Zodiac animals
1. What is heavenly stems and earthly branches?
Everyone has heard of birthdays. Who can say the year, month, day and hour when a person was born? But many people may not know how birthdays came about. Speaking of which, it involves heavenly stems and earthly branches.
The simplified heavenly stems are "A, B, C, D, E, Ji, G, Xin, Ren and Gui" (well, passers-by A and cannon fodder B come from this ~ ~), which means that the five elements of the sky (weather) are "ethos, fire, humidity, dryness and cold"; The earthly branches are "Zi, Ugly, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu and Hai", which represent the five qi laws of the earth's movement and also correspond to the growth habits of 12 animals. In addition, the meaning of the two is still in the tree. You can know the running law of heaven and earth by looking at the length of the tree, so it is called trunk and branch, which is used to mark time, and is called "trunk and branch chronology".
Branches and life
Second, the relationship between the zodiac and the earthly branches
People divide a day into twelve hours, which are represented by twelve earthly branches. In order to facilitate memory, the twelve earthly branches were later associated with twelve kinds of animals, which is what we call the zodiac today. At the beginning of the day, qi begins to disappear and yang is born. This is when people fall asleep and mice start to move. The zodiac signs are sorted according to the living habits of these animals. For example, rats begin to haunt around eleven o'clock in the dead of night, tigers roar in the forest from three to five in the morning, and it is a good time to herd sheep from one to three in the afternoon.
Hu Xiao forest
Heavenly stems and earthly branches's Chronology of Branches and Branches was combined according to certain rules (Yang trunk with Yang branch, Yin trunk with Yin branch, being careful not to have Yang branch), which lasted for 60 years from Jiazi year to Guihai year. Then start from the beginning, cycle after cycle, cycle after cycle What zodiac signs do the branches in the trunk correspond to each year, and what animals are the attributes of that year? For example, 2022 is the year of boxer, and the attribute is mouse.
What about zodiac?
Third, the origin of the zodiac
Many people in China think that the zodiac is a tradition and unique to China, but it is not. Besides China, Japan, Thailand, Viet Nam, Japan and other Asian countries all have their own zodiac signs. Babylon, Egypt, Greece and even European countries all have their own zodiac signs, but they are different from China in specific animals, such as turning tigers into lions and chickens into golden-winged birds.
goldfinch
The origin of the Chinese zodiac in China has been debated in academic circles. For example, China and I both think that the zodiac originated from ourselves, and each has its own records. For example, the early myth "Apo Tiesha" records that the zodiac is the mount of God, while the relatively complete record in China is Wang Chong's "On Balance and Things" in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Whether the Zodiac originated in China or not, China scholar Nan believes that the Zodiac originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty and has the concept of astronomy.
nan huaijin
In addition, there are many documents in China that also record that the zodiac is foreign, such as:
1, in Guo Moruo's Shi Zhi Zhi Zhi Gan: "There was no name of Zhi Gan before the Eastern Han Dynasty. The ancients called ten dry days and twelve days. "
Guo Moruo's inscription
-It means that there was no heavenly stems and earthly branches date before the Eastern Han Dynasty, but it was later introduced from abroad. Of course, Guo Moruo thinks that the zodiac was originally transmitted from Babylon (a lot of textual research has been listed). In 7000~8000 years ago (the civilization of Babylon was earlier than that of China, which must be admitted), Babylon already had the saying of twelve officials.
The tiger on the wall of Babylon
2. It is recorded in the Book of the Tang Dynasty: "Tuoba Sinian takes twelve things as the standard. If the year is cloudy, it is called the year of the tiger. "
-The Kingdom of Chajiasi, that is, modern Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (belonging to the western regions of China in the Tang Dynasty), counts the years based on twelve kinds of animals.
3. In Yu Yu Congkao, Zhao Yi wrote in the Qing Dynasty: "At the beginning of the custom of covering the north, there was no such thing as the twelfth birthday of an ugly son, but rats, cows, tigers and rabbits were immersed in China in different years, and their ears were not wasted."
-This is also the reason why the chronology of animals gradually spread in China after the integration of the Central Plains and northwest ethnic minorities.
Animals and branches
Of course, the formation of the academic mainstream view of the chronology of the Chinese Zodiac is the result of the ancient economy, culture, life and integration of China, and to some extent, it is admitted that it did not originate from China (refer to the history of high school).
Fourth, cultural development and inheritance.
Because of the simple world outlook of the ancients, a lot of knowledge was directly summed up from the movement of the sun and the moon and the growth of all things, so it is not surprising that the laws of major ancient civilizations are similar. To paraphrase here, these simple laws are summed up. Today, when vegetables can be grown in space, there are still many modern people who believe in it, regard it as a standard, exhaust it on the grounds of "cannot be leaked" and "modern science can't explain it", and make no progress.
Vegetables grown in space
Back to the topic, where the zodiac originated is not the most important, but which one is more important to carry forward and pass on.
Our country is also constantly absorbing and integrating its traditional culture with other countries and ethnic minorities to create a more splendid culture. For example, the combination of heavenly stems and earthly branches and the Chinese Zodiac and China's thoughts of Gan Kun, five lines of gossip and hieroglyphics created a whole set of China culture, which has far-reaching influence and has been passed down to this day.
Artistic hieroglyphics of the zodiac
Maybe many friends don't accept the idea that the zodiac is abroad (in fact, I doubt it), and they can find many arguments. But these are not the most important. It is important to learn to look at problems with scientific thinking and dialectics. Whether it is created by others or by yourself, just like the development of modern science and technology, what can be used for oneself is the right way, "learning from foreigners to control foreigners"!
The above is about the symbols and attributes of the zodiac, and it is about the sharing of the zodiac. Read the attribute code of the zodiac table, I hope this will help everyone!