What Is Tojeong Bigyeol (토정비결)? Korea’s New Year Fortune Classic

Tojeong Bigyeol is a book that tells, in short verses, the fortunes and misfortunes of a year and the outlook for each month. Around the Lunar New Year, many households would open Tojeong Bigyeol and steady their hopes for the year ahead.

Unlike saju, it requires no complex calculation; you can find your fortune with the single, modest piece of information of your lunar birth date. That accessibility made it a seasonal custom that ordinary people, not just experts, could easily enjoy, and it has been loved for a very long time.

Tojeong Bigyeol is traditionally attributed to the mid-Joseon scholar Tojeong Yi Ji-ham (이지함 / 李之菡, 1517–1578). Tojeong was his pen name, said to come from the modest earthen pavilion (土亭) where he lived frugally. Yi Ji-ham was remembered as a man who cared for ordinary people and valued the practical, and many anecdotes survive about him.

Today, however, scholars are cautious about whether the Tojeong Bigyeol we read now truly came from Yi Ji-ham’s own hand. It may well have been compiled later under the authority of his name. Either way, what does not change is that Tojeong Bigyeol is a strand of Korean culture that has comforted people for centuries.

Tojeong Bigyeol is made up of 144 verses in all. Each verse carries text foretelling the fortune of the whole year, together with text reading the outlook month by month, from the first lunar month to the twelfth.

The verses are mostly written as metaphors drawn from nature, such as a dry tree meeting spring, or trying to cross a river with no boat at hand. Rather than literal instructions, they paint the mood of a year as an image. The charm of Tojeong Bigyeol lies in reflecting on these metaphors against your own circumstances.

A Tojeong Bigyeol verse is determined by deriving three numbers from your lunar birth date. The year’s stem-and-branch, your birth month, and your birth day are each counted in a set way to obtain numbers for the upper, middle, and lower trigrams, and these three numbers together point to one of the 144 verses.

Because it is based on the lunar calendar, the same person receives a new verse each year as the year’s stem-and-branch changes. That is why Tojeong Bigyeol is not a one-time reading but a New Year fortune read afresh every year. CrossFates handles this counting automatically, so once you enter your lunar birth date and the year’s information, it shows you the matching verse and its interpretation right away.

Tojeong Bigyeol has long been a warm custom for opening the year. A favorable verse gave strength for the months ahead, while a verse urging caution became a reason to compose oneself. It is less about being handed a fixed fate and more like a ritual for sorting out how to live the year.

CrossFates’ Tojeong Bigyeol is made in the same spirit. It is for entertainment and reflection, and it does not replace important decisions about health, money, or career. We invite you to take it as a light pleasure for opening the year, and as a small mirror for looking at yourself.