Everything the wheel opens, one animal at the center
The Eastern wheel, your birth year's animal
The Western wheel, the sky on your birthday
The craft your Zodi Animal practices
五行 · featured system
The five phases that move through everything — now mapped to the seven chakras, each with its own yoga practice.
Four Pillars
Cast your charttoolBaZi八字 Bāzì · the Chinese readingSaju Palja사주팔자 · the Korean readingYour Day Master日主 RìzhǔThe Ten Gods十神 ShíshénTwo skies, read together
The Moon overhead, its phases, and the path they light.
The name of this tradition is four Chinese characters: 紫微斗數 , read Zǐwēi Dǒushù. This page takes them one at a time, gives the pinyin and the plain meaning, and lets you hear each one in Mandarin. It does not teach you to read a chart.
Read left to right, the four characters are 紫 (zǐ), 微 (wēi), 斗 (dǒu), and 數 (shù). The first two name a place in the sky; the last two describe what the system does with the stars.
Purple was the colour of the emperor in old China. In the name it points to the pole-star region of the sky, the seat reserved for the ruler of the heavens.
On its own 微 means small or faint. It does not stand alone here: joined to 紫 it forms the fixed name 紫微, the Purple Enclosure of stars around the celestial pole.
The character began as a picture of a ladle, and it names a dry-measure unit. In the sky it names the Dipper star groups, so here it carries the sense of measuring and mapping the stars.
數 means number and the act of counting. Classically it also carries the idea of what is allotted by heaven. Here it names the reckoning that turns star positions into a chart.
Put together, 紫微 (Zǐwēi) is the first half and 斗數 (dǒushù) is the second. 紫微 names 紫微垣 (Zǐwēi yuán), the Purple Enclosure. This is the ring of stars around the celestial pole that old Chinese astronomers pictured as the emperor's court, with the pole star itself as the ruler's seat.
斗數 (dǒushù) is the star-reckoning: the measuring of the Dipper stars and the counting that places them into a chart. So the four characters together read as the reckoning of the stars of the Purple Enclosure. In English the tradition is usually called Purple Star Astrology.
Beyond the name, a handful of characters turn up on almost every chart and in almost every explanation. Knowing these four makes the rest of the vocabulary easier to follow.
A chart is divided into twelve 宮, the palaces. Each is a room that holds one area of life, such as wealth or relationships.
星 means star. The figures placed into the palaces are the stars of the system, and each one carries its own character and meaning.
命 covers fate, life, and what one is given. It names the Life palace, 命宮 (mìng gōng), the room readers look at first.
化 means to change or transform. It names the four transformations, 四化 (sì huà), that shift how a star behaves.
This page is about the characters, not the chart. To actually cast and read your own chart, step by step, go to the working guide at Purple Star Astrology.
The Celestial Court · every door in the hub
紫微斗數 Zǐwēi Dǒushù · known in English as Purple Star Astrology — the Emperor's system, mapped room by room below