Purple Star Astrology

wēidǒushù Purple Star Astrology is one of several English names for the system; the traditional name comes first.

Learn to read a Chinese star chart the way the old court offices did: room by room, star by star, with your own chart as the study map.

One birth moment, twelve rooms, fourteen principal stars. This page teaches you to read the whole court, in order.

Court Novice · Level 1 of 8

Learning track Below: learn to read any chart, step by step, with a fully worked example. Add your birth date above for a reading of your own first — the method is the same.

The structure

The Twelve Palace Court

A chart is twelve rooms read together. Select a room to hear its question and watch the rooms that answer with it light up: two triangle partners and one mirror across the court.

Loading the court…

Twelve rooms, one geometry. The figures who live in them come next.

Meet the principal stars
The figures

Meet the fourteen principal stars

The teaser let you move one star through one room. Here is the grown-up version: any of the fourteen stars, any room, with the reading layered from a beginner's sentence down to a reader's note. A star's meaning is read across three rooms and its mirror, never one.

Drag a star into a room, or tap a star and then a room.

Pick a star to begin.

One placement is never the reading. The court answers together.

Every star bends to its room.

Open the Four Transformations
The forces

The Four Transformations

huà祿 the Flow, huàquán the Power, huà the Shine, and huà the Hook. A birth-year stem re-colors four stars. Set a year or pick a stem and watch which four stars each force flies to. The forces attach to stars, not rooms.

For study orientation. A full chart needs complete birth data.

Forces attach to stars. Structure attaches to rooms.

Read the Triangle
The geometry

Read the Triangle

sānfāngzhèng Sān Fāng Sì Zhèng, taught by toggling rather than by paragraph. This is Mei's Career room. With every companion you add, watch the reading grow more careful and more accurate.

Reading with 1 of 4 rooms.

A verdict needs more than one room.

Write a chart sentence
The reading

Build a chart sentence

Pick a star, a room, and, if you like, a transformation. Write the reading in your own words, then compare with how a beginner and a practitioner would put it, and see what evidence a full reading would still need. Your words are never scored by machine; the comparison is yours to make.

Pick a star and a room first.

Sentences become readings when time enters.

Open the timing model
The clock

Decade Doors and the Year Wave

Decade Doors xiàn and the Year Wave liúnián This model assumes you know the palaces and the triangle. Start there if you have not. The control below always works.

Mei's chart runs a Fire Bureau, so her first Decade Door opens at age 6. Enter an age to open its door; the Year Wave shows where 2026 lands.

Three clocks, never one

You will meet three timing systems on this site. They are different calculations from the same birth moment, and this hub never blends them.

The almanac

Rates the day for everyone: lunar date, solar term, the Twelve Day Officers. Inherited calendar lore, a different system with different math.

See today's almanac
BaZi luck pillars

BaZi also walks life in ten-year turns, counted from the month pillar instead of the Bureau. Two clocks that happen to share a tick.

See BaZi's luck pillars
Your decade doors

The almanac rates the day for everyone. Your decade doors belong to your chart alone. Two clocks, two calculations, no mixing.

You are reading this one
The capstone

The Reader's Path

The summit is not a certificate. It is the ability to teach the foundations in plain English and to read a chart responsibly. Practice the teach-backs, learn the phrasebook, then sit the Imperial exam.

Teach it back

Pick a prompt, write your answer, then reveal the model answer and score yourself honestly. The model teaches; it does not grade you.

Pick a prompt and write at least a few sentences.

The Imperial exam

Twenty questions across the whole path. Score 18 or better, with your teach-backs submitted, and the store seats you as Imperial Astrologer. Retakes are always open, no cooldown.

The Reader's Path

Your path

Eight levels, from naming the parts to reading a whole chart responsibly. Nothing here is locked and no account is needed. Take them in order and the system builds itself.

    Common questions

    Questions about Purple Star Astrology

    What is Purple Star Astrology (紫微斗數 Zi Wei Dou Shu)?
    A Chinese chart system that maps a birth moment as twelve palaces with fourteen principal stars, placed by lunar date and hour. It is read as a life map and a decision aid, not as fatalism.
    Is Purple Star Astrology the same as BaZi?
    No. They are different calculations from the same birth moment. BaZi reads the balance of the five elements; Purple Star maps twelve life domains with named stars. Serious readers use both and never blend them.
    Does the Emperor star (紫微 Zi Wei) undergo the Four Transformations?
    It never receives the Flow (化祿) or the Hook (化忌). It takes the Power (化權) in Ren years and the Shine (化科) in Yi years. Tian Fu and Tian Xiang do not transform at all.
    How is a Purple Star chart cast?
    From the lunar month, day, and hour, plus the birth-year stem. The month and hour set the Life Palace, the Five Element Bureau and the day place the Zi Wei star, and the other thirteen stars fall into fixed positions from there.
    Can a Purple Star chart predict my future?
    It describes tendencies and timing, not fixed events. A responsible reading names what a domain leans toward and when it is under pressure or well supported, and it leaves the choice with you.
    Do I need an account to learn here?
    No. Every lesson is free and reachable without an account. Saving your progress is optional and unlocks nothing.
    Among the systems

    BaZi and Purple Star

    Both systems grow from the same cosmological tradition. They answer different questions, and they answer them differently.

    · Four Pillars BaZi

    The elemental weather of your life: the five phases active in your birth year, month, day, and hour, and the elemental constitution you inhabit.

    wēidǒushù · Purple Star Purple Star Astrology

    The map of your life: twelve rooms, the stars stationed in each at birth, and how the whole court answers when one room is asked.

    BaZi tells you the weather. Purple Star gives you the map.

    They are separate systems and this site never blends them. When you want the weather, read the Four Pillars at the BaZi hub.