Saju and Thai astrology:What's the difference?

Both are Asian traditions, but they start from different places

The core difference

Saju uses the year, month, day and hour of your birth. Its conclusions come from how the eight characters of the four pillars relate to each other, so even a different hour changes what it reads.

Thai astrology starts from just one thing: the day of the week you were born. Once the day is set, the other days fall into the eight houses on their own, and each house covers something like wealth, honor or relationships.

So Saju results split finely from person to person, while in Thai astrology everyone born on the same weekday shares the same broad outline. Saju is detailed; Thai astrology is clear-cut.

At a glance

	Saju	Thai astrology
Starting point	Year, month, day and hour of birth	Day of the week you were born
Possible outcomes	A great many	Eight broad patterns
How much the time matters	Changes the whole hour pillar	Only splits Wednesday into day and night
Timing	Reads ten-year cycles	Only whether you bloom early or late
Practical advice	Not much	Colors, directions, numbers
Gender	Needed for the direction of the cycles	Not used

When to use which

Saju

When you want to know what's coming and when. Saju is one of the few methods that can talk in terms of age ranges.

More about Saju

Thai astrology

When you want your inborn temperament in a nutshell, or when you don't know your time of birth. The date alone covers most of it.

More about Thai astrology

Looking at both

Thai astrology pulls Saju's finely split results together into a broad outline. When both point the same way, that's a strong trait; when they disagree, it's a side of you that comes out differently depending on the situation.

Other comparisons

See all four at once