It is the heavenly stems and earthly branches of the year, month, day and hour of birth. Added together there are eight characters.
10 Heavenly Stems: A, B, C, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Rengui
12 Earthly Branches: Zichou, Yinmao, Chen, Siwuweishen, Youxuhai
People have invented the use of One Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch are used to record the year, month, day and time. The non-repeating combination of the ten Heavenly Stems and the Twelve Earthly Branches produces sixty pairs of Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, called the Sixty Flowers Jiazi:
Jiazi, Yi Chou, Bing Yin, Ding Mao, Wu Chen, Ji Si, Geng Wu, Xin Wei Ren, Shen Gui You
Jia Xu Yi Hai Bing Zi Ding Chou Wu Yin Ji Mao Geng Chen Xin Si Ren Wu Gui Wei
Jia Shen Yi You Bing Xu Ding Hai Wu Zi Ji Chou Geng Yin Xin Mao Ren Chen Gui Si
Jia Wu Yi Wei Bing Shen Ding You Wu Xu Ji Hai Geng Zi Xin Chou Ren Yin Guimao
Jia Chen Yi Si Bing Wu Ding Wei Wu Shen Ji You Geng Xu Xin Hai Renzi Guichou
Jiayin Yi Mao Bing Chen Ding Si Wu Wu Ji Wei Geng Shen Xin You Ren Xu Gui Hai
Sixty flower armors are used to record the year, month, day, and hour of a person's birth. There are four pairs of heavenly stems and earthly branches. *** has eight characters. That is the birth date of a person.
The birth date or eight characters are actually another way of saying the four pillars in the Zhouyi terminology. The four pillars refer to the time of birth, namely year, month, day and hour. Humans use one word each for heavenly stems and earthly branches to express year, month, day and time, such as Jiazi year, Bingshen month, Xinchou day, Renyin time, etc. Each column has two characters, and four columns have eight characters, so fortune telling is also called "testing eight characters". According to the relationship between the heavenly stems, earthly branches, yin and yang and the five elements' attributes, we can speculate on the faults, misfortunes and blessings of the human body. But what we are going to talk about here is not how to "test the horoscope", but how to calculate the horoscope.
The four pillars are arranged in eight characters
The four pillars refer to the year, month, day and time of a person's birth. The arrangement of the four pillars refers to finding out a person's birth date and horoscope. It is mainly carried out in four steps.