What are the Twelve Palaces in Zi Wei Dou Shu
The Twelve Palace system is the core framework of Zi Wei Dou Shu. It divides a person's life into twelve different domains, with each palace representing a specific aspect of life. By analyzing the star combinations in each palace, transformation relationships, and mutual influences between palaces, one can comprehensively understand a person's personality traits, life experiences, and fortune trends.
The twelve palaces are arranged in a fixed order: Life Palace, Siblings Palace, Marriage Palace, Children Palace, Wealth Palace, Health Palace, Travel Palace, Friends Palace (also called Servants Palace), Career Palace (also called Official Palace), Property Palace, Fortune Palace, and Parents Palace (also called Appearance Palace). These palaces are interconnected, forming a complete life blueprint.
Detailed Explanation of the Twelve Palaces
1. Life Palace - The Core of Life
Meaning: The Life Palace is the core of the entire chart, representing a person's innate personality, temperament, talents, life pattern, and basic fortune. It is the starting point for self-understanding.
Specific Influences:
- Personality Traits: The main star in the Life Palace determines a person's basic character. For example, those with Zi Wei star tend to have leadership qualities, while those with Tian Ji star are clever and witty.
- Life Pattern: The strength and combination of stars in the Life Palace determine one's life height and development potential.
- Overall Fortune: The Life Palace is the main basis for judging lifelong fortune and misfortune, affecting the performance of other palaces.
- Appearance and Temperament: The Life Palace also influences one's external image and aura.
Analysis Points: The Life Palace is the top priority in Zi Wei Dou Shu analysis. One must comprehensively consider main stars, auxiliary stars, transformations, and the interactive relationship with the opposite palace (Travel Palace).
2. Siblings Palace - Brotherhood and Cooperation
Meaning: The Siblings Palace mainly represents sibling relationships, friendships, partnerships, and also reflects one's social skills and team cooperation spirit.
Specific Influences:
- Sibling Bonds: Many auspicious stars indicate harmonious sibling relationships with mutual help; many malevolent stars may indicate distant relationships or conflicts.
- Partnership Fortune: A good palace is suitable for business partnerships; a poor one is better for independent development.
- Friendships: Reflects what kind of friends you can make and the degree of help from friends.
- Peer Relations: Includes interaction patterns with colleagues, classmates, and other peers.
Analysis Points: The Siblings Palace, together with the Friends Palace (subordinates) and Parents Palace (elders), constitutes three levels of interpersonal relationships.
3. Marriage Palace - Love and Marriage
Meaning: The Marriage Palace is an important palace for observing romantic fortune, marital status, and spouse characteristics. It concerns not only marriage but also romantic relationships and attraction to the opposite sex.
Specific Influences:
- Spouse Personality: The main star in the Marriage Palace reveals spouse characteristics. For example, Tai Yang star may indicate an outgoing spouse; Tai Yin star may indicate a gentle and considerate partner.
- Marriage Quality: Good star combinations indicate happy marriages; poor combinations may indicate marital difficulties or late marriage.
- Relationship Patterns: Reflects your role and interaction style in relationships.
- Romance Fortune: Combined with romance stars like Hong Luan and Tian Xi to judge romantic opportunities.
Analysis Points: The Marriage Palace should be analyzed together with the Life Palace and Fortune Palace for a comprehensive understanding of romantic situations. Also examine how Major and Annual Periods affect the Marriage Palace to determine relationship timing.
4. Children Palace - Offspring and Creativity
Meaning: The Children Palace mainly concerns children's fate, number of children, children's personalities, and parent-child relationships. Broadly, it also represents creativity, subordinates, and students.
Specific Influences:
- Number of Children: The number of stars in the Children Palace can suggest tendencies in offspring number (accuracy reduced in modern times due to family planning).
- Children's Personality: Main stars indicate children's character traits. For example, Wu Qu may indicate strong-willed children; Tian Tong may indicate gentle and kind children.
- Parent-Child Relations: Auspicious stars indicate harmonious relationships; many malevolent stars may indicate generation gaps or disciplinary difficulties.
- Creativity: The Children Palace also represents one's creative ability, artistic talent, and productivity.
Analysis Points: In modern society, the Children Palace is more commonly used to assess parent-child relationship quality, children's development potential, and personal creativity.
5. Wealth Palace - Fortune and Income
Meaning: The Wealth Palace is the core palace for observing financial fortune, earning ability, money management style, and material enjoyment.
Specific Influences:
- Earning Ability: Strong stars in the Wealth Palace indicate strong earning power and broad financial paths. Financial stars like Wu Qu and Tian Fu usually bring good fortune.
- Income Sources: Different stars represent different ways of making money. Tan Lang may earn through networking, Tian Ji through intellect and technology.
- Financial Attitudes: Reflects your attitude toward money—whether you're frugal or generous, investment-oriented or savings-focused.
- Material Life: A good Wealth Palace indicates an affluent material life; a poor one may indicate money coming and going without accumulation.
Analysis Points: The Wealth Palace should be analyzed together with the Life Palace and Career Palace. The Life Palace shows pattern, Career Palace shows occupation, and Wealth Palace shows income—all three must work together for accurate fortune assessment.
6. Health Palace - Health and Constitution
Meaning: The Health Palace governs health conditions, constitutional strength, disease tendencies, and accidental injuries.
Specific Influences:
- Constitutional Strength: Auspicious stars indicate good health; many malevolent stars suggest weak constitution or susceptibility to illness.
- Disease Tendencies: Different stars represent different health concerns. Tai Yang may indicate eye or heart issues; Tai Yin may indicate gynecological or gastrointestinal problems.
- Accidents: Malevolent stars like Qing Yang, Tuo Luo, Huo Xing, and Ling Xing require attention to accidental injuries.
- Mental State: The Health Palace also reflects mental health and psychological state.
Analysis Points: Health Palace analysis focuses on prevention. Understanding potential health risks allows for proactive health maintenance and disease prevention.
7. Travel Palace - Relocation and Development
Meaning: The Travel Palace represents fortune when away from home, interpersonal relationships, social abilities, environmental adaptability, and opportunities for external development.
Specific Influences:
- Travel Fortune: Many auspicious stars indicate smooth external development with helpful benefactors; many malevolent stars suggest setbacks away from home.
- Interpersonal Relations: Reflects your popularity and ability to receive help from others.
- Environmental Adaptation: A good Travel Palace indicates strong adaptability and thriving anywhere; a poor one suggests homesickness and unsuitability for distant travel.
- Immigration: Indicates suitability for emigration, studying abroad, or overseas development.
Analysis Points: The Travel Palace is opposite the Life Palace, and they complement each other. The Life Palace shows internal qualities, the Travel Palace shows external expression. Those with a strong Travel Palace are often outgoing and sociable.
8. Friends Palace (Servants Palace) - Subordinates and Friends
Meaning: The Friends Palace (anciently called Servants Palace) mainly concerns friend quality, social circles, subordinate relationships, and staff loyalty.
Specific Influences:
- Friend Quality: Many auspicious stars indicate sincere and reliable friends; many malevolent stars may indicate poor judgment in people or being dragged down by friends.
- Social Circles: Reflects what level of friends you can make. Noble stars like Zi Wei and Tian Fu may indicate connections with social elites.
- Subordinate Relations: For managers, this palace shows whether subordinates are capable and loyal.
- Team Collaboration: Reflects interpersonal interaction and cooperation ability within teams.
Analysis Points: Both Friends Palace and Siblings Palace involve interpersonal relationships, but Siblings Palace emphasizes peers and partners, while Friends Palace emphasizes friends and subordinates.
9. Career Palace (Official Palace) - Career and Achievement
Meaning: The Career Palace is the key palace for observing career development, work abilities, social status, and career direction.
Specific Influences:
- Career Achievement: Strong stars indicate successful careers and high social status; weak stars indicate average careers.
- Career Direction: Different stars suit different professions. Tian Ji suits technology and planning; Tai Yang suits public service and management; Tan Lang suits sales and public relations.
- Work Abilities: Reflects workplace competitiveness and professional capabilities.
- Career Stability: Some stars represent career stability (like Tian Fu), others represent high variability (like Qi Sha).
Analysis Points: The Career Palace is the core for judging career success or failure and requires comprehensive analysis with the Life Palace (pattern), Wealth Palace (income), and Travel Palace (development opportunities).
10. Property Palace - Real Estate and Family
Meaning: The Property Palace represents real estate, family environment, living conditions, ancestral inheritance, and quality of life.
Specific Influences:
- Real Estate Fortune: Many auspicious stars indicate easy property acquisition and good real estate fortune; many malevolent stars suggest difficulty buying property or property disputes.
- Family Environment: Reflects the economic status and atmosphere of one's family of origin.
- Living Quality: Shows housing conditions and requirements for living environment.
- Ancestral Inheritance: Whether one can inherit family business or receive support from elders.
Analysis Points: The Property Palace also represents savings ability and asset accumulation. Those with a strong Property Palace are often good at property investment and wealth accumulation.
11. Fortune Palace - Spirit and Blessings
Meaning: The Fortune Palace observes spiritual world, enjoyment capacity, blessing depth, and emotional state, also called the "Hidden Palace."
Specific Influences:
- Mental State: A good Fortune Palace brings spiritual joy and inner contentment; a poor one may indicate anxiety, depression, and many worries.
- Enjoyment Capacity: Reflects pursuit of life quality and ability to enjoy life.
- Blessing Depth: An auspicious Fortune Palace indicates deep lifelong blessings and turning misfortune into fortune; an inauspicious one suggests a life of hardship.
- Interests and Hobbies: Shows spiritual sustenance and leisure interests.
Analysis Points: The Fortune Palace is the most easily overlooked yet extremely important palace. Even if career and finances are good, one may still be unhappy with a poor Fortune Palace. The Fortune Palace, together with Marriage Palace and Wealth Palace, determines the happiness index.
12. Parents Palace (Appearance Palace) - Elders and Appearance
Meaning: The Parents Palace mainly concerns relationships with parents, elder connections, supervisor relationships, hereditary characteristics, and appearance/temperament.
Specific Influences:
- Parental Relations: Many auspicious stars indicate close relationships with parents and parental protection; many malevolent stars may indicate distant relationships or weak parental bonds.
- Elder Connections: Reflects relationships with elders and whether one can receive their support.
- Supervisor Relations: Workplace relationships with superiors and whether one can gain their appreciation.
- Appearance and Temperament: Also called Appearance Palace, it reveals physical features and temperament.
Analysis Points: The Parents Palace, together with Life Palace, Siblings Palace, and Children Palace, forms the family relationship network. A poor Parents Palace may indicate leaving home early and infrequent reunions with parents.
Interrelationships Among the Twelve Palaces
The twelve palaces in Zi Wei Dou Shu do not exist in isolation; they have close connections and mutual influences:
- Opposite Palace Relationships: Life Palace and Travel Palace, Marriage Palace and Career Palace, Siblings Palace and Friends Palace, Children Palace and Property Palace, Wealth Palace and Fortune Palace, Health Palace and Parents Palace—paired opposites complement each other.
- Three Directions and Four Orientations: Each palace has its three directions (self palace, trine palaces, opposite palace) and four orientations (three directions plus another harmonious palace), which collectively influence that palace's fortune.
- Six Relationship Palaces: Parents Palace, Siblings Palace, Marriage Palace, and Children Palace form the family relationship network, reflecting family interpersonal situations.
How to Apply the Twelve Palaces
Understanding the twelve palaces is just the first step; the key is learning to apply them:
- Holistic Observation: Don't view a single palace in isolation; comprehensively analyze the coordination among all palaces.
- Dynamic Analysis: Combined with Major Periods, Minor Periods, and Annual Fortunes, observe fortune fluctuations in each palace across different time periods.
- Focus on Priorities: Based on your concerns, focus on analyzing relevant palaces. For career concerns, examine the Career Palace; for romance, the Marriage Palace.
- Transformation Deduction: Through the deduction of Four Transformations, gain deeper understanding of causal relationships among palaces.
Advantages of Polaris AI Interpretation
Traditional Zi Wei Dou Shu analysis requires simultaneous consideration of 12 palaces, 108 stars, and their complex relationships—even experienced fortune tellers struggle to be completely precise. Polaris's AI intelligent interpretation system can:
- Comprehensive Analysis: Simultaneously integrate all palace, star, and transformation information without missing any details.
- Deep Mining: Through big data and algorithms, uncover hidden connections among palaces.
- Personalized Interpretation: Based on your specific questions, provide targeted analysis of relevant palaces with practical advice.
- Dynamic Tracking: Combined with Major and Annual Periods, provide real-time updates on fortune analysis for each palace.
Register with Polaris and let AI interpret the mysteries of the twelve palaces in your natal chart, revealing opportunities and challenges across all life domains, enabling wiser life choices.