Today's Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches: Year, Month, Day

In the Chinese calendrical system, 今日天干地支 refers to the sexagenary cycle values assigned to the current day. The term is often used when checking a daily almanac or comparing the day’s pillar against a personal natal chart. In practice, a day is not represented by one pair of characters alone; the full date usually involves three pairs, and their boundaries follow solar terms rather than lunar-month or Gregorian-calendar conventions.

今日干支指的是哪几柱

When a date is described by 干支, the reference is usually to three pairs of characters: the year pillar, the month pillar, and the day pillar. These are the same three columns used in a bazi layout. The year pillar gives the sexagenary bin for the year; the month pillar gives the bin for the solar-term month; and the day pillar gives the bin for the day itself. Among these, the day pillar is the one most directly comparable with a personal chart, because it is the same type of day column used in bazi calculation. A person can take the current day’s day pillar and place it beside the day pillar of their own chart to observe a fixed relation between the two. The year and month pillars are also part of the day’s date, but they are not personal day columns.

从一个已知日往后数

The day pillar advances through the sixty sexagenary pairs in continuous sequence. This cycle is not adjusted for solar terms, lunar months, or the start of a new year. If a given date has a known day pillar, then the next day is the next pair in the cycle, and the day after that is the next again. After sixty days the sequence returns to the same pair. For example, if a known day is 甲子, the following day is 乙丑, the day after is 丙寅, and so on. This makes it possible to count forward from any reference date without consulting a table, as long as the starting pillar is correct. The rule is simply one step forward per elapsed day. The same method can be used backwards by moving one step back per day.

月干支在交节当日换，不在初一换

The month pillar changes on the day of a solar-term intersection, not on the first day of a lunar month. The relevant boundary is the moment when a new solar-term month begins, such as 立春，惊蛰，清明, and the other major terms that divide the year into twelve solar months. On the day when the term occurs, the month pillar changes at the stated intersection time. Before that moment on the same day, the previous month pillar still applies; after it, the new month pillar applies. This means that a single calendar date can contain two different month pillars if the solar term falls during that day. The lunar new year, the first day of the lunar month, and the Gregorian first of the month do not by themselves change the month pillar.

年干支在立春换

The year pillar changes at 立春, the beginning of the solar year. It does not change on January 1 and does not change on the first day of the lunar new year. The moment of 立春 is a specific solar-term intersection, and the year pillar changes at that time. Before the 立春 moment, the previous year’s pillar remains in force; after it, the new year’s pillar begins. This is why a child born before 立春, even if the birth is after the lunar new year, is still recorded under the previous year pillar in the bazi system. The year pillar therefore follows the solar year, not the civil or lunar calendar year.

与自己的日柱对照能看出什么

When the current day pillar is compared with a person’s own day pillar, the result is a fixed relation between two sexagenary pairs. The comparison shows whether the two pillars are identical, in a clash relation, in a combination relation, or in another relation defined by the stems and branches. For example, if the current day branch is the branch opposite the person’s day branch, the relation is one of direct opposition, often called 冲. If the stems or branches combine according to the standard combination tables, the relation is one of 合. If the two pairs are the same, the relation is identity. This is a calculation, not an interpretation. The result states what the relation is; it does not by itself state what the relation means for events, decisions, or outcomes. A reader can use the relation as a reference point, but any further meaning depends on a larger method of analysis. In the same way, the day’s branch determines the almanac’s 冲煞 field. The first half of that field is the zodiac animal opposed to the day branch, and the second half is the direction associated with the day’s 煞方. The rule is fixed and can be checked by hand against the day branch.

Other almanac fields, such as daily suitability and avoidance, the day’s presiding deity, and auspicious hours, are calendrical conventions. The 建除 twelve-day cycle, the 值日星神 system, and the 二十八宿 system are three separate rotating schemes. They do not share one unified rule, and editors may choose different sources or weightings. As a result, the same date can appear with different recommendations in different almanac editions. The 干支 pillars themselves remain the same, but the interpretive fields can differ. This site does not publish daily suitability or avoidance lists. It only calculates the sexagenary pillars. For any date, the year pillar, month pillar, day pillar, and the solar-term intersection times can be found in the lunar-calendar and chart-layout pages. When using the current day’s pillar against a personal day pillar, the output is a statement of relation, not a prediction or a conclusion about the day’s quality.