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The History of the Twelve Zodiac Signs

The History of the Twelve Zodiac Signs

The Chinese zodiac, also known as the zodiac, is the twelve animals in China that match the year of birth with the twelve earthly branches, including rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.

The origin of the zodiac is related to animal worship. According to Qin slips unearthed in Yunmeng Sleeping Tiger Land in Hubei Province and Fangma Beach in Tianshui, Gansu Province, it can be seen that a relatively complete zodiac system existed in the pre-Qin period. The earliest handed down document that records the same twelve zodiac signs as modern ones is Wang Chong’s “Lunheng” in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

In December 1975, two batches of Qin Dynasty bamboo slips were excavated in Yunmeng Sleeping Hudi, Hubei, which contained the content of “thieves”: “Zi, rat, thieves with sharp mouths, thin beards, … ugly, cattle, thieves Big nose and long neck, … Yin, tiger, thief-like, Xibeard, black face.

Mao, rabbit, thief’s big face. Chen, thief man, blue-red… Si, insect, The thief has long and black snake eyes. Wu, the deer, the thief has a long neck and a small body, and his body is incomplete…. Wei, the horse, the thief has long whiskers and ears. Shen, Huanye, the thief has a round face… You, water Also… Xu, Lao Yang also… Hai, hog also.”

The above is basically the same as the order of the modern zodiac, but Chen does not write the zodiac; Wu is for the deer; not for the horse; Xu is for the old sheep.

In April 1986, two kinds of bamboo slips, A and B, were unearthed from the Qin Dynasty tomb in Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu Province, and they were similar in age to Qin Slips in Sleeping Tiger Land.

There are also records of thieves on the bamboo slips of the A species: son, rat. Ugly, bull. Yin, a tiger. Mao, rabbits. Chen, worms. Si, snake. Noon, the horse is over. No, sheep. Shen, monkey. You, chicken. Xu, dog. Hey, hog.

Compared with modern times, the corresponding relationship between the zodiac and the earthly branch recorded in this record is exactly the same except for the “Chen worm Si chicken”.

“Book of Songs Xiaoya” contains “auspicious day Gengwu, that is, send me a horse”, reflecting the relative relationship between noon and horses. But scholars point out that Qin Jian’s noon corresponds to a deer rather than a horse, and the noon horse is just a coincidence.

The earliest complete record of the twelve zodiac signs is the same as today’s “Lunheng” written by Wang Chong of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

“Lunheng” Volume 3 “Material Status”: “Yin wood is also a bird and tiger; Xu soil is also a bird and dog; ugly is not soil, ugly birds and cattle are not birds and sheep. Therefore, dogs, cattle and sheep are served by tigers. Hai water is also their birds and hogs; Si fire is also birds and snakes; children are also water, and their birds and mice are also; The noon horse, the child rat, the rooster, and the rabbit. Water is better than fire, so why don’t rats chase horses?

Jin wins wood, why don’t chickens peck rabbits? Why not kill the hogs? The snakes are also the monkeys. Fire wins over gold, so why don’t snakes eat macaques?”

In the same book, Volume 23, “Words of Poison”, it says: “Chen is a dragon, Si is a snake, and Chen Si is located in the southeast. Dragons are poisonous, and snakes have stings, so the scorpion has fangs, and the dragon has reverse scales. Wood makes fire, and fire is poison. , so the beast of the blue dragon contains Mars. “It can be seen that the twelve zodiac signs in the Eastern Han Dynasty have all been finalized at the latest. In the Qing Dynasty, Liang Zhangtan also recounted the records of Lunheng in “Langji Cong Tan · Continued Talk”.

“Bei Shi Yuwen Huan Biography” records the letter from Zhou Yuwenhu’s mother in Qi: “In the past, brothers were born in Wuchuan Town, the older one is a rat, the second is a rabbit, and your body is a snake.” This is based on the zodiac sign. The year of birth is found in earlier records in official history.

Zodiac culture involves the relationship between man and himself, man and nature, man and man, man and society. fun, etc.