What does zodiac mean?

Whether the zodiac is counted from beginning of spring or from the first day of the first month is controversial among folk and folk experts.

Regarding the issue that many people think is "changing the zodiac after New Year's Eve", Han Shuo said that the main reason is that many folk customs are neglected and gradually forgotten. [3]

Calendar basis

The trunk calendar is a calendar marked with 60 different groups of heavenly stems and earthly branches, which is a unique solar calendar in China [4]. It takes beginning of spring as the beginning of the year, and it is divided into twelve months with twenty-four solar terms, and there is no leap month.

Examples of calendar: (Gregorian calendar 1 949 65438+1October1day at 2 pm, the tenth day of the eighth lunar month)

Ugly Year, Gui You Month, Jiazi Day, Xin Wei Time.

The ninety-fifth chapter of A Dream of Red Mansions in the Qing Dynasty: "beginning of spring was on December 18th, Jiayin year, and Yuan Chun's day was on December 19th, Yinyue year". Here, it is very clear that the transition point of the dry calendar is in the year and month. It can be seen that the dry calendar was used in folk and book writing at that time.

Official basis

Before the Republic of China, the first day of the first month was called New Year's Day as the beginning of the Lunar New Year. Beginning of spring is called the Spring Festival. It has been more than 3,000 years since the Spring Festival in beginning of spring. In beginning of spring, the Emperor personally led three officials and nine ministers, and the princes and doctors went to the eastern suburbs to welcome the Spring Festival and pray for a bumper harvest. When you come back, you should reward the ministers and make a Bude order to show your kindness to the people. This kind of activity has influenced the common people and made it a national Spring Festival activity for generations. [5]

Gregorian calendar: It was calculated and published by Qin in ancient times, and can't be reproduced without the approval of the royal family. However, under the attraction of paying attention to profits, and because some remote areas can't get the official calendar in time, the emergence of private calendars has not been banned. It was not until the sixteenth year of Qing Qianlong that the people were allowed to engrave the official seal of the Yellow Calendar. When we open any imperial calendar, we can see that the change of the year of the dry branch is not on the first day of the first month, but on the day when the Yin [1] was established in beginning of spring.

The Spring Festival is only established in modern times, on the first day of the first lunar month every year. 19 12. Dr. Sun Yat-sen announced the abolition of the old calendar and the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. 19 14, Yuan Shikai, then president of the Republic of China, issued a decree stipulating that the first day of the first lunar month is the Spring Festival every year. Before that, beginning of spring was traditionally regarded as the beginning of a year. In the old Gregorian calendar of the Republic of China, beginning of spring is still the node where the year of the zodiac begins.

The book "Ancient Calendar of China", a national key book publishing planning project in the 11th Five-Year Plan, points out that the calendar year of the main branch is a part of the calendar year of the main branch, starting from beginning of spring! It is also clearly pointed out that for more than two thousand years, the dry calendar and the lunar calendar (chronological order) have "cooperated with each other and formed their own system"! The meaning is clear. Since ancient times, the China lunar calendar has used dry branches to record the years. However, the lunar calendar starts from the first day of the first month, which cannot change the principle that cadres and cadres' calendar years start from beginning of spring. This provides an important basis for the zodiac to start from beginning of spring.

In modern times, the Purple Mountain Observatory is not the only institution that can compile almanac, and ethnic minorities also have their own institutions to compile their own almanac. It was verified that the almanac published by Purple Mountain Observatory did not indicate the zodiac at all.

In the book Comparison Table of Gregorian Calendar and Lunar Calendar compiled by Beijing Observatory of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the calendar is very clear, which provides a basis for the relationship between the zodiac and the calendar.

The National Time Service Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences is the time authority of China. Since the early 1970s, it has officially undertaken the broadcasting task of China's standard time and frequency, and provided reliable and high-precision time service for many industries and departments such as space technology, surveying and mapping, earthquake, transportation, communication, meteorology and geology. [6] Risuo perpetual calendar is a perpetual calendar specially developed by Professor Liu Anguo entrusted by the National Time Service Center. Professor Liu Anguo is only responsible for research and development, not for making calendars. The National Time Service Center will check. The solar shuttle calendar shows the dry calendar, with beginning of spring solar terms as the dividing line of the year.