Chapter 35 Section 3 Application of the Zodiac in the Calendar

It is indeed more convenient to record the year, month, day, and hour with twelve branches, but it is not easy to remember, especially for illiterate people, so the method of recording the year, month, day, and hour with ordinal numbers came into being.It is convenient to record the year, month, and day in ordinal numbers, but there is a starting point problem.In ancient times, the calendars of various ethnic groups and regions were not unified, and if they were not unified, misunderstandings would occur and communication with each other would be impossible.People have re-aware of the superiority of using the twelve branches to record the year, month, and day.In order to overcome the inconvenience of memorizing the stems and branches, people created 12 animals to replace the twelve earthly branches: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig, and they are related to the twelve earthly branches. Fixed corresponding relationship, which is not easy to be confused.Because these 12 common animals have real feelings and are easy to be remembered and accepted by the general public, they quickly spread in society and spread among various ethnic groups in Asia, and they are still popular today.

The origin of the Chinese zodiac is still a mystery.Foreign records about the Chinese zodiac are relatively late, so it should have originated in China.In the "Lunheng" written by Wang Chong of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the corresponding relationship between the twelve zodiac signs and the twelve earthly branches was systematically recorded. Therefore, the twelve zodiac signs must have been popular before the Western Han Dynasty.In recent years, records of the twelve zodiac signs have been unearthed from Yunmeng and Qin Bamboo Slips. Except for a few differences, most of them are the same as today. Perhaps the origin and evolution process of the twelve zodiac signs can be found here.

How the order of the twelve zodiac signs is finalized, and how the corresponding relationship between it and the twelve earthly branches is determined, are not clearly recorded in ancient documents.The story of the so-called race between the cow and the mouse that has been circulated among the people is not very credible.These relationships may have developed gradually. Famous sentences in classic literature, for example, "Dragon Tai Fu Chen" in "Poetry Xiaoya", "Zuo Zhuan Five Years of Duke Xi", "Auspicious day Gengwu, I sent my horse", etc., Both may be the cause of the corresponding relationship between the twelve zodiac signs and the twelve earthly branches, which is related to the question of who produced the two first; animals and domestic animals with similar physical characteristics or often together, such as dragons and snakes, horses and Sheep, chickens, dogs, pigs, etc., are naturally arranged together; the relationship between the five elements' victories and restraints should also be a factor to be considered.In addition, if the tiger is matched with the Yin, it is probably related to the tiger worship of the Di and Qiang people in the Western Qiang. They regard the tiger month as the first month, and regard the tiger as the noble and big, so they regard the tiger month as the first month.In short, the formation of the order of the twelve zodiac signs involves many factors.