Understand solar terms

This is the third article in my basic learning series.

When ordinary people refer to "Divination is an important content in novels", they usually think of fortune telling and divination. Since civilization, there have been different kinds of divination in every culture. In "Zhong Ge Ge", yarrow is used for divination. Now astrologers predict clues through constellations, and divination is also very popular in our time.

Ancient science was underdeveloped, and people wanted to know the future and had to rely on fortune telling to predict it. Whether it is Taoism or the application of eight-character numerology, in addition to the gossip system, it is also necessary to combine the combination of five elements, branches and branches, and twenty-four solar terms. We can't see the relationship between eight diagrams and five elements, branches and twenty-four solar terms, but it is also an important basic system to support the application of eight diagrams in mathematics. If you want to use it flexibly, you can't just learn gossip.

Let's talk about the basic knowledge of the five elements, the main branches and the twenty-four solar terms. Although it is too simple for people with a certain foundation. But for beginners, they still need to remember and lay a solid foundation before they can be applied. These simple knowledge are essential for future applications.

five elements

Speaking of the five elements, we will blurt out the "five elements". The ancients said: "The sky descends the sun, the earth emerges the yin, and the five elements are born together." This shows that qi produces five elements.

When I was a child, the memory order of the five elements was "Jin Mu, Fire, Water and Earth". It is important to know the principle of "mutual generation and mutual resistance" of the five elements. It is not conducive to remembering the order of birth and gram between the five elements according to the memory order of "gold, wood, water, fire and earth".

Starting from wood, according to the memory of "wood, fire, earth, gold and water", it is natural to interpret each other.

Xiangsheng is a neighbor, born in turn, forming a cycle of "wood fire, fire soil, native gold, golden water and aquatic wood";

The pilgrims jumped a position and pointed to an interval position, forming a pilgrim cycle of "Mu, Tu, Ke Shui, Shui, Huo, Jin Ke Mu".

Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches

Heavenly stems and earthly branches, referred to as "dry branch". Ganzhi can be found in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which shows that Ganzhi culture is early, and it is said that it was created during the period of the Yellow Emperor.

The ancients used heavenly stems to record the day, and ten days is ten days, which is exactly ten heavenly stems, in turn: A, B, C, D, E, Ji, G, Xin, Ren and Gui.

There are twelve branches. The ancients marked the moon with land, and there were twelve months in a year. They also marked the time with land, so there were twelve hours. The earthly branches are: Zi, Ugly, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu and Hai.

Ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches are combined to make a cycle. * * * There are sixty combinations, and the least common multiple of ten and twelve is also sixty. Sixty combinations of stems and branches are what we usually call "sixty flowers". Year, month, day and hour can be repeated every sixty years.

The 24 Solar Terms

In ancient China, we divided the 24 solar terms according to the position of the earth around the sun in a year. However, in the past, people could only watch the sun from the earth, and what the naked eye saw was the movement of the sun in the sky for one year. This trajectory is what we often call the ecliptic.

People divide the ecliptic into 12 equal parts, a circle is 360 degrees, then each equal part is 30 degrees, named after the constellations, forming the twelve constellations, which is also the basis of astrology.

In ancient China, it was different from the division method. Every 15 is an equal part, and 24 equal parts correspond to the trajectory of the sun on the ecliptic. This is the twenty solar terms in China.

To remember the twenty-four solar terms, you need to recite twenty solar term song:

The spring rain shakes the spring and clears the valley, and the summer is full of mountains and summers.

Autumn dew, autumn frost, little snow in winter and cold in winter.

In short, the corresponding solar terms are: beginning of spring, Rain, Sting, Equinox, Qingming, Grain Rain;

In the second sentence, the corresponding solar terms are: long summer, small full, awn seed, summer solstice, small summer heat and great summer heat;

In the third sentence, the corresponding solar terms are: beginning of autumn, Chushu, Bailu, Autumnal Equinox, Cold Dew and Chufrost;

In the fourth sentence, the corresponding solar terms are: beginning of winter, light snow, heavy snow, winter solstice, slight cold and severe cold.

These short 28 words are catchy, reflecting the rise and fall of the temperature in a year and recording the cold coming and summer going. The ancients arranged agricultural production activities reasonably according to the twenty-four solar terms.

The ancients knew the mystery by looking at the stars. Through the 24 solar terms, they can understand the simple spirit of the ancients looking up at the stars. Observe the "bucket handle" position of the Big Dipper at night, with bucket handle facing east and spring in the world; Guide to barrel handle, it's summer in the world; Bucket handle refers to the west, and the world is autumn; The barrel handle refers to the north, and it is winter all over the world.

But the solar terms originated from the farming culture in China. Combined with the current Gregorian calendar, that is, the Gregorian calendar, there are four sentences to remember in the 24 th solar term song:

Six 21s in the first half of the year and eight 23s in the second half.

The dates of the two festivals each month are fixed, with a maximum difference of one or two days.

These four sentences mean that the solar terms in the first half of the year are on the 6th and 2nd1of each month in the Gregorian calendar, and the solar terms in the second half are on the 8th and 23rd of each month in the Gregorian calendar. The time of solar terms in the solar calendar is relatively fixed, and the difference between them is not more than one or two days.

Some people may ask, what is the use of remembering the five elements, the dry branches and the twenty-four solar terms? The foundation is not firm, and the ground shakes. This is the basic knowledge that people with zero foundation must recite. I will continue to sort it out in the future, so that interested readers can gradually master the law of combination. Easy learning is a step-by-step process, and it can't be done overnight. The process of learning Yi is also a process of continuous exploration, and the more you learn, the more endless you are. Mr. Nan said that the ancients often "sit in a small window and read the Book of Changes, and I wonder how long it has been since spring". As you dig deeper, you will gradually realize this feeling.

The above is related to reciting the formula of "Twelve Branches and Ten Branches", which is about heavenly stems and earthly branches's sharing. I read the five elements comparison table of heavenly stems and earthly branches, and hope it will help everyone!