Twelve Palaces (十二宮命理)

Lunar Birth Fortune — Palace & Degree from the Four Birth Pillars

Overview

十二宮命理 (Twelve Palaces Destiny) is a classical Chinese lunar birth fortune system that derives a person’s life palace and degree from four components: the zodiac animal of the birth year, the lunar birth month, the lunar birth day, and the birth hour. Each component contributes a numerical score; the total maps to one of fourteen palaces (1–14) and a degree within that palace (0, 2, 4, 6, or 8 degrees). Each palace carries a classical title, a four-line poem (詩曰), a marriage fortune reading (婚姻), and a wealth fortune reading (財運). The system is used widely in Cantonese and Southeast Asian Chinese communities for life-path assessment, marriage compatibility, and wealth potential.

Origin & history

十二宮命理 is rooted in the broader tradition of Chinese lunar numerology and is closely related to the Bone Weight (稱骨算命) system attributed to the Tang Dynasty poet Yuan Tiangang. Both systems derive fortune from birth timing using additive scoring tables, but Twelve Palaces uses the zodiac year and birth hour in addition to month and day, producing a finer-grained classification across fourteen palace categories rather than a single weight score.

The system has been transmitted through Cantonese fortune-telling lineages for centuries and remains popular in Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong, and among overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. Practitioners traditionally consult printed almanac tables to look up each component score, then sum them to find the palace and degree. The fortune texts associated with each palace-degree combination are drawn from classical verse and commentary, often attributed to Tang and Song dynasty scholars.

How it works

Four lookup tables are applied in sequence: (1) Zodiac year (生肖) — each of the twelve animals contributes a base score in palace-degree units; (2) Lunar month (農曆月) — each month from 1 to 12 adds a further score; (3) Lunar day (農曆日) — each day from 1 to 30 adds a score; (4) Birth hour (時辰) — each two-hour Chinese time division (子時, 丑時, etc.) adds a final score. The four scores are summed to a total, which is then divided into palace (integer part) and degree (fractional part × 10). The resulting palace-degree combination selects the classical fortune text.

Good for

Use cases

Personal Destiny Reading

Input the four lunar birth components to receive the palace, degree, classical poem, marriage fortune, and wealth fortune for a complete life-path reading.

Marriage Compatibility

Compare the palace and marriage fortune texts of two individuals to assess compatibility and timing for marriage.

Wealth Pattern Analysis

Use the wealth fortune text to understand the financial pattern — whether wealth comes early or late, through regular income or windfalls, and what career directions are favoured.

Key terms

Palace (宮)
One of fourteen destiny categories (1–14), each with a classical name and fortune texts for marriage and wealth. The palace is the primary output of the calculation.
Degree (度)
A refinement within each palace, expressed as 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8 degrees. Higher degrees within a palace generally indicate a stronger expression of that palace’s fortune.
Zodiac Score (生肖分量)
The numerical contribution of the birth year’s zodiac animal to the total palace score, derived from the 陰曆出生年 lookup table.
Birth Hour Branch (時辰)
The traditional Chinese two-hour time division (e.g. 子時 23:00–01:00, 丑時 01:00–03:00) used to look up the hour score component.

API

The askTIAN Twelve Palaces API accepts the four lunar birth components (zodiac year, lunar month, lunar day, birth hour), computes the palace and degree, returns the classical poem and fortune texts, and generates an LLM synthesis in Chinese or English.

Endpoint: POST /api/trpc/twelvepalaces.calculate — 5 TIAN Points. See the API documentation and Playground.