An Tai Sui: A Ritual of Faith, and the Branch Relation Behind It

"You offend Tai Sui this year, remember to go and do An Tai Sui." You hear it every year. This page separates two things: offending Tai Sui is a branch relation that can be worked out from the calendar, and An Tai Sui is a religious ritual, which is a personal choice. The two are often bundled together, but they are not the same thing.

Where Tai Sui comes from

Tai Sui was originally a term of astronomy and the calendar. Ancient Chinese astronomers counted years by Jupiter, the "year star," which takes about twelve years to circle the sky, and imagined a counter-Jupiter moving the opposite way, called Tai Sui, to line up with the twelve Earthly Branches. Later Tai Sui was personified as a deity, the Tai Sui Xing Jun; in folk belief each of the sixty years of the stem-branch cycle has its own Tai Sui on duty, and "offending Tai Sui" turned from a calendar relation into a phrase that sounds serious.

What An Tai Sui involves

• What: at a temple that honors Tai Sui, people register their name and birth details, light a lamp or have a blessing placed, and pray for a safe and smooth year.
• When: most temples open registration around Chinese New Year, and at year end people return to "thank Tai Sui" for the year's protection. Timing and practice differ from temple to temple; follow the temple's own notice.
• Who: mostly people whose sign offends Tai Sui that year, though some go every year regardless, as a blessing at the start of the year.

Why temple lists do not agree

In the same year one temple says two signs offend Tai Sui and another says four or five. The difference is how many relations they count: only the same branch and the clash, those plus punishment and harm, or all five types. Take 2027, a Ding-Wei year: sharing the branch is the Goat and clashing is the Ox, and these two appear on almost every list; punishing is the Dog, breaking the Dog and harming the Rat, and whether they appear depends on the source.

Calculated by our engine from the table of branch relations. "Combine with Tai Sui" lists the signs in a Six Combination or Three Harmonies with that year's branch, which folk tradition generally counts as being on Tai Sui's side for the year.

Where this site stands

An Tai Sui is a folk religious practice, and we neither recommend nor oppose it; that is your choice of belief. We offer only one test: when any claim says a large sum is needed to "resolve" something, the claim is what deserves doubt. A branch relation is structure, and it does not change because something was bought; what can change is how you arrange your year.

If you want to look at the year through BaZi, the practical approach is to check whether the element of Tai Sui's branch is favorable or unfavorable for you (use the lookup below), and then which of your four pillars it touches. The annual pillar lookup puts all of this together.