What does the zodiac represent?

The Chinese zodiac is made up of eleven kinds of animals from nature, namely rats, cows, tigers, rabbits, snakes, horses, sheep, monkeys, chickens, dogs, pigs and legendary dragons. It is used to record the year, and it is arranged in the order of rats, ugly cows, yinhu, maotu, dragon, snake, afternoon horse, sheep, monkey, and unitary chicken.

For a long time, many people regard Lun Heng, a famous work by Wang Chong, a materialist thinker in the Eastern Han Dynasty, as the earliest document that records the zodiac. "On the balance of things" contains: "Yin, wood, its birds, tigers. The soil, its birds and dogs are also. ..... At noon, the horse also. Son, mouse also. Unitary, chicken also. Mao, rabbit also. ..... Hai, tapir also. No, the sheep also. Ugly, cattle also. ..... Third, the snake also. Shen, monkey also. " There are only eleven Chinese zodiac signs in the above quotation, and the missing one is the dragon. The book "Poisonous Words" also said: "Chen is a dragon, Si is a snake, and Chen and Si are in the southeast. In this way, the zodiac is complete.

Zhou Li Chun Guan Feng Xiangshi says: "The palm of your hand is two years old, the palm of your hand is February, the palm of your hand is two days old, the palm of your hand is ten days old, the palm of your hand is ten days old, and the palm of your hand is twenty-eight stars." The division of time is progressive with twelve years, twelve months a year and twelve o'clock a day.

"Mandarin Jin Yu Si" contains: "There are twenty-five sons of the Yellow Emperor, and fourteen of them have surnames, which are twelve surnames." Even the sons of heaven's wives and concubines are called "twelve women".

Biography of Xun Shuang in the Later Han Dynasty: "Therefore, the son of heaven married twelve women, and the number of days is also; There is an equal difference below the princes, and things have fallen. "

In recent years, the creation epic "Dark Biography" of the Han nationality was discovered in Shennongjia area, in which there is a story about the origin of Ganzhi: "At the beginning of creation, Xuan Huang rode chaos beast and met Nu Wa. There are two meat buns around Nu Wa. There are ten men in the big one and twelve women in the small one. Xuan Huang said:' This is the heavenly dry revolution to support the gods to govern Gankun.' So, they were named respectively, matched with husband and wife, and became yin and yang. Men are collectively called heavenly stems, while women are earthly branches. "This creation myth story tells the story of the dry branch, the mysterious god, the God of Nu Wa, and the Yin and Yang of the dry Kun, which goes back to the" life experience "of the dry branch for a long time.

in ancient times, heaven has always been dominant and earth has always been subordinate. Ten heavenly stems are also called ten mothers, and the corresponding twelve earthly branches are called twelve sons. Cai Yong's "The Moon Order" in the Han Dynasty: "The love of the five elements is greatly adopted, which accounts for the construction of the fighting program, so it is the first time that A and B are famous for their days, which is called dry; Making a child ugly by the name of the moon is called a branch. The branches and branches are matched to become sixty years old. " Da Rao was a minister in the era of the Yellow Emperor, and the match here was sixty years, that is, sixty jiazi, taking the least common multiple of ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches. The trunk and branch are matched in sequence, from Jiazi to Ugly ... until Guihai is the 6th pair, which happens to be the last one for both trunk and branch, and then defecation begins again with Jiazi. This cycle is called Jiazi. Among them, each aerial stem appears six times and each aerial branch appears five times.

The birth of the zodiac has an astronomical background. In primitive times, our ancestors experienced the cycle of alternating cold and summer.

In Song Dynasty, Hong Hao's "The Story of the Song and Mo Dynasties" said: "Nuzhen is old and extremely small, which is beyond the reach of the new moon, and its people don't know the date. When asked, they say,' How many times have I seen the grass?' Gai takes the grass as one year old."

In the Song Dynasty, Meng Gong wrote in the Record of the Monk Tartars: "Every grass is one year old. When someone asks about its age, they say how many grasses it is."

Later, another sky watcher found that the moon's cycle can be used to measure the length of years, and found that twelve full moons are one year old. This discovery is one of the most accurate achievements in the early calendar, and "twelve" is regarded as "the number of days" that conveys God's will. The sky is dry and the earth needs support, the sun and the moon are opposite, and the world is opposite, which is the "Twelve". A rat and an ugly cow ... a dog and a pig. There are many animals in the world. Why did the ancients choose these twelve animals as their zodiac signs?

In the Qing Dynasty, Liu Xian quoted Li Changqing's Song Xia Guan Yu Yan from Guangyang Miscellaneous Notes:

"Why is Zi a mouse?" Yue: the sky is born in the child, and if it is not consumed, it will not open. Rats consume insects. So the night is not yet central, and the positive mouse has to wait, so the child belongs to the mouse.

the earth is ugly, but the cow is also the thing that opens the earth, so ugliness belongs to the cow.

if you are born in Yin, if you are alive, you will be killed. The murderer, the tiger, the yin, the fear. If you are awesome, you are a tiger, so Yin is a tiger.

the offender, the sunrise. Japan is isolated from the body and contains the essence of Taiyin Jade Rabbit, so it is a rabbit.

Chen, the divination of March, is the time when dragons are raining, so Chen belongs to dragons.

The divination of April is the last sign, when the grass is lush, and the snake is in its place. Also, when the snake was not on the road, it was a snake.

at noon, the anode and the yin are just born. Horses are healthy and never leave the ground, and they are also yin, so they belong to horses in the afternoon.

a sheep does not belong to a sheep because it grows on untimely grass.

At the time of applying, the apes crow at sunset, and their arms are stretched out, which is a metaphor for the luck. If chaos is rampant, it is a monkey.

when the moon rises, it is a chicken because it contains the essence of a golden rooster.

When it comes to Hai, pigs know nothing except their diet, so Hai belongs to pigs. "

another way of saying it, the selection and arrangement of the zodiac is determined according to the daily activity time of animals.

at least since the Han dynasty, China has divided a day and night into twelve hours according to the time when the sun rises, and recorded these twelve hours (large hours) by the method of twelve earthly branches, each hour is equivalent to two hours, so that a day and night is now called twenty-four hours.

It is midnight from 11: pm to 1: am, when mice are most active.

from 1: to 3: in the morning, it was ugly, and the cow was ruminating. It is said that it is also the time when cows begin to plow.

from 3: to 5: , it's Yinshi, when tigers wander around for food, which is the fiercest.

It's time to commit crimes from five o'clock to seven o'clock. At this time, the sun has not yet risen and the moon is still hanging in the sky. At this time, Yutu is busy making medicine. Rabbits on earth also began to come out for food.

from 7: am to 9: am, it's morning, which is a good time for the dragon to rain.

from 9: to 11: , it's the fourth hour, and the snake begins to be active.

from 11: a.m. to 1: p.m., the sun is in full swing, and it's noon, which is the time to be unconstrained.

from 1: pm to 3: pm, it's untimely. When sheep eat grass, they will grow stronger.

from 3: pm to 5: pm, the monkeys are active.

from five o'clock to seven o'clock, it is unitary, and the night falls.