Why does the zodiac have a twelve-year cycle?

In China's calendar, there are twelve kinds of animals on duty in turn, so in our China year, rats, cows, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes, horses, sheep, monkeys, chickens, dogs and pigs are used in the calendar.

That is to say, rats, ugly cows, silver tigers, hairy rabbits, Chen Long, Fourth Uncle, Wuma, Weiyang, God Monkey, Friendship Chickens, Dogs and Sea Pigs.

Origin theory

It is difficult to study the origin of the zodiac.

As an ancient folk cultural phenomenon, scholars have different opinions about the origin of the zodiac.

Some people think that the zodiac and earthly branches are homologous and can be traced back to prehistoric legend times. In Historical Records, the Yellow Emperor's statements of "building Jiazi for life" and "making every effort to cure Jiazi" are the embodiment of this statement, and scholars believe that Jiazi here refers to the zodiac.

Zhao Yi, a scholar in Qing Dynasty, believed that the zodiac originated from nomadic people in northern China. He said in "An Examination of Jade Congkao": "At first, there was no such thing as ugliness on the 12th, but in the next year, it spread to China." (See Zhao Yi's Textual Research on Jade Cong in Qing Dynasty).

Some scholars even hold the view that the zodiac was introduced to China from Babylon, and Guo Moruo is the representative of this view. In the study of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, he said: "There are twelve statues in Babylon, Egypt and India, but they are not very old, and there are no people more than 100 years after the Western Dynasties.

It was originally formulated by western countries in the Han Dynasty, imitating the Babylonian zodiac, and then spread to the surrounding areas. It is believed that the Chinese Zodiac was made for the residents in the Middle East by imitating the Babylonian Zodiac, and was introduced to China when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty went to the Western Ocean.

The above viewpoints are different, so I dare not judge right or wrong subjectively. However, it is proved by a large number of documents that the Chinese zodiac really originated in China, and it is the crystallization of animal worship, totem worship and early astronomy of China ancestors.

The Book of Songs is the earliest record of the zodiac in the existing literature.

There are eight words in The Book of Songs Xiaoya Jiri: "Jiri Wugeng means poor horse", which means it is a good day to ride a prancing horse and go hunting. This is an example of a horse in the afternoon.

It can be seen that the corresponding relationship between earthly branches and twelve kinds of animals has been established and spread around the Spring and Autumn Period.

The bamboo slips 1975 unearthed from tomb1in Shuihudi, Yunmeng County, Hubei Province, further proved that the zodiac had existed before and after the Spring and Autumn Period.

There is a chapter on "Thief" in the bamboo slips unearthed in Japan, which talks about the appearance characteristics of thieves, and records: "Son, mouse, thief wants his mouth, ... ugly, cow, thief with big nose and long neck, ... yin, tiger, thief, if he wants his beard, his face is black."

Hair, rabbits, thieves are big.

Chen, [original leak] The thief is a man, green and red ... Third, the worm is also black.

At noon, the deer is also a thief with a long neck and a small cut.

..... No, horse, thieves have ears.

",ring also, thief round face ..."

The zodiac recorded in Japanese books is roughly the same as the popular saying now.

According to textual research, the tomb of Shuihudi 1 1 was in the 30th year of Qin Shihuang (2 17 BC), so the appearance of the zodiac can be traced back to at least the Spring and Autumn Period before Qin Dynasty.

Scholars believe that this is the earliest and most systematic record of the zodiac found in China so far.

For a long time, many people regard Lun Heng as the earliest document that records the zodiac.

Lun Heng is the representative work of Wang Chong, a materialist thinker in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

"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 knife.

Unitary, chicken also.

Hair, rabbits, too.

..... hey, tapir.

No, so are sheep.

Ugly, cattle also.

..... Third, snakes are also.

Shen, Qi Tian also. "In the above quotation, there are only eleven kinds of zodiac signs, lacking dragons.

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 complete, and the subordinate relationship between the twelve earthly branches and the zodiac is so complete, and it is the same as today. This is indeed the earliest and most complete record of the zodiac in ancient literature.

By the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the zodiac had been widely used, and it was clearly recorded in the Southern Dynasties' Five Elements Records of South Shu Qi that the zodiac was divided according to the year of birth.

Shen Jiong, a poet in the Southern Dynasties, once wrote a poem about the zodiac, which said:

"In the case of mice and dust, cattle and sheep fall at dusk.

Tigers sit in empty valleys for food, and rabbits open windows to the moon.

The dragon ridge is far green, and the snake willow lingers near.

Ma Lanfang is far away and breeds sheep in spring.

The monkey chestnut shames the fragrant fruit, and the chicken anvil leads to a clear cup.

Dogs are proud of owning, but pigs are carefree. "

This poem of the zodiac is obviously written in the order of animals assigned by the twelve branches, which shows that people at that time were already very familiar with the zodiac.

It is clear from the above documents that the origin of Zodiac culture is in China.

According to the foreign zodiac, the zodiac was introduced to China from the Middle East in the Han Dynasty, which is similar to the introduction of Buddhism. From the above documents, we prove that there were records about the zodiac in China as early as the Spring and Autumn Period (The Book of Heaven and the Book of Songs), which shows that the appearance of the zodiac and the collocation of the zodiac and the earthly branches have been produced as early as the Han Dynasty, so it is certain that the zodiac originated from an ancient culture in China.

So what is the origin of the zodiac? Why did the ancients choose these twelve animals? Scholars have been paying attention to this problem and making various explanations.

Some scholars believe that the zodiac originated from animal worship in primitive times, and Mr. Zhang Binglun of China University of Science and Technology holds this view.

He believes that under the condition of low productivity and extremely limited ability to understand nature in primitive society, he has a sense of dependence on animals closely related to his life (such as horses, sheep, cows, chickens, dogs, etc.). ), the fear of animals that endanger his own safety (such as tigers and snakes), and the reverence for some animal organ functions that exceed human beings (such as dogs' sense of smell, etc.). ), which leads to the worship of animals.

The zodiac is an animal calendar that people use to record the years and months under the influence of the primitive belief of animal worship.

The animal worship of primitive people is also manifested in primitive dances such as Nuo dance, which was produced around the Zhou Dynasty, and the protagonist in Nuo instrument is Fang and twelve beasts.

Twelve kinds of animals are selected in Exorcism Dance, which is a manifestation of primitive people's reverence for animals.

The twelve beasts (or the Twelve Gods) selected at the ceremony are to take care of the twelve months of the year, to drive away plagues and ghosts from all directions and to take care of the twelve directions for the safety of each month.

Of course, the care of the twelve directions involves twelve branches, so it is linked with the zodiac, and the zodiac has been well used in the exorcism ceremony.

It can be seen that the twelve animals and the zodiac are in the same strain, and their common source is primitive animal worship.

Mr. Liu Yaohan, a ethnologist, believes that the dates of the zodiac and the "Zodiac" are related to the "October Calendar" method of the Yi people.

Yi people living in Daliangshan area of Sichuan have a calendar with twelve kinds of animals as the date of the year. They use twelve kinds of animals as the date of the year. Today is the Year of the Rat and tomorrow is the Year of the Ox. By analogy, three rounds is a month, 36 days, a month is 36 days, and a year is ten months. This is the later "October calendar" method.

Mr. Liu Yaohan believes that the October calendar, which marks the dates according to the Chinese zodiac, came into being in the Xia and Yu Dynasties (see Liu Yaohan's Collection of Social and Historical Investigation of Yi People), which is related to the primitive totem worship. The zodiac was influenced by the October calendar, and the Yi zodiac calendar later developed into the zodiac.

When we talk about the origin of the zodiac, we must associate it with heavenly stems and earthly branches.

The oldest existing branch table in China unearthed from the Yin Ruins in Anyang in modern times shows that the date of branches in the Yin and Shang Dynasties has been mastered.

Later, with the passage of time, the functions of the branches gradually diversified. As a label as a time unit, on the one hand, it is extended and used in chronology; On the one hand, it reduces the time (twelve hours a day).

According to historical records and textual research, the zodiac appeared after the establishment of the "branch chronology" Twelve kinds of animals correspond to the twelve earthly branches one by one, and animals are the signs of earthly branches.

People born in the same year all have their own animals, so twelve kinds of animals are used to date the year and calculate each person's zodiac.

It can be seen that the zodiac and the twelve earthly branches are inseparable.

For a long time, scholars have found that the ancient Chinese characters of the zodiac contain the information of the zodiac. They compared the ancient Chinese characters of the Chinese zodiac with those of the Chinese zodiac, and found that the ancient Chinese characters of the Chinese zodiac were related to twelve kinds of animals.

Careful observation shows that there are some similarities and some differences.

In Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the word "four" was described as a pictographic character of a snake, and there were also "hai" and "tapir".

People nearby have also verified that there are similarities between the characters of the earthly branches in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and the inscriptions on bronze inscriptions and the characters of the zodiac, which makes people wonder whether the zodiac is the pictographic characters of the animals of the zodiac. Because the ugly shade and ugly hair of the twelve earthly branches are easy to remember, people use twelve kinds of animals instead, and animals instead of ordinal numbers to match the earthly branches, which becomes the symbol system of the year.

Although the above conjecture has certain credibility, if you think about it carefully, you can still judge that the zodiac can't be pictographs of the zodiac, because as mentioned earlier, the zodiac was skillfully used in the Yin and Shang Dynasties, while the zodiac was only produced in the Spring and Autumn Period and came from different sources.

If the earthly branches are related to the zodiac when creating characters, wouldn't the zodiac be produced at the same time as the earthly branches?

To sum up, the author thinks that the zodiac appeared later than the twelve earthly branches, but it is closely related to the twelve earthly branches. The zodiac is an appendage of the twelve earthly branches. Choosing twelve animals as symbols instead of the twelve earthly branches stems from the animal worship psychology of the ancients.

The meaning of the zodiac

The first group is rats and cows. Rats represent wisdom and cows represent diligence.

Wisdom and diligence must be closely combined.

If you are smart and not diligent, you become smart; And just being diligent without thinking becomes stupid.

The two must be combined.

This is the expectation and requirement of our ancestors for our first group, and it is also the most important group.

The second group are tigers and rabbits. Tigers represent courage, rabbits represent caution.

Courage and caution must be closely combined in order to be bold and cautious.

If courage leaves prudence, it becomes recklessness, but without courage, it becomes timidity.

This group is also very important, so it is in the second position.

I think these nobles should add that when we show caution, we should never think that China people have no courage.

In the third group, the dragon and snake represent fierceness and the snake represents flexibility.

The so-called rigidity is easy to break, too rigid is easy to break, but if there is only a soft side, it is easy to lose your mind, so combining rigidity with softness is our ancestral motto.

Next, horses and sheep represent courage and sheep represent harmony.

If a person only cares about himself and goes straight to the goal, regardless of the surrounding environment, he will inevitably bump into the surrounding area, and he may not be able to achieve his goal in the end.

However, if a person is too busy letting nature take its course, he may even have no direction.

Therefore, the nature of going forward must be closely combined with harmony, which is the fourth set of expectations of our ancestors.

Then there are monkeys and chickens. Monkeys represent flexibility and chickens crow regularly.

Represents constancy, and flexibility and constancy must be closely combined.

If you are flexible and not static, no matter how good the policy is, you will get nothing.

On the one hand, it has stability and maintains overall harmony and order, on the other hand, it can move forward in flexibility, which is the most fundamental essence.

Finally, dogs and pigs represent loyalty and pigs represent easygoing.

If a person is too loyal and doesn't know how to be easy-going, he will exclude others.

On the contrary, if a person is too easy-going and has no loyalty, he will lose his principles.

Both loyalty to a nation and loyalty to one's own ideals must be closely combined with easygoing, so that it is easy to maintain a deep balance.

Why do the zodiac need twelve?

"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 sons of heaven's wives and concubines have the saying of "twelve women", "The Book of the Later Han Dynasty Xun Shuang Biography": "Therefore, the sons of heaven marry twelve women, and the number of days is 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.

There is a story about the origin of Ganzhi: "At the beginning of the world, 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, and we support the gods to govern Gankun.

So, they were named, husband and wife were paired and 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 publication of heaven and earth was always based on heaven and earth.

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 brilliant, which accounts for the construction of the battle program, so A and B are famous for the first time, and they are called dry; Making a child ugly in the name of the moon is a branch.

The trunk and branches match to form a 60-year cycle. "Big spoke is the minister of the Yellow Emperor era. The match here is sixty, that is, sixty jiazi, taking the least common multiple of the ten-day stem and the twelve-day branch.

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?" "It is also recorded in Meng Gong's Record of Monks and Tartars in the Song Dynasty:" When a grass is one year old, someone asks its age and says how many grasses it is. "In 2000, another sky observer found that the moon's profit and loss cycle can be used to measure the length of a year, and 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".

The arrangement of the zodiac

Liu Xian's Yang Guang Miscellaneous Notes in Qing Dynasty quoted Li Changqing's superficial remarks about Matsushita Pavilion: "Why is A Zi 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.

This person, when the moon comes out, is the body of the moon, and water is the essence of the sun golden rooster, so it belongs to the chicken.

In the nucleus, pigs know nothing but food, so the sea is a pig. "

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.

The arrangement of the zodiac is also related to the one-digit and two-digit numbers representing the animals of the zodiac.

In the number 1- 12, one is yang, and the other is yin, which represent zi, ugly, yin, Mao, Chen, si, noon, Wei, Shen, you, Xu and Hai in turn.

For example, a mouse has five toes that are positive, a cow has four toes that are negative, and so on (a snake is a millipede that is negative).

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

At the latest from the Han Dynasty, China began to adopt the geochronology, with twelve hours a day, which is equivalent to three hours on both sides. It is midnight from eleven o'clock in the evening to one o'clock in the morning, and mice are the most active.

From 0: 00 to 3: 00 in the morning/kloc-,it's ugly, and the cow is ruminating.

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.

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.

The zodiac began in the sixth century BC, and was originally applied to a set of earthly numbers, and later became the year number of the year.

However, in the Zodiac, why does the mouse that everyone shouts and beats take the lead? There is a folklore here: the Jade Emperor called all the animals of the Zodiac to hold a ranking meeting, and the eight immortals, such as pigs, rats, cows, horses and sheep, crossed the ocean and showed their magical powers. Everyone hurried to the meeting together. Niu Ge is simple and honest, and the result of leaving early takes the lead. Originally, the champion belonged to him, but at the critical moment, the clever mouse quietly jumped on the cow's back and stood on the cow's head. As a result, Niu Ge had to give way to Brother Mouse, ranking second.

Of course, this is just a legend. In recent years, another more reasonable and credible statement has become popular. As we all know, animals have odd and even toes. Whether biped or quadruped, the number of toes is consistent, or the left and right are consistent, but rats are the exception. It has four toes on its front foot and five toes on its back foot. Therefore, when arranging the zodiac, they are arranged according to odd and even toes. Because mouse feet are odd and even, they cannot be arranged.

Next, cows with four toes are even, five-toed tiger feet, odd, four-toed free feet, even, five-toed dragon feet, odd, and snakes. Because there are no toes, they are actually even, one-toed horse feet, odd, four-toed sheep feet, even, five-toed monkey feet, odd, four-toed chicken feet, even and dog feet.

This idea of dividing by the odd-even number of toes finally got justice for Brother Mouse, washed away the injustice of "occupying a seat" for many years, and made the mouse hold its head high and show its elegant demeanor again in the new year.

Another chapter of this story tells why cats and mice become enemies.

At that time, cats and mice were good friends. Before going to the mass meeting, they slept together and agreed that whoever woke up first would wake up.

I'm afraid that the mouse will get up early the next day and go to the meeting quietly, ignoring the cat.

By the time the cat woke up and rushed to Congress, the Buddha had allocated the number for twelve years.

Since then, the cat and the mouse have formed a deep hatred.

Of course, legend belongs to legend, and the view of folklore scholar Guo Licheng is proved by historical books.

People call heavenly stems and earthly branches an animal representing his twelfth birthday to commemorate his famous age.