Introduction to the Ten Gods in Korean Saju

The Framework Underneath Every Real Reading

The Day Master tells you who you are, in elemental terms. But a Saju chart has seven other characters besides the Day Master: the Stems and Branches of the year, month, and hour pillars, plus the Branch of the day pillar. The Ten Gods (십성, Sipseong, sometimes called the Ten Stars) is the system that describes how each of those seven other characters relates to your Day Master.

This is the framework Korean Saju practice leans on especially heavily, more so, as a general pattern, than some Chinese BaZi schools (see our piece on Saju vs BaZi). Practitioners often study the Ten Gods almost as a dedicated discipline before moving into full chart reading, because this is where a chart stops being 'what element am I' and starts becoming 'what is my relationship to wealth, authority, expression, and support.'

How the Ten Gods Are Built

Every element in your chart relates to your Day Master's element through one of five relationships: it generates your element, your element generates it, it controls your element, your element controls it, or it's the same element as you. Each of those five relationships then splits into two versions depending on Yin-Yang polarity, the same Yin and Yang that defines your Day Master itself. Five relationships times two polarities gives the ten categories.

The Five Categories, Plain Language

Wealth Stars (財星, Jaeseong)

The element your Day Master controls. Direct Wealth (正財) represents steady, earned income: salary, disciplined saving, methodical accumulation. Indirect Wealth (偏財) represents dynamic, opportunistic gain: business revenue, investment windfalls, money that arrives in larger and less predictable amounts. Wealth Stars describe your relationship with resources you actively manage, not just how much money you have.

Officer Stars (官星, Gwanseong)

The element that controls your Day Master. Direct Officer (正官) represents legitimate authority and structure: rules you respect, positions of formal responsibility, a healthy relationship with discipline imposed from outside yourself. Seven Killings (七殺, sometimes called Indirect Officer) represents a more forceful, less comfortable version of the same pressure: challenges, rivals, or authority that pushes rather than guides. Neither is inherently bad, Seven Killings often shows up strongly in people who thrive under pressure or in competitive fields.

Resource Stars (印星, Inseong)

The element that generates your Day Master. Direct Resource (正印) represents support that nurtures steadily: mentorship, education, a stable home base, credentials earned properly. Indirect Resource (偏印) represents support that's more unconventional: unusual knowledge, self-taught skill, ideas that come from outside traditional structures. Resource Stars describe where you draw strength and legitimacy from.

Output Stars (食傷, Siksang)

The element your Day Master generates. Eating God (食神) represents expression that flows easily and pleasurably: creativity, communication, enjoyment of one's own output. Hurting Officer (傷官, sometimes translated Injury Officer) represents expression that's sharper and more critical: talent that comes with an edge, insight delivered bluntly, a tendency to see and say what others miss or avoid. Output Stars describe how your inner world gets expressed outward.

Peer Stars (比劫, Bigyeop)

The same element as your Day Master. Friend (比肩) represents cooperation and equal partnership: colleagues, siblings, people who reinforce your own nature. Rob Wealth (劫財, more literally 'competing for wealth') represents the same peer energy in a more competitive register: rivalry, comparison, the sense of needing to compete for resources with people similar to you. Peer Stars describe your relationship to equals.

Why This Layer Matters More Than the Day Master Alone

Your Day Master tells you your elemental nature. The Ten Gods tell you the actual shape of your life: which of these five categories are strong or weak, present or missing, in your specific chart. Two people who share the exact same Day Master can have completely different charts once you look at their Ten Gods distribution, one might have a chart heavy in Officer Stars (structured, authority-oriented, drawn to formal careers), while the other is heavy in Output Stars (expressive, creative, more drawn to self-directed work).

This is the layer that turns a Day Master reading, useful but general, into something specific to your actual chart. It's also the layer most people skip when they get a quick free reading online, because it requires the full Four Pillars, not just the Day Master alone.