Find Your Guardian Star · The Sixty Tai Sui of the Jiazi Cycle

The Sixty Jiazi deities are honoured titles in Taoism, also known as the Tai Sui star gods. Tai Sui was originally Jupiter in the heavens, completing one orbit every twelve years — the ancients called it the Year Star. It is at once a celestial body and a deity worshipped among the people.

Legend holds that in each of the sixty years heaven sends down one deity to preside over that year — governing the fortunes and misfortunes of the human world, and the lifelong destiny of all born within it. The people honour this deity as the "Presiding Tai Sui." Across the sixty years there are sixty Tai Sui, together called the Sixty Jiazi deities.

Taoism speaks of the "natal root": the Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch of your birth year — your natal element and birth-year sign — whose corresponding Tai Sui is your guardian star. The atlas below is the Sixty Tai Sui, painted by the Ruyi Studio of the Qing imperial palace and held at the White Cloud Temple in Beijing.