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

Compiled by Haiyuan · AI-generated content · Updated 2026-10-12 · How we calculate

"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.

Start of Spring or Chinese New Year: which sign do temples use?

Folk custom has two ways to change the zodiac year. One changes it at Li Chun, the Start of Spring (around February 4); BaZi year pillars and our Tai Sui lookup use this. The other changes it on the first day of the lunar new year, which is how people usually talk about their sign and how many temples register An Tai Sui. The two only differ for people born between the two dates: in 2026 Li Chun fell on February 4 and New Year on February 17, so someone born in between is a Horse by Li Chun but still a Snake by the lunar new year.

Our lookup flags this case. When you register at a temple, give your Gregorian birth date and let the temple apply its own custom.

The sixty Tai Sui generals

Folk religion personifies Tai Sui as sixty generals, one presiding over each year of the sixty-year cycle: General Wen Zhe (文哲) for the 2026 Bing-Wu year and General Miao Bing (繆丙) for 2027 Ding-Wei. The list is said to come from a Qing-dynasty Daoist liturgy by Liu Shouyuan; copies differ in a character here and there (the Ji-Hai general 謝太 is also written 謝燾), and each temple's own tablets take precedence. The table follows the inscriptions on the sixty Tai Sui statues at Madou Daitian Temple in Tainan.

Years change at Li Chun. The names follow the commonly circulated list; versions differ slightly.

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.