SajuPaste
GUIDE

The 12 animal hours: how a birth time becomes an Hour pillar

The Hour pillar of a Saju chart does not use the clock directly. It uses twelve two-hour windows, each named after one of the twelve Earthly Branches and their animals. Here is the full table, why the windows run on true solar time, and what to do if you only know roughly.

The twelve windows

Window (true solar time)BranchAnimalKorean
Late night, 11 PM to 1 AM子RatJa
Before dawn, 1 to 3 AM丑OxChuk
Early dawn, 3 to 5 AM寅TigerIn
Sunrise, 5 to 7 AM卯RabbitMyo
Morning, 7 to 9 AM辰DragonJin
Late morning, 9 to 11 AM巳SnakeSa
Midday, 11 AM to 1 PM午HorseO
Early afternoon, 1 to 3 PM未GoatMi
Late afternoon, 3 to 5 PM申MonkeySin
Sunset, 5 to 7 PM酉RoosterYu
Evening, 7 to 9 PM戌DogSul
Night, 9 to 11 PM亥PigHae

The cycle starts with the Rat at 11 PM, not at midnight, and each window is exactly two hours. The Earthly Branch of the hour is fixed by the window; the Heavenly Stem above it is then derived from the Day stem, which is why the same hour has a different stem on different days.

Clock time is not solar time

The windows describe the sun, not the clock. Noon in the Horse hour means the sun at its highest, which happens at a different clock time depending on how far you are from your time zone’s standard meridian. Seoul keeps Japan-standard time (135°E) but lies at 127°E, so solar noon is about 12:30 by the clock. New York is close to its meridian; Los Angeles is not. Daylight saving shifts everything by another hour.

  • SajuPaste converts the clock time you enter to true solar time at your birthplace, including the small seasonal correction called the equation of time, before choosing the window.
  • A birth near the edge of a window can move to the neighbouring window after correction. That is the point of the correction, not an error.
  • If you leave the birthplace empty, Seoul is assumed.

If you only know roughly

Choose Roughly in the form and tap the window you were told. SajuPaste uses the middle of that window, for example 10:00 for the Snake hour, and applies the solar correction from there. Because any time inside a window gives the same branch, this is as accurate as an exact minute would be, as long as the window itself is right.

Pick by the clock time your family remembers. Do not try to pre-correct for solar time yourself; the site does it from the city you chose.

Reading the hour

In traditional reading the Hour pillar stands for children, the later decades of life and the inner self. Its branch is also one of the four places where symbolic stars can fall, so a Peach Blossom or a Nobleman in the hour is read as belonging to that part of life. And like every branch it can combine with, clash with or harm the others; an hour branch that clashes with the day branch is the kind of feature a reader will point to.

Questions people ask

Why are the hours two hours long?
The traditional East Asian day was divided into twelve double-hours, one per Earthly Branch, long before the twenty-four-hour clock was common. The Hour pillar inherits that division, so any time inside a window gives the same character.
Is the Rat hour 11 PM to 1 AM the same day?
It straddles midnight, which is why traditions disagree. SajuPaste assigns the Day pillar by the calendar day of the true-solar-time moment and mentions the convention in the chart text so a reader can apply the other view if they prefer.
Do the animals mean anything for personality?
Less than people expect. The animal is a memorable name for the branch; what a reader uses is the branch’s element, its hidden stems and its relationships to the other pillars. The Horse hour is a Fire branch, and that is what matters.
Calculate my chart — free
More guides