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The Order of the Zodiac

The zodiac was born in the atmosphere of animal worship and totem worship in ancient times. People only use animals to match the earthly branches with algebraic ordinal symbols. Because the zodiac is an ancient culture that originated in ancient times, people have lost the original intention of the arrangement due to the long time ago, and the legends and stories of today’s people are just an attachment to it, and can only rely on legends and imagination. There are roughly three explanations for the zodiac arrangement.

One is the arrangement of the zodiac in folklore stories. There is a folktale of the Han nationality: In the past, Emperor Xuanyuan wanted to choose twelve animals to serve as palace guards. The cat asked the mouse to sign up, but the mouse forgot, but the cat was not selected, and he and the mouse became enemies.

The elephant also came to participate in the competition, but the mouse got into the nose and drove it away. The rest of the animals were originally pushing the cow, but the mouse jumped on the back of the cow, and the pigs followed suit, so the mouse came first and the pork chop last. The tiger and the dragon refused to accept it, and were named the king of the mountain and the king of the sea, behind the rat and the ox.

The rabbit refused to accept it, and ran a race with the dragon, only to be in front of the dragon. The dog was unjust, and bit the rabbit in a fit of rage, for which he was punished in the penultimate place. Snakes, horses, sheep, monkeys, and chickens also competed and determined their positions one by one, and finally formed the order of rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, dog, and pig. . The legend is not a scientific explanation of the problem, but it embodies people’s desire to explain the choice of the zodiac.

The second is that ancient Chinese scholars explained the relationship between the earthly branches and the animals from the perspective of the twelve o’clock in the ancient day and night. The dark sky is full of chaos, and the rat comes out to move around in the middle of the night, biting the chaotic state between the heaven and the earth out of the gap, “the rat bites the sky to open”, so the child belongs to the rat. After the opening of the sky, the earth must be opened up.

“The earth is opened up by the ugliness.” The ox ploughing the fields should be the thing that opened the earth, so the ugliness belongs to the ox. Yin Shi is the time when a person is born, there is life and there is death, and there is no place for people to die than a tiger. Yin has the meaning of awe, so Yin belongs to a tiger.

Mao Shi is the image of the sunrise, the sun should be separated from the hexagram, and the separation hexagram is like fire, and the Yin Yao contained in it is the essence of the sun and the moon. Chen, the hexagram of March, is the season of dragons and rain. Chen naturally belongs to the dragon. Already, the hexagram of April, at this time, the spring grass is lush, it is a good day for the snake, like a fish getting water. In addition, it is already morning, and the snake is returning to the cave at this time, so it is already a snake.

At noon, in the afternoon, the yang qi reaches the extreme, and the yin qi is sprouting. Horses are animals that gallop and run with their hooves in the air, but they also step on the ground from time to time. Soaring in the sky is yang, stepping on the ground is yin, and horses leap between yin and yang, so they become the zodiac sign of noon.

Sheep, eat grass in the afternoon is the best time, it is easy to gain weight, this time is not the time, so it is not a sheep. In the late Shen Shi, it was the time when the monkeys in the Western Mountains sang, and the monkeys liked to stretch their arms and jump at this time, so the monkeys matched Shen. You are the time when the moon appears, the moon belongs to water and corresponds to the Kan hexagram.

The Kan hexagram has the upper and lower yin lines, and the middle yang line represents the essence of the sun and the golden crow. Therefore, Unity is a chicken. When night falls, it is the time of Xu.

The dog is the domestic animal of the night watch, so it becomes a dog with it. Then the time of Hai arrives, and the heaven and earth are immersed in a state of chaos again, like a fruit wrapped in a pit, and the night of Hai is covered with all things in the world. Pigs are chaotic creatures that only know to eat, so pigs become the zodiac sign of Hai. Zhu Xi, a famous Confucianist in the Song Dynasty, held this view.

Third, according to the concept of Chinese people’s belief in yin and yang, twelve kinds of animals are divided into two categories: yin and yang. Animals generally have the same number of toes on the front, back, left and right, while the rat has four front feet and five rear feet, odd and even. , five toes (odd); rabbits, four toes (even); dragons, five toes (odd); snakes, no toes (even); horses, one toe (odd); sheep, four toes (even); monkeys, Five toes (odd); chickens, four toes (even); dogs, five toes (odd); pigs, four toes (even).

The person who held this statement was Hong Xun of the Song Dynasty, and Lang Ying, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, classified it on the basis of it. number of toes. The front of the rat has four claws, the even numbers are yin, the hind feet have five claws, and the odd numbers are yang.

The first half of Zi Shi is the yin of last night, and the second half is the yang of today. The rat is used to symbolize Zi. The trotters of cattle, sheep, and pigs are divided into four claws, the four claws of the chicken, the lack of lips and four claws of the rabbit, and the division of the tongue of snakes.

A tiger has five claws, a monkey and a dog also have five claws, and a horse’s hoof is round and not divided. All six are odd-numbered, and they belong to Yang. Together with the rat, which belongs to Yang, they occupy the other six terrestrial branches. Lang Ying’s classification method is based on Hong Xun’s classification method, and the two are similar.

The above three explanations explain the arrangement of the zodiac from different angles. The folk legends and stories about the arrangement of the zodiac animals are very rich. The circulation of these legends and stories enriches the content of the zodiac on the one hand, and promotes the inheritance and development of the zodiac culture on the other hand. .

The twelve zodiac animals are divided into two categories, yin and yang, and they are incorporated into the concept of Chinese people’s belief in the five elements. cultural phenomenon.