What does 12 Zodiac mean?

China's zodiac animals are made up of eleven kinds of animals from nature, namely rats, cows, tigers, rabbits, snakes, horses, sheep, monkeys, chickens, dogs, pigs and legendary dragons. Used to record the year, the order is mouse, ugly cow, silver tiger, hairy rabbit, dragon, snake, afternoon horse, sheep, monkey, You You chicken and dragon.

For a long time, many people regard Lun Heng, a great work by Wang Chong, a materialist thinker in the Eastern Han Dynasty, as the earliest document to record the zodiac. "On the Balance of Things" contains: "Yin, wood, birds and tigers. Soil, its birds and dogs are also. ..... At noon, the horse also arrived. Son, mouse also. Unitary, chicken also. Hair, rabbits, too. ..... hey, tapir. No, so are sheep. Ugly, cattle also. ..... Third, snakes are also. Shen, Qitian also. " There are only eleven zodiac signs in the above quotation, but the dragon is missing. The book "Poisonous Words" also said: "Chen Weilong, Si is a snake, and Chen and Si are in the southeast. In this way, the zodiac is completed.

"Zhou Li Chun Guan von Shi Xiang" contains: "Ten palms are two years old, ten palms are February, ten palms are two days old, ten palms are two days old, ten palms are two days old, and ten palms are twenty-eight stars. Their narrative is distinguished to meet the heaven." The division of time is progressive, with twelve years, twelve months a year and twelve o'clock a day.

"Mandarin Yu Jin Si" contains: "The Yellow Emperor has twenty-five sons, and fourteen sons have surnames, which are twelve surnames." Even the wives and concubines of the son of heaven are called "twelve women".

"The Biography of Xun Shuang in the Later Han Dynasty": "Therefore, the son of heaven married twelve women, and the number of days was also; There is an equal difference below the princes, and things have fallen. "

In recent years, the creation epic Dark Biography of the Han nationality has been discovered in Shennongjia area, in which there is a story about the origin of the main branch: "At the beginning of creation, Huang Xuan rode chaos beast and met Nuwa. There are two meat buns beside Nu Wa. There are ten men in the big one and twelve women in the small one. Huang Xuan said: "This is a heavenly revolution to support God to govern Gankun." So, they were named respectively, and the husband and wife were matched, which became yin and yang. Men are collectively called heavenly stems and women are earthly branches. "This creation myth story tells the story of Ganzhi, the mysterious god, the god of Nuwa, and the story of Ganzhi Yin and Yang Kun, dating back to the" life experience "of Ganzhi a long time ago.

In ancient times, the sky has always been the master and the earth has always been the subordinate. Ten heavenly stems are also called ten mothers, and the corresponding twelve branches are called twelve sons. Cai Yong's "Moon Order" in Han Dynasty: "The love of the five elements is great, occupying the program of fighting, so A and B became famous at the beginning, which is called dry; Making a child ugly in the name of the moon is a branch. Branches match branches to make sixty years old. " Da Rao was a minister in the era of the Yellow Emperor, and the match here is sixty years, that is, sixty jiazi, taking the least common multiple of ten days' work and twelve earthly branches. The trunk and branches are matched in order, from Jiazi to Ugly ... until Guihai is the 60th pair, which happens to be the last pair of trunk and branches, and then defecation starts from Jiazi. This cycle is called Jiazi. Among them, each aerial stem appeared 6 times and each aerial branch appeared 5 times.

The birth of the zodiac has an astronomical background. In primitive times, our ancestors experienced a cycle of alternating cold and summer.

Hong Hao's Biography at the End of Song Dynasty in Song Dynasty said: "Jurchen is very small, just after the new moon, and the person doesn't know the date. When asked, they will say, "How many times have I seen grass?" "

In the Song Dynasty, Meng Gong's Record of Monks and Tartars also recorded: "Every grass is one year old. When someone asks its age, they say how many grasses it is."

Later, some astronomical observers found that the length of a year can be measured by the moon's profit and loss cycle, and found that all twelve full moons are one year old. This discovery is one of the most accurate achievements of the early calendar, and "Twelve" is regarded as "days" to convey God's will. Heavenly stems and earthly branches, the sun and the moon are opposite, and heaven and earth are opposite. This is the "Twelve". A mouse and an ugly cow ... a dog and a pig. There are many animals in the world. Why did the ancients choose these twelve animals as their zodiac signs?

Liu Xian in Qing Dynasty was quoted from Li Changqing in Miscellaneous Notes of Yang Guang Matsushita Pavilion.

"Why is the child a mouse? Yue: Born in the child, it will not open until it dies. Rats eat insects. Therefore, in night is still young, positive mice have to wait, so children belong to mice.

The ground is ugly, and the cow opens the ground, so ugliness belongs to the cow.

If born in yin, if born, kill. Murderer, tiger, Yin people, fear. If you are awesome, you are a tiger, then Yin is a tiger.

Offender, sunrise. In vitro, it contains the essence of Taiyin Jade Rabbit, so it is a rabbit.

The morning of divination in March is when the dragon rains, so the morning belongs to the dragon.

The last person, divination in April, was lush and the snake was in its place. Also, when a snake is not on the road, it is a snake.

At noon, the sun is born, and the sun is born. Horses are healthy, never leave the ground, and belong to the shade, so they belong to horses in the afternoon.

Sheep are not sheep, because they grow by biting untimely grass.

When applying, the ape crowed in the sunset, and his arms were stretched out. By analogy, chaos runs rampant, so the application belongs to monkeys.

The moon rises to be a chicken, because it contains the essence of the golden rooster.

At the time of Hai, pigs knew nothing but diet, so Hai was a pig. "

In other words, the selection and arrangement of the zodiac is determined according to the daily activity time of animals.

At least since the Han Dynasty, China has divided a day and night into twelve hours according to the time when the sun rises, and recorded these twelve hours (big hours) with the method of twelve minutes, each hour is equivalent to two hours, and such a day and night is now called twenty-four hours.

It is midnight from eleven o'clock in the evening to one o'clock in the morning, which is the most active time for mice.

From 0: 00 to 3: 00 in the morning/kloc-,it's ugly, and the cow is ruminating. It is said that it is also the time when cows start plowing.

It is Yin Shi from 3: 00 to 5: 00. At this time, tigers are foraging everywhere, which is the fiercest.

5: 00 to 7: 00 is the crime time. At this time, the sun has not yet risen and the moon is still hanging in the sky. At this time, Yutu is busy taking medicine. Rabbits on the earth also began to come out for food.

7: 00 am to 9: 00 am is the morning, which is a good time for the dragon to rain.

From 9: 00 to 1 1, the snake became active.

From eleven o'clock in the morning to one o'clock in the afternoon, the sun is shining, and at noon, it is the time to be unconstrained.

In the afternoon 1 until 3 o'clock, it is late. At this time, sheep will grow stronger if they eat grass.

From 3 pm to 5 pm, it is the Olympic Games. At this time, the monkey became active.

It's one yuan from five to seven. When night falls, chickens begin to return to their nests.

From 7: 00 pm to 9: 00 pm, the dog began to watch the night.

From 9 pm to 1 1, it is Shihai. At this time, all was silent and the pig was snoring.

There are various legends about the arrangement of the zodiac. Such stories, like jokes, or fables, have strong literary elements. However, the seating arrangement of the zodiac is by no means a one-off event, nor can it be completed in one generation. At the beginning, it is not necessary to nominate twelve kinds at a time, but there may be only four or five kinds, and there may be a surplus. Later, the survival of the fittest, quota positioning, has been passed down to this day.

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