30 entries. The fourteen major stars, the twelve palaces and the four transformations — the vocabulary of Zi Wei Dou Shu, with each entry's classical attribution and the palace it governs.
Zi Wei Dou Shu arranges its stars into twelve palaces rather than four pillars, and the palace does almost as much work as the star inside it. A star's reading shifts depending on whether it has landed in the命宫 (life palace), the career palace or the marriage palace, which is why this library keeps the two directories separate — reading a star entry without knowing where the star sits gives half the meaning at best.
The fourteen major stars are only the beginning of a full chart; minor stars and the brightness scale fill in the rest. What is documented here is the part that appears in every manual and is stable across schools: Pu Sha's descriptions of the major stars, the set of transformations each one undergoes, and the standard palace meanings. Where schools disagree — and they do disagree, particularly on the weight given to certain star pairings — the entry says so instead of picking a winner.
The four transformations (四化) are the mechanism that makes a chart feel specific rather than generic. Each stem transforms certain stars into one of four states — prosperity, authority, obstruction or misfortune — and which stars get transformed depends on the year stem of the birth. It is the closest thing this system has to a personal signature, and it is also why two people with identical major star placements can be read differently.
One caution that saves confusion later: this is a separate system from BaZi. The two share vocabulary heavily — both talk about elements, both use the twelve branches — but the terms are not interchangeable, and mixing them produces readings that no trained practitioner would recognise. Read BaZi as one system and this as another.
This is a reference for the terms of Zi Wei Dou Shu. It is not a chart reading — a chart is read from palace occupants, their brightness and the transformations together, and no entry here is guidance about decisions.