Which twelve animals are the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac

1, the origin of the Chinese zodiac

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 origin of the Chinese zodiac and the Earth's branches can be traced back to the prehistoric era of legends, the "Records of the Grand Historian" contained in the Yellow Emperor "to build the Azi to order the year", "the big scratch for the Azi" is a reflection of this type of statement, scholars believe that the Azi referred to here refers to the twelve Chinese zodiac signs. Qing Dynasty scholar Zhao Yi that the Chinese zodiac originated in the north of China's first nomadic people, he said in the "new Yu Jungkao", "cover the northern custom of the twelve hours of the first no matter Zi U Cin, but the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit and so on subdivided into chronological age, soak search circulated in China, then not abolished." (See the Qing Dynasty - Zhao Yi, the nomadic people in the north of China, he said in "the new Yu Jungkao"). (see qing - zhao yi "new yu jung kao"). Some scholars even hold the view that the zodiac outside, that the twelve signs of the zodiac is from ancient Babylon into China, hold this view on behalf of Guo Moruo, he said in the "Oracle Bone Character Study - interpretation of the branch of the stem", "twelve signs of the zodiac in Babylon, Egypt, India have, but are not very ancient, no out of the Western Era after the hundred years above the person. The meaning of this is the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the Western countries, imitating the Babylonian twelve and the development of the Palace, and then spread to the surrounding also ." That the Chinese zodiac for the Middle East residents imitated the Babylonian zodiac and the development of its introduction to China when the time, when the Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty through the Western Regions. The above views are all opinionated, the author does not dare to judge right and wrong subjectively, but through a large number of documents to prove that the Chinese zodiac did originate in China, is the Chinese ancestors animal worship, totem worship and the crystallization of the early astronomy.

On the record of the Chinese zodiac, the existing literature to the "Classic of 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 animal correspondences have 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. Unearthed bamboo slips of the "Day Book" A kind of a chapter entitled "thieves", the content of which for the divination of the thief's appearance, which recorded: "Zi, the rat is also, the thief against the mouth of the Xisu, ...... ugly, the cow is also, the thief big nose and long neck, ...... C, the tiger also, the thief like, Xisu , face with black. D, the rabbit, the thief's big face head. E, [original omission] thief man, green and red color ...... has been, the worm is also , the thief long and black snake eyes. The first is a deer, and the second is a deer with a long neck and a small neck. ...... not, the horse also, the thief long beard ear. Shen, the ring is also, the thief round face ......"

"Day book" in the twelve signs of the zodiac is largely similar to the current popular saying. According to evidence, Sleeping Tiger Land Tomb No. 11 was buried in the 30th year of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (217 BC), so the creation of the twelve Chinese zodiac signs can be traced back to at least the Spring and Autumn period before Qin. Scholars believe that this is the earliest and more systematic record of the twelve signs of the 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, its bird, the tiger. The 11th, the earth, its birds, dogs also. ...... afternoon, the horse also. Zi, the rat is also, You, the chicken is also. D, rabbit. ...... Oh, the boar. Un, sheep also. Ugly, oxen. ...... has, the snake also. Shen, the monkey also."

In the above text, eleven of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac are talked about, only the cinnabar dragon is missing. The book, "Words of Poison," says:

"Chen is the dragon, has been the snake. The position of chen and already is in the southeast."

So, 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 poet Shen Jiong, a member of the Chen Dynasty, wrote a poem on the twelve phases of the Chinese zodiac, which reads:

"The rat's footprints are born in dusty cases, and oxen and sheep come down in the twilight of the year.

The tiger feeds on the empty valley, and the rabbit moon opens to the window.

The dragon is far away from the green hills, the snake is close to the willow wandering.

The horse's orchid is far away, and the sheep's negative is planted in spring.

The monkey's chestnut is a shame, and the chicken's anvil leads to a clear cup.

The dog's heart is in the right place, and the pig's eyes are in the wrong place."

This poem of the twelve phases of the Chinese zodiac was obviously written in the order of the animals associated with the twelve earthly branches, indicating that the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac were already very familiar to the people at that time.

From the above documents, it is clear that the origin of Chinese zodiac culture is in China. According to the viewpoint of Zodiac, Zodiac was introduced into China from the Middle East in Han Dynasty, about the same time as the introduction of Buddhism, and we have proved from the above documents that as early as in Spring and Autumn Period, there were records about Zodiac in China ("Rishu", "Poetry"), which indicates that the generation of Zodiac and the matching of Zodiac and Earthly Branches were generated as early as before Han Dynasty, and therefore it can be affirmed that the Zodiac is an ancient culture which was generated in the local area of our country. So what is the origin of the Chinese zodiac? Why did the ancients choose these twelve animals? This issue has always been the concern of scholars, made a variety of explanations.

Part of the scholars believe that the origin of the Chinese zodiac in the primitive era of animal worship, the University of Science and Technology of China, Mr. Zhang Binglun held this view. He believes that in primitive society, low productivity, knowledge of nature is extremely limited, and their own lives are closely related to the animals produce a sense of dependence (such as horses, goats, 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 animal function to produce a sense of veneration (such as the dog's sense of smell, etc.), resulting in the production of the cult of the animals. Twelve animal zodiac is the 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 around the Zhou Dynasty, Nuo ceremony in the protagonist is the square phase of the twelve 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, the twelve phases of the exorcism ceremony in the twelve genus was sent to meet the bad luck of the field. From this we can see the twelve beasts, twelve zodiac signs is a lineage, they *** with the same source is the primitive animal worship.

Mr. Liu Yao Han, an ethnographer, 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, 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 the "October Calendar" method. Mr. Liu Yaohan believes that the October calendar, with its twelve phases, was created in the Xia Yu era (see Liu Yaohan's collection of research on the social history of the Yi ethnic group), and was related to primitive totem worship, and that the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac were affected by the October calendar, and that the twelve animal calendars of the Yi ethnic group were developed into the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac later on.

Speaking of the origins 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 stem and branch table in China unearthed in Yinxu, Anyang, shows that in the Yinshang era, the stem and branch of the solar calendar has been skillful and comfortable. 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 to prove that the Chinese Zodiac is following the "dry branch chronology" was created after the emergence of the twelve animals is the twelve Earthly Branches of the one-to-one correspondence to the animals for the Earth's branch symbols. 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 each person's phases. 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 has "Ohio", "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 already 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?

Summary of the above, I believe that 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 of the attachment to the twelve animals as a replacement for the twelve Earthly Branches of the symbols, but also originated from the ancient animal worship mentality.

2. Selection and Arrangement of the Chinese Zodiac

The selection of the twelve animals in the Chinese Zodiac is not complicated, and it can be guessed that it is close to the daily life and social life of the Han Chinese. Among the twelve animals in the Chinese Zodiac, they can be roughly divided into three categories: one is the domesticated "Six Animals", i.e. cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, dogs and chickens, which are domesticated by human beings for economic or other purposes, and account for half of the twelve animals. The "six animals" is an important concept in Chinese agricultural culture, with a long history, and in the traditional concept of the Chinese people, "six prosperous animals" represents a prosperous and auspicious family. During the Spring Festival, people usually mention "prosperity of the six animals", so it is inevitable that these six animals become the Chinese zodiac. The second category is the wildlife in the people are familiar with, and people's daily, social life has a close relationship with the animals, they are tiger, rabbit, monkey, rat, snake, which are feared by the people to intervene in human life, such as tigers, snakes; there are also for the people are disgusted by, taboo, but dependent on human survival of the rodents; and there are people love, such as rabbits, monkeys. The third category is the Chinese traditional symbolic mascot - the dragon, the dragon is the symbol of the Chinese nation, is a set of many animal characteristics in one of the "man-made objects", is the people's imagination, "spirit! "The dragon is a symbol of the Chinese nation. The dragon represents the wealth and good fortune, is the most symbolic color of the auspicious animals, so the Chinese zodiac more less dragon's position.

From the above, we can see that the choice of animals in the Chinese Zodiac is not arbitrary, but has a certain meaning, people choose animals are out of different perspectives, and with a certain meaning.

So what is the order of these twelve animals? As I said earlier, the Chinese Zodiac was born in the ancient animal worship, totem worship atmosphere, people only use the animals to borrow the ordinal symbols with the Earth's branches, why choose the twelve animals, who is first and who is second, in accordance with what kind of order and there is no conclusive evidence, because the Chinese Zodiac is produced in the ancient ancient culture, because of the long time people have been arranged to the original intention of the loss of the present day people's legends, stories and so on, but only to its attachment, and can only rely on legend and imagination. The legends and stories of today's people are just an adaptation of it, which can only be relied on legends and imagination. On the issue of the arrangement of the Chinese Zodiac, there are three aspects of the following explanation.

One is the arrangement of the Chinese zodiac in folklore stories. Han folk tale that: when Emperor Xuanyuan wanted to choose twelve animals as the palace guards, the cat entrusted the mouse to enroll, the mouse to forget, the results of the cat was not selected, and from then on with the mouse to make enemies. Elephants also came to participate in the race, was a mouse into the nose, to drive away, the rest of the animals, originally pushed the cow as the first, but the mouse scurried to the back of the cow, the pig also followed the coaxing, so the mouse ranked the first, the pig ranked last. The tiger and the dragon did not obey, was named king of the mountain and the king of the sea, ranked behind the rat and the ox. The rabbit, again not satisfied, raced with the dragon and ended up in front of the dragon. The dog, again not satisfied, bit the rabbit in a fit of pique, and was penalized for this by being placed in the penultimate position. Snake, horse, goat, monkey, chicken also after a fight, one by one, the position of the ranking, and finally formed the order of the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, chicken, dog, pig. Although the legend is not a scientific explanation of the problem , but it reflects the desire to explain the choice of the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac.

The second is that the ancient Chinese scholars from the perspective of the ancient day and night twelve hours to explain the relationship between the earth's branches and Xiao beasts. Black sky and earth, chaos, the rat, nearly half past midnight when out of the activities of the chaotic state of heaven and earth to bite out of the gap, "the rat bites the sky open", so the son of the rat. After the heavens opened up, the earth was opened up, and the ox plowed the fields, which was the thing that opened up the earth, so the ox belonged to the ugly. C is the time of birth, there must be life and death, put people to death than a tiger, c, and the meaning of fear, so c is a tiger. D time, for the sunrise, the sun should be away from the trigrams, away from the trigrams like fire, contained within the yin lines for the sun that is the essence of the moon Jade Rabbit, so that the d will be a rabbit. Cinnabar, the trigrams of March, when the group is at the time of the dragon line rain. Chen naturally belongs to the dragon. Has , April's trigrams, worth this time, spring grass, is a good day for snakes, such as fish in the water. In addition, has time for the morning, this time the snake is returning to the hole, therefore, has belonged to the snake. Afternoon, when the afternoon, Yang Qi reached the extreme, Yin Qi is sprouting. Horse this animal, gallop running, four hooves in the air, but also from time to time on the ground. Prancing for the Yang, the ground for the Yin, the horse in the yin and yang leaping between, so became the afternoon of the genus. Sheep, after the afternoon to eat grass for the best time, easy to fat, this time is not time, so not belong to sheep. After not Shen time, is the sun near the west mountain apes and monkeys cry of the hour, and monkeys like to stretch their arms at this time to jump, so the monkey with the Shen. You for the moon appeared at the time, the moon is water, should be Kan Gua. Kan Gua, its upper and lower yin lines, and the center of the yang lines on behalf of the sun, the essence of the Golden Crow. Therefore, You is the Rooster. When night falls, it is the eleventh hour. The dog is the domestic animal that keeps watch at night, and it is also associated with the Hundred Days of the Dog. Then came the Hai Shi, and heaven and earth were again immersed in a state of chaos, like a fruit wrapped in a kernel, the Hai Shi night covered all things in the world. Pigs are chaotic creatures that only know how to eat, so pigs became the genus of Ohio. Zhu Xi, a famous rationalist of the Song Dynasty, held this view.

Third, according to the Chinese people believe that the concept of yin and yang, the twelve animals are divided into yin and yang two categories, the animal's yin and yang is according to the animal's toes of the parity of the ranking. Animals before and after the number of toes is generally the same, and the rat alone is the front foot four, five feet after the parity of the same body, things are rare, of course, ranked first, followed by cattle, four toes (even); tiger, five toes (odd); rabbit, four toes (even); dragon, five toes (odd); snake, no toes (the same even); horse, a toe (odd); goat, four toes (even); monkeys, five toes (odd); chicken, four toes (even); dog, five toes (odd); pig, four toes (even); pig, four toes (even); dog, five toes (odd); pig, four toes (odd); pig, four toes (even); dog, five toes (odd); pig, four toes (odd); pig, four toes (odd); pig, four toes (odd); pig, five toes (odd); pig, five toes (odd); pig, five toes (odd); pig, five toes (odd). Pig, four toes (even). Holding this view is the Song Hong Xun, the Ming dynasty scholar Lang Ying on the basis of its categorization, in his "seven repair class draft - twelve zodiac signs" proposed that "the Earth's branches in the next", so don't yin and yang when to look at the number of toes. Mouse is four paws in front, even number for Yin, back foot five paws, odd number for Yang. The first half of the first half of last night's yin, the second half of today's yang, just use the rat to symbolize the son. Cow, sheep, pig's hooves, chicken four paws, plus rabbit lack of lips and four paws, snake tongue points, six of them should be even, Yin, accounting for the six branches of the earth. Tiger five-clawed, monkey, dog also five-clawed, horse hooves round and not divided, six are odd, belonging to the Yang, together with the Yang rat, accounting for the other six branches of the earth. Lang Ying's categorization method is borrowed from Hong Xun's classification method, and the two are similar.

The above three explanations are from different perspectives to explain the arrangement of the Chinese zodiac, folk legends about the arrangement of the animals of the Chinese zodiac are very rich in stories, the circulation of these legends on the one hand enriches the content of the Chinese zodiac, on the other hand, promotes the inheritance and development of the culture of the Chinese zodiac. The purpose of classifying the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac into two categories of yin and yang and incorporating them into the concept of Chinese belief in the five elements is to link the phases of the genus with the rituals of life, and to correspond yin and yang and the five elements with the Chinese zodiac, so as to explain other related cultural phenomena of life.

3. Chinese Zodiac Beliefs

The Chinese Zodiac was originally a set of symbols used for dating, which was a part of the ancient astronomical calendar, and later became the universally recognized Zodiac calendar. Ancient Chinese philosophical view is "the unity of man and heaven", "yin and yang, five elements for the universe", that the yin and yang, five elements determine the survival and development of all things in the world, they believe that the sun and the moon is the source of yin and yang, gold, wood, water, fire, earth five elements is the basis of all things, together as the seven Yao〖ZW(〗Sun and Moon are the source of yin and yang, the five elements are the basis of all things. ZW(〗Sun, moon, star called Yao, sun, moon, gold, wood, water, fire, earth five stars known as the seven Yao, the old days were used to say that the seven days of a week, the day of the Yao day is Sunday, the month of the Yao day is Monday, the rest of the order of analogy. Ruling everything, and the twelve signs of the zodiac are placed in the sky, in order to record the twelve hours, to the seven Yao unified, so the twelve signs of the zodiac will be the concept of yin and yang five elements of the concept of impregnation, and become a part of the folk religious beliefs.

Since the concept of the Chinese zodiac appeared in folklore, it has been passed down in folklore along with the prevalence of fortune-telling, which is a folk superstition that each element of the five elements is subject to each other, and can have a significant impact on a person's life. People can utilize different elements of the five elements to coordinate and make their lives and work as they wish. Folk put the Chinese zodiac animals into the yin and yang categories, and the five elements correspond to each other, thus generating a set of Chinese zodiac to determine the fate of the fortune-telling techniques. At the same time, the folk also believe that the Chinese zodiac signs and human character also has a certain relationship, even if the same person, due to the birth of a different hour, character, fate will also be different.