The 10 BaZi Day Masters

The Day Master (日元) is the Heavenly Stem of your birth day — it represents you, and it is the heart of the chart. The other seven characters are all read relative to it: what generates it (Seal), what controls it (Officer/Killings), what it generates (Output), and what it controls (Wealth). Reading BaZi always starts from the Day Master.

There are ten — the ten Heavenly Stems: Jiǎ, Yǐ, Bǐng, Dīng, Wù, Jǐ, Gēng, Xīn, Rén, Guǐ (甲乙丙丁戊己庚辛壬癸). Each of the Five Elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) is shared by two stems, one yang and one yin — e.g. Jiǎ (甲) is Yang Wood and Yǐ (乙) is Yin Wood.

No. A Day Master's 'strength' only describes how much support it gets in the chart — it is not good or bad in itself. A strong Day Master and a weak one each have their own favorable structure. What matters is whether the whole chart is balanced and the 'useful god' (用神) is well-placed, not strength alone.