The method behind Saju was systematized in China roughly a thousand years ago. During the Song dynasty, a figure remembered as Xu Ziping (徐子平, 서자평) reshaped the older practice around the Day Master — the day-stem as the self — which is still the center of every reading today. That day-master method is why the tradition is often called Ziping (자평, 子平) after him.
The classical texts
The tradition was carried forward in a handful of classical works compiled across the Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties. These centuries-old texts are the shared inheritance of the whole field:
- 淵海子平 (Yeonhae Japyeong) — an early compilation of the Ziping day-master method.
- 三命通會 (Sammyeong Tonghoe) — a broad Ming-dynasty compendium of the tradition.
- 滴天髓 (Jeokcheonsu) — a terse, much-studied classic on reading the balance of a chart.
- 子平真詮 (Japyeong Jinjeon) — a systematic Qing-era treatment of the method.
Because these texts are centuries old, their ideas belong to everyone — anyone can study them, and every practitioner does. What differs between readers is not the source, but the reading.
From China to Korea — Myeongni
In Korea the tradition took root as Myeongni-hak (명리학, 命理學), "the study of the pattern of destiny." Saju became — and remains — a familiar part of Korean life: consulted around marriage and compatibility, the timing of big decisions, even the naming of a child. The word Saju is simply the Korean reading of the "Four Pillars." What we offer is that Korean lineage, read for an English-speaking reader.
The history of Chinese and Korean divination has been documented at length by historians of science and Sinologists; readers who want the scholarly background can turn to works such as Richard J. Smith's Fortune-tellers and Philosophers and Ho Peng Yoke's Chinese Mathematical Astrology.