Attributed to Chen Xiyi, 10th century

Zi Wei Dou Shu

A map of twelve palaces rather than a balance of elements, the imperial court of the sky, arranged around your birth.

Where it comes from

Zi Wei Dou Shu takes its name from the Zi Wei star, the pole star of the northern sky, which Chinese astronomy treated as the emperor's seat: fixed while everything else circled it. The tradition attributes the system to Chen Tuan, the Daoist hermit known as Chen Xiyi, who lived in the tenth century on Mount Hua and is said to have slept for months at a time. The attribution is legendary; the text history begins properly with Ming dynasty manuscripts.

Where BaZi weighs elements, Zi Wei arranges a bureaucracy. A hundred-odd stars, really a court of officials with duties and temperaments, are placed into twelve palaces covering self, wealth, siblings, home, children, health, travel, colleagues, career, fortune and parents. Reading it feels less like chemistry and more like politics: who holds which office, who is competent there, who is exiled to a distant palace.

It travelled differently from BaZi. Suppressed and revived in turn, it became a living professional practice in Taiwan and Hong Kong through the twentieth century, where the modern schools took shape, San He reading structure and patterns, Fei Xing following the transformation lines from palace to palace.

Twelve palaces, one court. The question is never only which star you have, but which office it was given.

How a reading is built

01Lunar conversion
Unlike BaZi, Zi Wei is built from the lunar calendar: your solar birth date is converted to a lunar year, month and day, with leap months handled explicitly, since a leap month can move the whole layout.
02The double hour
Time is counted in twelve two-hour branches, from Zi at midnight. The hour sets the Life Palace and the Body Palace, so it determines almost the entire structure, an hour's error can move every palace by one seat.
03Placing the palaces
The Life Palace is located from the lunar month and hour, and the remaining eleven palaces follow around the wheel in fixed order. Where a palace lands decides which stars it inherits.
04The bureau of five elements
The chart is assigned one of five bureaus, Water 2, Wood 3, Metal 4, Earth 5, Fire 6, which governs where Zi Wei itself sits and therefore how every other major star falls into place.
05Brightness and the four transformations
Each star has a brightness in the place it lands, from brilliant to dimmed, so the same star can be an able official or an overwhelmed one. Four transformations, lu (fortune), quan (power), ke (recognition), ji (obstruction), attach to specific stars and are the tradition's sharpest instrument.
06Decade and annual cycles
Ten-year decade limits move around the palaces in a direction set by the year's polarity and the person's sex, with annual palaces layered on top. Timing in Zi Wei is a question of which palace is currently being visited.

Choosing a school

What changes when you choose a school

These choices are named so you can decide deliberately. Some change the calculation and others change the interpretive frame; the reading records the choice you make.

How Ling applies this choice: the app calculates one reproducible Zi Wei astrolabe from the birth details you provide. Selecting a school records the interpretive lens requested for the written reflection; it does not create a different birth chart or promise a different outcome.

San He School

San He (三合, ‘Three Harmonies’) begins with the chart’s structure. A palace is not read by itself: the reader considers that palace, its opposing palace, and the two palaces linked to it by the trine relationship. Together these are called san fang si zheng (三方四正, ‘three directions and four positions’).

This approach pays close attention to the main and supporting stars, their combinations, the palaces they occupy, and brightness labels such as miao/wang/li/xian (廟／旺／利／陷). The point is to read a pattern across connected parts of the chart, not to make a verdict from one star.

Choose San He if you want a broad structural reading of the natal chart: how several life areas are said to relate to one another. It is Ling’s default because it gives a clear first orientation.

Flying Star School

Flying Star (飛星) gives the Four Transformations (四化) the leading role. A Heavenly Stem assigns Hua Lu (化祿), Hua Quan (化權), Hua Ke (化科), and Hua Ji (化忌) to particular stars. In this tradition, the reader follows how those transformed stars connect palaces, rather than starting with a fixed star combination alone.

In plain language: it asks where the chart’s themes of resources or ease (Lu), responsibility or force (Quan), recognition or order (Ke), and friction or preoccupation (Ji) are concentrated. These are interpretive categories, not proof that an event will happen. Different lineages can use different transformation tables and rules, so the school name matters.

Choose Flying Star if the relationship between palaces and the chart’s transformation layer is what you want foregrounded. ‘Flying’ does not mean a star moves through the sky; it describes an interpretive relationship between palaces.

Qin Tian Four Transformations

Qin Tian Four Transformations (欽天四化) is a transformation-centred lineage. Like other Four-Transformation approaches, it treats Lu, Quan, Ke, and Ji as an active layer on the natal chart. Its practitioners commonly pay particular attention to self-transformation and to transformations sent between palaces through their Heavenly Stems.

That vocabulary can sound technical, but the practical question is simple: which parts of the chart are described as initiating a pattern themselves, and which are described as responding to another area? A careful reading should still explain the relevant palace, star, and transformation before interpreting it.

Choose Qin Tian if you specifically want that lineage’s Four-Transformation lens. It is not a claim of greater certainty than San He or Flying Star; it is a different way to organize attention within the same astrolabe.

What it will not tell you

An unknown birth time cannot be worked around here: the Life Palace itself depends on it, and the reading will say what it cannot place.
Palaces describe emphasis and timing. They do not fix marriages, illnesses or incomes.

To read further

Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu (Ming dynasty)The standard received compilation.
Modern Taiwanese school manuals (20th century)Where San He and Fei Xing practice was formalised.

Zi Wei Dou Shu

Birth details set the ground for a real chart reading. This session clarifies what precision you have and what you want examined.

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