General concepts

The twelve palaces of Zi Wei Dou Shu

Also known as: twelve palaces12 palaceszi wei palaceszi wei dou shu palacesziwei palacespalaces in zi wei dou shulife palaceming gongming palacebody palaceshen gongspouse palacecareer palacewealth palacetravel palacefortune palacesiblings palacechildren palacehealth palaceparents palaceproperty palacefriends palaceservants palace十二宮十二宫命宮命宫身宮身宫兄弟夫妻子女財帛疾厄遷移交友奴僕官祿田宅福德父母zi wei dou shu house meanings

The twelve palaces (十二宮) are the twelve houses of a Zi Wei Dou Shu chart: Life, Siblings, Spouse, Children, Wealth, Health, Travel, Friends, Career, Property, Fortune and Parents. Each is a field of life that the tradition associates with it, and the Body palace (身宮) is marked on one of them.

A Zi Wei Dou Shu chart is a square divided into twelve cells, and each cell is a palace (宮). The classic layout is a four-by-four square in which the twelve Earthly Branches stand around the edge in fixed positions and the centre holds the person's data. The palaces are the counterpart of the houses in a Western chart, but they are not the same thing: a palace is a field of life that the tradition associates with a place on the wheel of branches, and the stars that fall into it are read as the tone of that field. This entry describes how the tradition reads a chart. It is a symbolic system and a cultural tradition, not a science, and it states no fate.

The twelve palaces always come in the same order, starting from the Life palace (命宮, Ming Gong) and running backwards through the branches. They are Life, Siblings (兄弟), Spouse (夫妻), Children (子女), Wealth (財帛), Health (疾厄), Travel (遷移), Friends (交友, also called Servants, 奴僕 or 仆役), Career (官祿), Property (田宅), Fortune or Wellbeing (福德) and Parents (父母). Traditionally the Life palace stands for the person as a whole, their temperament and the way they meet the world. Siblings concerns brothers, sisters and peers, Spouse the close partnership, Children offspring and creative work, Wealth money and resources, and Health the body and its weak points. Travel concerns movement and the outside world, Friends companions and colleagues, Career work and standing, Property home and possessions, Fortune the inner life and the sense of ease, and Parents the parents and those in authority.

What decides the layout is the hour of birth. The Life palace is found by counting from the Yin branch forward to the lunar month of birth and then back by the hour, which is why a chart cannot be drawn without a birth time. The Body palace (身宮, Shen Gong) is counted forward by the hour instead, and it falls on one of six palaces: Life, Spouse, Wealth, Travel, Career or Fortune. It is not a thirteenth palace. AstroSensus marks it on the palace where it falls, and the tradition reads it as the place where the person's life turns more in later years, in the body and in worldly matters.

Each palace has its fixed Earthly Branch and receives a Heavenly Stem by the "five tigers" rule from the stem of the birth year; the stem is what leads to the Four Transformations and to the Five Element Bureau, because the Bureau is taken from the Na Yin of the Life palace's stem and branch. The bureau number places the Zi Wei star, which in turn places the other main stars across the palaces. The first ten-year period begins in the Life palace, and the later ones move through the palaces in one direction.

AstroSensus shows the palaces in the classic square with the stars, their brightness grades and the Four Transformations. It does not calculate the flying stars, the yearly flow or a written reading of each palace, and what a palace means is left to the tradition's own books and your own judgment. The free calculator needs no account, uses no AI and keeps the birth data only in the session.