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Why are there no cats in the zodiac

The Chinese zodiac is also known as the zodiac, which is the twelve animals in China that match the year of birth with the twelve earthly branches. Twelve kinds of animals are very cute, but there are no cats in them. What’s going on? There are different opinions on the Internet.

First Explanation

The Jade Emperor wanted to select twelve species of animals to serve as the patron saints of the heavens, and to take turns on duty every year. So I took the opportunity of my birthday to let all the animals come to celebrate their birthdays, and the first twelve to report were the patron saints of heaven.

All the animals got up and rushed to heaven to attend the Jade Emperor’s birthday banquet after learning the news. The cat and the mouse are good friends, and the two of them are invited to ride on the back of the old ox. The old scalper was very diligent and rushed to the banquet very early.

The three of them were far ahead. In order to get the first place, the mouse pushed the cat off the back of the ox and fell to the mortal world when it was about to reach the heaven. In the end, the mouse won the first place, the old ox was the second place, and the cat was not in the zodiac. Since then, the cat and the mouse have not been in contact with each other.

Second Explanation

Many friends feel that the first explanation is just a legend and has no credibility. There is an explanation in history that cats were brought to China from ancient Egypt. When the Chinese people selected the zodiac signs, cats had not been introduced to China, so there were no cats in the zodiac signs.

Third Explanation

It is explained from the zoological classification. Because there is a tiger in the zodiac. Tigers belong to the cat family. Everyone calls tigers “big cats”, so the inclusion of tigers in the Chinese zodiac represents cats. At the same time, the tiger belongs to the king of beasts and is more representative. Therefore, the Year of the Tiger is also the “Year of the Big Cat”.

Fourth Explanation

In reality, the 12 zodiac signs and the 28 zodiac signs are closely related. It can be said that there are no cats in the 28 zodiac signs, so there are no cats in the 12 zodiac signs. The Chinese zodiac roughly originated in the late Warring States period (refer to Liu Xinfang’s “Origin and Cultural Attributes of the Zodiac”, “Central Plains Culture Research”, No. 4, 2013) The 12 zodiac signs are matched with the 12 Earthly Branches, and the earliest records in handed down documents are found in Wang Chong of the Eastern Han Dynasty “On Balance”.

“Lunheng·Materials” calls the Chinese zodiac “the birds of the twelve stars”, but lacks the dragon; however, “Lunheng·Yandu” also says “Chen is a dragon, and Si is a snake”, which together are about the twelve zodiac signs. Zodiac records.

Moreover, the “Birds of the Twelve Stars” recorded by Wang Chong is equipped with the principle of the mutual generation and mutual restraint of the five elements, indicating that the twelve zodiac signs already had a complete cultural connotation in the Eastern Han Dynasty. In the Jin Dynasty, Ge Hong recorded the zodiac in Baopuzi, and created it as a spell to avoid entering the mountains.

We can find earlier evidence in the unearthed documents. In 1975, the Qin bamboo slips “Book of the Day” were unearthed in the Sleeping Tiger Land in Yunmeng, Hubei, and one of them, “Pirates”, contained the saying “the son is the mouse”. The correspondence between the twelve Earthly Branches and the birds they belong to in this chapter is: Zimo, Ugly Ox, Yinhu, Maotu, Chen (unknown), Siworm, Wulu, Weima, Shenhuan, Youshui, Xulaoyang, Hai Bo.

The “Book of the Day” unearthed in Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu Province in 1986 also has similar records, but the birds of each branch are slightly different. In 1999, the bamboo slips unearthed from the Han tomb in Kongjiapo, Suizhou, Hubei Province, also have relevant records.

It can be seen from this that the zodiac should have originated in the late Warring States period, but it was not completely fixed in the Qin and Han Dynasties, and it gradually acquired a fixed order and connotation in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The cat was introduced in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and it was not popularized until the Tang Dynasty, and naturally it disappeared.