly Branch and Yin Heavenly Stem can only combine with Yin Earthly Branch.
How to setup the Four Pillars of a person? You need a reference book called “The Ten Thousands Year Calendar”. This Ten Thousand Year calendar covers three systems of calendars in one table (Western Calendar 西历 [Xi Li], Lunar Calendar 农历 [Nong Li] and Hsia Calendar 农民历 [Nong Min Li]).
The Ten Deities are in fact the ten relationships that the Day Master share with these Ten Heavenly Stems. The Ten Deities are as follow:

1. Primary Resources 正印 [Zheng Yin]
2. Secondary Resources 偏印 [Pian Yin]
3. Amiable 比肩 [Bi Jian]
4. Competitive 劫財 [Jie Cai]
5. Implicit Talent 食神 [Shi Shen]
6. Explicit Talent 伤官 [Shang Guan]
7. Conventional Wealth 正財 [Zheng Cai]
8. Unconventional Wealth 偏財 [Pian Cai]
9. Proper Authority 正官 [Zheng Guan]
10. Imposing Authority 偏官 [Pian Guan] / 七殺 [Qi Sha]

There are also compound stars or symbolic stars 神煞 [Shen Sha] in Four Pillars of Destiny. The symbolic stars are either auspicious or inauspicious. In Chinese culture, 神 [Shen] are regarded as lucky stars while 煞 [Sha] are regarded as unlucky stars. The symbolic stars are as follow:

• Flower of Romance 桃花 [Tao Hoa]
• Star of Arts 华盖 [Hua Gai]
• Travelling Star 驿馬 [Yi Ma]
• Nobleman Star 天乙貴人 [Tian Yi Gui Ren]
• Academic Star 文昌貴人 [Wen Chang Gui Ren]
• Heaven Star of Virtue 天德貴人 [Tian De Gui Ren]
• Month Star of Virtue 月德貴人 [Yue De Gui Ren]
• Aggressive Star 羊刃 [Yang Ren]