Zi Wei Dou Shu (紫微斗數, "Purple Star Astrology") is a Chinese astrology system that maps your birth chart onto a fixed 12-palace grid -- one palace per life domain (Career, Wealth, Spouse, and so on) -- populated with major and minor stars whose placement and combination are read for that domain.
Zi Wei Dou Shu is one of the two major branches of traditional Chinese astrology, alongside BaZi (Four Pillars). Where BaZi reads your birth moment as four stem-branch pillars and their Five Element relationships, Zi Wei Dou Shu instead places roughly 14 major stars and dozens of minor stars into a fixed ring of 12 palaces, each palace permanently assigned to a specific life domain: Self, Siblings, Spouse, Children, Wealth, Health, Travel, Friends, Career, Property, Fortune, and Parents.
Your exact birth date, time, and (in the traditional method) lunar calendar position determine where your chart's "Life Palace" (命宮) sits and which stars land in which palace -- the named star at the center of your Life Palace, most often Zi Wei (紫微, "Purple Star," the system's namesake) or one of the other 13 major stars, is traditionally treated as the dominant influence on overall temperament.
Because every palace is present in every chart, a Zi Wei Dou Shu reading isn't really about which domains you "have" -- it's about which stars and star-combinations occupy each one, and how strong or afflicted that combination is read to be. AstroKarmas computes your full 12-palace astrolabe and generates career, wealth, and relationship readings from the major stars occupying the relevant palaces.
Zi Wei Dou Shu and BaZi are complementary rather than competing systems in classical practice -- many traditional Chinese astrologers read both together for the same person, since they emphasize different things (BaZi leans toward elemental balance and timing; Zi Wei Dou Shu leans toward domain-by-domain structure).
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