Zodiac in the end is how to come, the origin of what?

1, as an ancient folk cultural phenomenon, about the origin of the Chinese zodiac, scholars through the ages have different opinions. --Some people believe that the Chinese zodiac and the Earth's branches of the same source, can be traced back to the prehistoric legend of the era, the "Records of the Grand Historian" contained in the Yellow Emperor "to build the age of life," "the big scratch for the first year" is a reflection of this type of statement, scholars believe that the origin of the Chinese zodiac here. Scholars believe that the jiazi here refers to the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac. --The scholars believe that the Chinese Zodiac first originated from the nomadic people in the north of China, he said in the "New Yu Congkao", "Covering the northern custom of the twelve hours of the first no matter what Zi U Cin, but the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit and so on, such as sub-division of chronological age, soak seeking to spread in China, and so it is not abrogated ear. " (See the Qing Dynasty - Zhao Yi "new Yu Congkao"). --Some scholars even hold the view that the Chinese zodiac was introduced to China from ancient Babylon, and Guo Moruo, a representative of this view, said in his study of the oracle bone characters - interpretation of the branches of the stem " Twelve Chinese zodiac signs in Babylon, Egypt, India have, but they are not very ancient, and no more than one hundred years after the Western Period. The Western Era after more than a hundred years. The intention of the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the Western countries, imitating the Babylonian twelve and formulated, and then spread around the person also." That the zodiac for the residents of the Middle East imitation of the Babylonian zodiac and the development of its introduction to China when the time, when the Han emperor through the western region. 2, the above views of the wisdom, but a large number of documentary evidence, the Chinese zodiac did originate in China, is the Chinese ancestors of animal worship, totem worship and early astronomy of the crystallization. On the record of the zodiac, the existing literature, to the "Poetry" for the earliest. Poetry - Xiaoya - auspicious day" in: "auspicious day gengwu, that is poor my horse" eight words, meaning gengwu auspicious day and hour is good, is a good day to jump out of the horse hunting, this is the noon and the horse corresponds to the example. Can be seen in the Spring and Autumn period, the Earth's branches and the twelve kinds of animal correspondence has been established and circulated. In 1975, the bamboo slips unearthed in No. 11 Tomb of Sleeping Tiger Land in Yunmeng County, Hubei Province, further proved that the twelve Chinese zodiac signs existed before and after the Spring and Autumn Period. The unearthed bamboo slips of "Rishu" A kind of a chapter titled "thieves", the content of which is to divine the appearance of thieves, which recorded: "Zi, the rat is also, thieves against the mouth of the Xishu, ...... ugly, the cow is also, thieves big nose and long neck, ...... C, the tiger also, the thief like, Xisu, face with black. D, rabbit also, the thief big face head. E, [original omission] the thief man, green and red color ...... has been, the worm is also, the thief long and black snake eyes. ...... not, the horse is also, the thief long beard ear. Shen, the ring is also, the thief of the round face ......" "day book" in the twelve zodiac signs recorded roughly similar to the current popular saying. According to evidence, sleeping tiger ground eleven tomb buried in the first emperor of Qin thirty years (217 BC), so the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac can be traced back to at least Qin before the Spring and Autumn period. Scholars believe that this is the earliest and more systematic record of the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac found in China to date. And today's popular zodiac statement is completely consistent with the records of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Wang Chong, Wang Chong, "on the balance of things" contained: "Yin, wood, and its birds, the tiger. Xu, earth, its bird, the dog also. ...... afternoon, the horse is also. Zi, rat, You, chicken. D, rabbit. ...... Oh, the boar. Un, sheep also. Ugly, oxen. ...... has, the snake also. Shen, monkey also." In the above text, the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac talked about eleven, only missing the Dragon. The book "speech poison chapter" said: "Chen for the dragon, has been the snake. Tatsu, has the position in the southeast." In this way, the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac will be all together, and with today's popular twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac is identical, which is indeed considered to be an ancient document on the Chinese zodiac of the earlier most complete records. To the North and South Dynasties, the Chinese Zodiac has been commonly used, the South Dynasty "South Qi Book - five elements of the Zhi" in the specific according to the year of birth of a person called belong to a certain animal records. The Southern Dynasty - Chen - poet Shen Jiong, had created a poem of twelve phases of the genus, which said: "Rat traces of dust cases, cattle and sheep down in the twilight. Tiger feeding sitting in the empty valley, rabbit moon to the window. The dragon sermon is far away from the verdant, snake willow near wandering. The horse orchid is far away from picking, the sheep negative began to plant in the spring. The monkey's chestnut is shy of fragrant fruits, and the chicken's anvil leads to a clear cup. The dog's nostalgia for the outside world, the pig's calabash." This poem is obviously written according to the order of the twelve earthly branches of the animals, indicating that the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac at that time have been very familiar to people. From the above documents, it is clear that the origin of Chinese zodiac culture is in China. The above documents have proved that as early as in the Spring and Autumn Period, there were records about the Chinese Zodiac ("The Book of Days" and "The Book of Songs"), indicating that the generation of the Chinese Zodiac and the matching of the Chinese Zodiac and the Earth's Branches were generated as early as before the Han Dynasty, and therefore it can be affirmed that the Chinese Zodiac is a kind of ancient culture generated in China's native land. 3. What is the origin of the Chinese zodiac? --Some scholars believe that the Chinese zodiac originated from the animal worship in the primitive era, and Mr. Zhang Binglun of the University of Science and Technology of China holds this view. He believes that in the primitive society, low productivity, knowledge of nature is extremely limited, and their own life is closely related to the animals to produce a sense of dependence (such as horses, sheep, cows, chickens, dogs, etc.), to jeopardize their own safety of the animals to produce a sense of fear (such as tigers, snakes), more than some of the human organs of the animals to produce a sense of reverence for the function of the animal (such as the dog's sense of smell, etc.), resulting in the creation of the cult of the animals. Twelve kinds of animals are people in the animal worship of the primitive beliefs produced under the influence of the animal calendar used to chronicle the year, the month of the animal calendar. Primitive people's animal worship is also manifested in the Nuo dance and other primitive dance, Nuo about the Zhou Dynasty around the time of the big Nuo ceremony in the protagonist is the square phase of the twelve gods and beasts. Drive Nuo dance selected twelve beasts, is the performance of primitive people on the animal reverence psychology. Nuo ceremony selected twelve beasts (or twelve gods) is to illuminate the twelve months of the year, in order to seek peace and security, to drive out the four sides of the epidemic ghosts, according to the twelve directions. The twelve directions of course involved in the care of the twelve branches, and then linked to the twelve signs of the Chinese Zodiac, in the exorcism ceremony in the twelve phases of the genus was assigned to the use of misfortune and good fortune. From this we can see that the twelve beasts, twelve zodiac signs are in the same lineage, they *** with the same source is the primitive animal worship. Mr. Liu Yao Han, an ethnologist, believes that the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac are related to the "twelve beasts" and the "October calendar" of the Yi people. The Yi ethnic group living in the Daliang Mountain area of Sichuan Province, there are twelve beasts of the calendar, they are twelve animals of the calendar, today is the day of the rat, tomorrow is the day of the ox, and so on three rounds of a month, counting thirty-six days, thirty-six days a month, a year will be ten months, which is later on the "October Calendar" method. Mr. Liu Yao Han believes that the October Calendar, which is based on the twelve phases of the solar calendar, was created in the Xia Yu era, (see Liu Yao Han's "Collection of Yi Social and Historical Research and Studies") and is related to the primitive totem worship, and that the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac were influenced by the October Calendar, and that the twelve animal calendars of the Yi people were developed into the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac later on. --Speaking of the origin of the Chinese Zodiac, it is necessary to link the Chinese Zodiac with the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. In recent times, the oldest surviving table of stem and branch in China unearthed in Yinxu, Anyang, shows that in the era of Yin and Shang, the stem and branch calendar was already skillful and self-contained. After that, the function of the stem and branch gradually diversified with the passage of time, and it acted as the mark of the time unit, which was enlarged on the one hand to be used for dating, and narrowed on the other hand to be used for dating (the twelve hours of the day). According to historical records and research, the Chinese Zodiac is following the creation of the "Dry Branches Chronology" appeared after the twelve animals are the twelve Earthly Branches of the one-to-one correspondence to the animals for the Earthly Branches sign. People born in which year will have which year's Earthly Branches are matched with the animals, and thus the twelve animals are used for the chronology of the year, the date, and the calculation of the phases of each person. It can be seen that the twelve Chinese zodiac signs are inseparable from the twelve Earthly Branches. For a long time, some scholars found that the ancient characters of the twelve branches implied the information of the Chinese zodiac, and they compared the twelve branches with the twelve ancient characters of the Chinese zodiac, and found that the twelve ancient glyphs of the twelve branches had some connections with the twelve animals. A closer look reveals that there are indeed similarities and differences. Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "Shuowen Jiezi", that is to say, "has" for the snake's hieroglyphic character, the same also "Hai", "boar". Recent people have also proved that the oracle bone inscriptions, gold inscriptions in the Chinese character and the Chinese zodiac characters have similarities, one would guess that the twelve branches is the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac hieroglyphic characters, due to the twelve branches of the Zi-Ug-Yin-Mao easy to remember mixed up, the folk will be used in place of the twelve kinds of animals to animals to borrow the symbols of the ordinal number, and the Earth's branches to match the symbols of the system of the chronicle. Although the above conjecture has a certain degree of credibility, but think about it can be judged, twelve branches can not be twelve animal pictograms, because it has been said that twelve branches in the Yin and Shang Dynasty has been skillfully used, and the Chinese zodiac is the Spring and Autumn period before the production of the two are not the same source. If the Earthly Branches were related to the Chinese Zodiac at the time of the creation of the characters, wouldn't the Chinese Zodiac have been created at the same time as the Earthly Branches? To sum up, the birth of the Chinese Zodiac later than the twelve Earthly Branches, but with the twelve Earthly Branches has an inseparable relationship, the Chinese Zodiac is the twelve Earthly Branches attached to the twelve, as for the twelve animals chosen as a substitute for the twelve Earthly Branches of the symbols, but also originated from the ancients of the animal worship mentality.