Saju FAQ — Korean Four Pillars Astrology, Answered

Saju (사주, 사주팔자) is Korean Four Pillars astrology that reads your birth moment as a map of energy and personality. It converts your birth year, month, day, and hour into four "pillars," each made of a Heavenly Stem and an Earthly Branch, and interprets the balance of the Five Elements within them.

Saju is the Korean name and tradition of the East Asian Four Pillars system, which originated in China. The underlying method is shared across the region; Korea developed its own scholarly lineage, vocabulary, and interpretive style around it.

Yes — Saju, BaZi, and 四柱推命 are three names for the same Four Pillars method. Saju (사주) is the Korean name, BaZi (八字, "eight characters") is the Chinese name, and 四柱推命 (Shichu-suimei) is the Japanese name; all read the same four pillars of stems and branches.

Your Day Master (일간, 日主) is the Heavenly Stem of your birth day and represents your core self in Saju. It is one of the ten stems tied to a Five-Element nature (such as Yang Wood or Yin Water), and the rest of your chart is read in relation to it.

The Five Elements (오행, 五行) are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water — the five energies that make up every Saju chart. They interact through productive cycles (Wood feeds Fire) and controlling cycles (Water extinguishes Fire), and their balance in your chart shapes your tendencies.

The Four Pillars are the year, month, day, and hour of your birth, each expressed as one Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch. The year pillar relates to ancestry and early life, the month to career and environment, the day to self and partnership, and the hour to later life and aspirations.

Saju is built from your full birth date and time using stems, branches, and the Five Elements, while Western horoscopes are based on twelve sun signs from the date alone. Saju produces a personalized chart unique to your birth moment rather than one shared sign for everyone born in the same month.

Saju compatibility, called gunghap (궁합), compares two people’s charts to see how their elements and pillars interact. It looks at where energies support, balance, or clash between partners, friends, or family — and is traditionally consulted before marriage in Korea.

Your birth time is needed for the hour pillar, but you can still get a meaningful reading from just the year, month, and day. Without a known time, Mirae builds the other three pillars and notes that the hour pillar is unavailable.

Saju is a centuries-old interpretive tradition, not a scientific or predictive tool, so it is best treated as insight and self-reflection rather than fact. Mirae presents Saju as cultural entertainment and never frames it as medical, financial, or deterministic advice.

Yes — Mirae is free to use, with your core Saju chart, daily energy, and basic readings included at no cost. Optional Plus and Premium tiers add deeper AI readings and extra features, but they are never required.

Mirae turns your birth date, time, and place into a full Saju chart and explains it in plain language. It gives you daily element energy, your Day Master and luck pillars, compatibility with friends and loved ones, and AI-written readings — in 15 languages on iOS and Android.

Tojeong (토정비결) is a traditional Korean fortune-telling book used for a yearly outlook, especially around the Lunar New Year. It maps your birth data to hexagram-style verses that offer themed guidance for the months ahead, and Mirae includes a Tojeong reading.

Japanese Four Pillars astrology, called 四柱推命 (Shichu-suimei), is the same core system as Korean Saju and Chinese BaZi. The three traditions share the four pillars, ten stems, twelve branches, and Five Elements, with regional differences mainly in interpretation and emphasis.

Mirae is launching soon on iOS and Android and is currently open for waitlist sign-ups. Join the waitlist on mirae-app.com to be notified the day it goes live and to be recognized as a founding member.