Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches

The ten Heavenly Stems (天干) and twelve Earthly Branches (地支) are the building blocks of a BaZi chart. Each of the four pillars combines one stem with one branch, and the four pillars together hold eight characters — the 八字 that gives BaZi its name.

The ten Heavenly Stems are: 甲 (jiǎ, Yang Wood), 乙 (yǐ, Yin Wood), 丙 (bǐng, Yang Fire), 丁 (dīng, Yin Fire), 戊 (wù, Yang Earth), 己 (jǐ, Yin Earth), 庚 (gēng, Yang Metal), 辛 (xīn, Yin Metal), 壬 (rén, Yang Water) and 癸 (guǐ, Yin Water).

Each stem pairs one of the Five Elements with a Yin or Yang polarity. The polarity pairs are fixed: 甲/乙, 丙/丁, 戊/己, 庚/辛 and 壬/癸.

The twelve Earthly Branches are: 子 (zǐ, Water, Rat), 丑 (chǒu, Earth, Ox), 寅 (yín, Wood, Tiger), 卯 (mǎo, Wood, Rabbit), 辰 (chén, Earth, Dragon), 巳 (sì, Fire, Snake), 午 (wǔ, Fire, Horse), 未 (wèi, Earth, Goat), 申 (shēn, Metal, Monkey), 酉 (yǒu, Metal, Rooster), 戌 (xū, Earth, Dog) and 亥 (hài, Water, Pig).

Each branch carries an element and points to a season. Your Chinese zodiac animal comes from the Year branch only — it is one small part of a chart, not the chart itself.

Stems and branches pair in a repeating sixty-step cycle. Over the full cycle, each branch meets five different Heavenly Stems, so the Year branch 申 (Monkey) appears with five different Year stems. The zodiac animal alone never identifies a year's full character.

The Heavenly Stem of the Day Pillar is your Day Master, the reference point for the whole chart. The visible stems and main branch elements feed the Five Elements distribution, and each branch also hides deeper stems used in advanced readings — a layer this guide only names, not unpacks.

Knowing the names of the stems and branches is the vocabulary of reading, not the reading itself. A chart's meaning comes from the whole arrangement — season, polarity, relationships and context. No single stem or branch predicts an event.