Day Master 日主
Rì Zhǔ · The stem of the day pillar — the character that stands for the person.
What it means
The Day Master is the Heavenly Stem of the day pillar, and in modern BaZi practice it represents the person whose chart it is. Every other character in the chart is then read in relation to it: does this element produce the Day Master, drain it, control it, or match it? The ten possible answers are the Ten Gods, and they are the vocabulary most of a reading is written in.
Why it matters
Before the Song dynasty the year pillar held that role, and the shift to the Day Master is the single biggest change in the history of the method. It matters practically because it makes the day of birth, not the year, the centre of the chart — so the animal sign, which lives in the year branch, is a minor character in a serious reading rather than the protagonist.
| Stem | Pinyin | Element | Polarity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 甲 | Jia | Wood 木 | Yang 阳 |
| 乙 | Yi | Wood 木 | Yin 阴 |
| 丙 | Bing | Fire 火 | Yang 阳 |
| 丁 | Ding | Fire 火 | Yin 阴 |
| 戊 | Wu | Earth 土 | Yang 阳 |
| 己 | Ji | Earth 土 | Yin 阴 |
| 庚 | Geng | Metal 金 | Yang 阳 |
| 辛 | Xin | Metal 金 | Yin 阴 |
| 壬 | Ren | Water 水 | Yang 阳 |
| 癸 | Gui | Water 水 | Yin 阴 |
Where this site uses it
The chart tool labels the Day Master explicitly and shows its element and polarity, since that one character decides how the rest of the chart is described.