The manuscripts of the zodiac are concise and beautiful.

Zodiac is twelve kinds of animals that are matched with the twelve earthly branches in China according to the year of birth, [1] including rats, cows, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes, horses, sheep, monkeys, chickens, dogs and pigs.

The origin of the Zodiac is related to animal worship. Each Zodiac has rich legends, forming a conceptual interpretation system and becoming an image philosophy in folk culture, such as the Zodiac in marriage and the year of the animal.

The ancients divided the stars near the ecliptic and equator into "28 stars". Twenty-eight nights represent an animal. In ancient times, Sunday was divided into twelve parts, represented by twelve branches. Twelve branches belonged to the zodiac, and the zodiac had a corresponding relationship with twenty-eight stars. [4] Wang Hao, a great scholar in the Ming Dynasty, believed that 28 species of animals belonged to 28 stars, and they were "unified by the seven demons" and became the pattern of "mother-soil bats, imaginary sun mice, dangerous moon swallows and sons". [4] In the Qing Dynasty, Li Changqing thought in "Panasonic Guan Yanyu" that twenty-eight lodging animals "doubled the first twelve genera" and "attached Kang Jinlong, Chen Guan and Jiao Mujiao. Jiao, Long Ye "reflects the gathering of 28 kinds of stellar animals based on the zodiac. "[4] But there will inevitably be collateral encounters, and the records of the 28 stars will be later than the zodiac.

Jupiter runs once a week for twelve years, and the annual branching order can be determined from Jupiter's position. Yu Han, Fang Shan and Ji Shu thought that every twelve years, "three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old and three years old". [3] There is a cycle between the rise and fall of plants and the living environment of animals. The living conditions of herbivores (rats, cows, horses and sheep) and carnivorous omnivores are very different in different years. If people born in different years can imitate the animals that flourished in that year, they will form the Zodiac animals, and it is speculated that the rise and fall of animals are related to the year of Jupiter, and the zodiac is unified with the twelve days. [5]

The ancestors of primitive society often used some animals, inanimate objects or graphics of natural phenomena as protectors and symbols of their clans, that is, totems. The mixed image of man and beast in Shan Hai Jing is an ancient totem god. [6] The totem of Xia nationality is bear or fish, the totem of Shang nationality is blackbird, and the totem of Zhou nationality is dragon, bird, turtle, dog and tiger. [7] Zodiac animals are illusory except dragons, and the rest are daily visible. It can be divided into two categories, namely "six animals" (horses, cows, sheep, chickens, dogs and pigs) and "six animals" (rats, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes and monkeys). The former was domesticated by people for economic purposes, while the latter disturbed human life to a certain extent, and ancestors were afraid of it. [8] Therefore, these animals are worshipped as the name symbols of this clan.