What is the zodiac calendar today?

This year's zodiac is a cow. Zodiac is generally calculated by year, not by day.

The Zodiac, also known as the Zodiac, is twelve kinds of animals that match the twelve earthly branches in China according to the year of birth, including rats, "cows", tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes, horses, sheep, monkeys, chickens, dogs and pigs.

The origin of the zodiac is related to animal worship. According to the Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Yunmeng Shuihudi, Hubei Province and Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu Province, there was a relatively complete zodiac system in the pre-Qin period. The earliest handed down document that recorded the same Chinese zodiac as the modern one was Lun Heng written by Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

The zodiac is an intuitive representation of the twelve earthly branches, namely, Zi (mouse), Ugly (ox), Yin (tiger), Mao (rabbit), Chen (dragon), Si (snake), Wu (horse), Wei (sheep), Shen (monkey), You (chicken) and Xu (chicken). In modern times, more people regard the zodiac as the mascot of the Spring Festival and become a symbol of entertainment and cultural activities.

As a long-standing symbol of folk culture, the zodiac has left a lot of poems, Spring Festival couplets, paintings, calligraphy and paintings and folk arts and crafts that depict the image and symbolic meaning of the zodiac. In addition to my country, many countries in the world issue zodiac stamps during the Spring Festival to express their wishes for the New Year.

Ancient literature records have not solved the problem of the cultural origin of the zodiac, and scholars in ancient and modern times have different opinions on this.

Constellation theory

Zodiac spends money

The ancients divided the stars near the ecliptic and equator into "28 stars". Twenty-eight nights also 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. Wang Chang, a great scholar in the Ming Dynasty, believed that 28 species of animals belonged to 28 stars and were unified by 7 aliens, forming a pattern of "mother bat, imaginary sun mouse, dangerous moon swallow and child". In Li Changqing's Song Xia Guan Yu Yan in Qing Dynasty, he thought that the 28-lodging animals "even if the first 12 genera were doubled", "were attached to Kang Jinlong, Chen Guan and Jiao Mujiao. Jiao, Long Ye "reflects the gathering of 28 kinds of stellar animals based on the zodiac. "But it is inevitable that there will be collateral encounters, and the records of the 28 stars animals are later than the zodiac.

Casual theory

Ivory Sculpture of China 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". 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 zodiac animals, and it is inferred that the rise and fall of animals are related to the year of Jupiter, and the zodiac and the zodiac are unified.

Totem theory

White marble sculpture of the zodiac

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. 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. Zodiac animals are imaginary 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. Therefore, these animals are worshipped as the name symbols of this clan.

Ethnologist Liu Yaohan inferred the origin of the "Zodiac Calendar" from the totem relics of the Yi people. The calendar of the 12 Zodiac of Yi people in western Guangxi and Mao put people and the 12 Zodiac in the same column, which is "the legacy of the original idea of not distinguishing between man and beast in reality". The Yi people still use the Chinese zodiac to mark the date and use it as the name of the market (such as Tiger Street and Rabbit Street). Records of the Five Emperors in Historical Records describes that the Yellow Emperor "taught Xiong Yonghu in order to fight against Emperor Yan in Sakamoto", which is the totem of all tribes, and is by no means really capable of lowering dragons and luring tigers. Zodiac originated from totem worship in primitive society and became a convincing theory.

Singularity theory

Zodiac ceramics

In the Qing Dynasty, Zhao Yi wrote in "Examination of Jade Cong" that "ugly children are ugly, and it doesn't matter at the beginning of the northern customs. When they are in different years, they spread to China, which proves the exotic nature of the zodiac!