袁天罡 bone-weight fortune calculator. Birth date + hour → lunar conversion, four bone-weights (year/month/day/hour), total 兩/錢, and the matching 稱骨歌 verse + meaning. Cultural reference.
Bone Weight Fortune Calculator (袁天罡稱骨)
How to use
Enter Gregorian birth date
Pick a Gregorian (solar) birth date; the tool converts to the lunar calendar and reads the year 干支, lunar month and lunar day. Bone-weighing uses the lunar date.
Pick birth hour (時辰)
Enter as HH:MM. Hour precision is enough (the classical system uses 2-hour blocks). Don't know your hour? Choose 12:00 — only the hour bone-weight depends on it.
Weigh the bones
Press "Weigh the Bones". The tool looks up four bone-weights — year, month, day, hour — in 錢 (1兩 = 10錢) and sums them into a total bone weight.
Read the verse + meaning
You get the four component weights, the total in 兩/錢, and the matching four-line 袁天罡稱骨歌 verse with a plain-language gloss. The verse is folklore, for entertainment only.
袁天罡 Bone-Weighing: Turning a Birth Date into a Verse
Bone-weight fortune-telling — 稱骨算命 (chēng-gǔ suàn-mìng) — is traditionally attributed to the Tang-dynasty astrologer Yuan Tian-gang (袁天罡) and is one of the most widely circulated fortune "games" in the Chinese-speaking world. The idea is delightfully simple: each part of a person's birth — year, month, day, and hour — is converted into a "bone weight" measured in the classical unit 錢 (qián; ten 錢 make one 兩 / liǎng). The four weights are summed into a total, and that total is matched to a four-line verse in the 袁天罡稱骨歌 (Bone-Weighing Verses). A "heavier" frame is traditionally read as a more fortunate life; a "lighter" frame is read as a life that depends more on one's own effort. Because the whole system fits on a single lookup table, it has been passed down by word of mouth for centuries and is still enjoyed today by Chinese communities in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
How the four bone-weights are computed
The tool first converts your Gregorian date into the lunar calendar, since bone-weighing is defined entirely on lunar dates. From the conversion it reads three things: the lunar year's 干支 (stem-branch) — one of the sixty 甲子…癸亥 combinations — the lunar month (1–12), and the lunar day (1–30). Your clock time is then mapped to one of the twelve 時辰 (double-hour branches) — 子, 丑, 寅 … 亥. Each of these four pieces is looked up in a fixed weight table: a 60-entry year table, a 12-entry month table, a 30-entry day table, and a 12-entry hour table. Adding the four numbers gives your total bone weight. For example, a sum of 36 錢 reads as 三兩六錢 ("three 兩 six 錢"). The classics pair a verse with every 0.1兩 step (i.e. every 1 錢), from the lightest 2兩1錢 to the heaviest 7兩2錢. This tool includes every verse across that whole range and clamps the total into it, so the lookup never lands on a missing entry.
How to take the verse
The verses are written in evocative classical language — "wealth", "glory", "toil", "self-reliance" — which makes them fun to read, but they are fundamentally a folk-cultural product with no scientific basis. The same birth date can yield different weights and verses under different versions of the bone-weight table and different lunar-conversion conventions (leap months, the 子时 day boundary); even the "袁天罡 bone-weight table" itself circulates in several variants. So treat the result as an enjoyable slice of cultural heritage, not a prediction or a judgement about anyone's life.
"Bone weight" is just an old game that encodes a birth date into a verse — heavy or light, what truly writes a life is the choices made in the present.
Culturally, bone-weighing carries the simple, poetic way earlier generations imagined fate, and it reflects how central the "four pillars" (year, month, day, hour) are to Chinese metaphysics. It is far simpler than full bazi analysis: no chart to draw, no strong-or-weak judgement to make, so anyone can use it — which is exactly why it became a light, tea-table amusement. All computation in this tool runs locally in your browser; no birth data is uploaded or stored. Even for sensitive metaphysical inputs, RECATOOLS keeps to its zero-tracking, zero-storage principle. Enjoy it as a small mirror onto a living tradition — read it lightly, smile, and keep the real authorship of your life firmly in your own hands.
10 Facts about Bone-Weight Fortune-Telling
Bone-weighing is attributed to the Tang astrologer Yuan Tian-gang — also famous (with Li Chun-feng) for the 推背圖 prophecy. Whether he truly authored it is unknowable, but his name has stayed attached to the system.
Bone-weighing uses the old measure: one 兩 = ten 錢. So 三兩六錢 = 36 錢. Totals usually span from the lightest 2兩1錢 to the heaviest 7兩2錢.
The four bone-weights come from year, month, day and hour — exactly the "four pillars" of Chinese metaphysics. Bone-weighing is the most simplified, everyday take on that four-pillar idea.
The year weight is keyed by the lunar year's 干支 — the sixty 甲子 (甲子, 乙丑 … 癸亥). So two people born in the same Gregorian year but across the lunar new-year boundary can get different year weights.
The hour weight uses the twelve 時辰, each spanning two hours: 子 23:00–01:00, 丑 01:00–03:00, and so on. Exact minutes don't matter — only the correct double-hour block.
A heavier "bone weight" is traditionally read as more fortune — but that's just a cultural metaphor. Light-frame verses often stress self-reliance and a brighter later life, not a purely negative verdict.
The circulating "Yuan Tian-gang bone-weight table" is not a single fixed text: the year and day tables differ slightly between copies, so different tools or books can give you different results.
The verses are written in classical phrasing — "wealth", "glory", "toil", "authority" — reading like short folk poems. They are a small body of vernacular literature with their own aesthetic charm.
Bone-weighing is not the same as bazi: bazi requires drawing four pillars, judging strength, and picking favorable elements — far more involved. Bone-weighing just sums four table look-ups, making it the most beginner-friendly fortune game.
Bone-weighing has no scientific basis and its predictive power has never been statistically validated. Its value is cultural heritage and entertainment — base any important decision on reality and professional advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Bone-weighing converts your birth year, month, day and hour each into a "bone weight" (in 錢; ten 錢 = one 兩), sums the four into a total, and matches that total to a four-line verse in the 袁天罡稱骨歌. A heavier total is traditionally read as more fortune. It is a widely-played fortune game in the Chinese world — for entertainment reference only.
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The tool converts your Gregorian date to lunar, reads the lunar year 干支, lunar month and lunar day, and maps your clock time to one of the twelve 時辰. It then looks up four fixed tables — a 60-entry year table, a 12-entry month table, a 30-entry day table and a 12-entry hour table — and adds the four numbers to get the total.
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Pick 12:00 for an approximation. The year, month and day weights stay accurate; only the hour weight changes with the 時辰. If accuracy matters, check hospital or parental records to confirm your birth hour.
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Traditionally a heavier frame is read as more fortune, but that's a cultural metaphor with no evidence behind it. Light-frame verses often stress self-reliance and a brighter later life — a positive note. Treat it as fun cultural reading, not a reason for pride or self-blame.
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Two main reasons: (1) the circulating bone-weight table exists in several variants — the year and day tables differ slightly between copies; (2) lunar-conversion conventions differ — leap months, the year-switch point and the 子时 day boundary change the year/month/day and thus the weight. This tool uses the common standard table and lunar conversion.
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No. Bazi requires drawing the eight characters, tallying the Five Elements, judging the day master's strength and selecting favorable elements — a complex system. Bone-weighing just looks up one table each for year/month/day/hour, sums them, and returns a verse — far simpler. Both are traditional metaphysics, but bone-weighing is more of a beginner folk game.
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No. All lunar conversion and table look-ups happen locally in your browser with no server calls. Even for sensitive metaphysical inputs, RECATOOLS enforces zero-tracking + zero-storage.
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No. Bone-weighing is cultural entertainment and a tea-table amusement, not a decision tool. Major choices (marriage, career, health, relocation) should rest on practical analysis, professional advice and personal values. If it brings you cultural enjoyment, great; if it makes you anxious, ignore it.
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Bone-weighing is defined on the lunar calendar. You just enter the familiar Gregorian (solar) date and the tool converts it to lunar, then looks up the lunar year 干支, lunar month and lunar day. You don't need to convert to lunar yourself.
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No. Bone-weighing is a folk-cultural product and its predictive power has never been statistically validated. Its value lies in carrying on tradition and adding fun; treat it as cultural reference and entertainment, never as a scientific prediction.
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