The Ten Gods in BaZi: What They Mean, How to Find Them From Your Day Master, and an Example

The Ten Gods in BaZi (十神, shi shen, also called the ten deities) are ten labels for how each stem in your chart relates to your Day Master. Two things set the label: the element relationship (same, produced, controlled, controlling, or producing) and whether the Yin Yang polarity matches. Five relationships times two polarities gives ten.

On SPYLL the Ten Gods appear as the 10 BaZi profiles, one page per god covering its traits and work style. This article covers how each god shows up in your chart, using the same rules SPYLL's engine runs in code. If BaZi is new to you, start with the beginner's guide to BaZi.

What are the Ten Gods in BaZi?

A BaZi chart holds eight characters: four Heavenly Stems and four Earthly Branches from the year, month, day, and hour pillars. The stem of the day pillar is your Day Master and stands for you, so the other seven characters are read from its point of view, and each relationship gets one of the ten names.

"God" is a literal translation of 神 (shen). In BaZi the word names a type of element relationship. Nobody worships these gods and no ritual comes with them, so you can read them without it touching whatever faith you hold.

The branches are read through the stems hidden inside them. Each branch stores one to three stems (the branch 丑, the Ox, holds 己, 辛, and 癸), and each hidden stem gets its own god label. A full chart therefore carries more gods than the four stems you see on the top row. Where each character sits in the calculator output is covered in how to read your BaZi calculator chart.

How to find each god from your Day Master: two questions

Pick any stem in your chart and ask two questions about it relative to your Day Master.

The first is about elements. The five elements connect through two cycles, covered in full in the 5 elements in BaZi. In the producing cycle, Wood feeds Fire, Fire makes Earth, Earth bears Metal, Metal carries Water, and Water feeds Wood, while in the controlling cycle Wood controls Earth, Earth controls Water, Water controls Fire, Fire controls Metal, and Metal controls Wood. From the Day Master's point of view, every stem lands in one of five spots: same element, produced by the Day Master, controlled by the Day Master, controlling the Day Master, or producing the Day Master.

Polarity is the second question. Five stems are Yang (甲 丙 戊 庚 壬) and five are Yin (乙 丁 己 辛 癸), so you check whether the stem shares your Day Master's polarity.

The bottom three rows are where people mix things up. For wealth, authority, and resource, the "direct" version (正, zheng) is the one with the opposite polarity, while the "indirect" version (偏, pian) and Qi Sha share the Day Master's polarity. In the top two rows it runs the other way: Bi Jian and Shi Shen are the same-polarity gods. SPYLL's Ten God function follows this table exactly and needs only two facts per stem, its element and its polarity.

Each of the five groups in the right column has a page in the BaZi structures directory, which reads the two gods in a group as a pair. Each profile's traits, from work style to blind spots, live on its own page, so this article doesn't repeat them.

Ten Gods example for a Ren Water (壬) Day Master

To make the table concrete, take a 壬 Day Master, Yang Water, whose profile is on the Ren Water Day Master page. For a 壬 Day Master, the ten stems label like this:

Now put it in a chart. The illustration uses two people born in Jakarta on 4 February 2000, one at 10:00 and one at 21:00. Both have the day pillar 壬辰, so both have a 壬 Day Master. Li Chun fell at 19:40 Jakarta time that year, though, so the evening birth already sits in the new BaZi year and month (the Li Chun vs Lunar New Year article explains why).

I ran both charts through SPYLL's profile engine, which spreads 100 points across the ten gods, hidden stems included. The morning chart is led by Zheng Guan with 28 points and Shang Guan with 20. The evening chart is led by Qi Sha with 38 points and Shi Shen with 22, and Zheng Guan drops to zero there. Bi Jian scores zero in both, because apart from the Day Master itself neither chart holds another 壬.

Two people with the same Day Master can end up with their gods in a very different order, and the top god in the morning chart holds only 28 of 100 points. That's why SPYLL reads the Ten Gods as a mix of several gods at different weights: one profile name can't describe a person. It's the same reason BaZi reads as a pattern to reflect on.

Which god carries the most weight in your chart?

Positions in the chart carry different weights. In SPYLL's profile engine, out of 100 points, the month branch gets 36, the day and hour branches get 16 each, the year branch gets 12, the month stem gets 8, and the year and hour stems get 6 each. The day stem isn't scored, because it's the Day Master.

A branch's points are then split across its hidden stems. A branch with one stem gives it everything, a branch with two splits 70 and 30 percent, and a branch with three splits 60, 30, and 10 percent. In the evening chart, the month branch 寅 holds 甲 as its main stem, so Shi Shen picks up 22 points from there (60 percent of 36, rounded) even though 甲 never appears on the stem row.

If you don't know your birth time, the engine redistributes the hour pillar's 22 points across the other five positions in proportion to their weights, so the chart still reads, minus the gods from the hour pillar. In the morning chart, 6 of Shang Guan's 20 points come from the hour stem 乙. Why your birth hour matters in BaZi covers what else the hour pillar holds.

Common mix-ups about the Ten Gods

Which Shi Shen?

The group name, 十神 (Ten Gods), and one of its members, 食神 (Eating God), are both written "shi shen" once the tone marks are dropped. When you see "Shi Shen" in a BaZi article, check the context: ten relationships at once means 十神, and a single god in the Creators group means 食神, which SPYLL calls The Artist.

A scary name doesn't make a god bad

Qi Sha (七杀) translates as "seven killings", Shang Guan (伤官) as "hurting officer", and Jie Cai (劫财) as "rob wealth". Shang Guan gets its name from the direction of pressure: for a 壬 Day Master, Shang Guan is 乙 (Wood) and Zheng Guan is 己 (Earth), and Wood controls Earth. SPYLL's engine doesn't mark any god as lucky or unlucky. It only weighs them, and The Warrior page reads Qi Sha as a way of moving under pressure, blind spots included.

The same stem is a different god for someone else

The stem 甲 is Bi Jian for a 甲 Day Master, Shi Shen for a 壬 Day Master, and Qi Sha for a 戊 Day Master. Gods are always counted relative to the Day Master, so a friend's Ten Gods table won't work for your chart.

Wealth gods don't count your bank balance

Zheng Cai and Pian Cai are called wealth gods because their element is controlled by the Day Master, something you manage and direct. Their weight in your chart doesn't predict your income or savings. For big money decisions, talk to a financial planner, because a BaZi chart reads nothing about your finances.

FAQ

Can a chart have none of a particular god?

Yes. In both 4 February 2000 charts, Bi Jian scores zero because no other 壬 appears besides the Day Master, and the evening chart has no Zheng Guan either. An empty god only means that element relationship doesn't appear among your eight characters.

How do I find the Ten Gods in my own chart?

Work out your four pillars in a BaZi calculator, then take the day pillar's stem as your Day Master. Label every other stem with the two-question table above, and for each branch, label its hidden stems one by one.

Do the Ten Gods in my chart change with age?

The gods in your birth chart stay fixed. Each year brings its own stem and branch, and that stem also gets a god label relative to your Day Master. 2027 is a 丁未 year, so for a 壬 Day Master that year's 丁 is Zheng Cai.

Can the Ten Gods help me choose a career?

SPYLL's profiles map each god to a work style, a leadership style, and example roles, so you can use them as material for reflection while you weigh options. BaZi for career guidance covers how a chart connects to work, and the decision stays yours.

Try labelling your own chart starting from the month pillar, since its branch and stem together hold 44 of 100 points in SPYLL's engine. Enter your birth date and time in the SPYLL BaZi calculator, note your day pillar's stem as the Day Master, find your month stem's god in the table above, then open that profile page and hold it up against how you work on an ordinary day.