Zodiac Album
In the Chinese divine beast system, the twelve Xiao beasts are the most intimate with people. Rats, cattle, tigers, rabbits, dragons, poisonous snakes, galloping horses, goats, monkeys, native chickens, grass dogs and fat pigs became the representatives of the animal kingdom, and together they rotated for twelve years, twelve months and twelve hours. They are a symbol of time and a symbol of man's friendship with animals and the natural world.
Let's take a look at how the zodiac signs in the hour rotate.
Sub-hour, that is, between 11:00 and 1:00 midnight, this time is late at night, the yin qi is the most vigorous, and it is also the time when the energy of the mouse is the highest and most active, so this time period belongs to the mouse.
Ugly time, that is, 1:00 to 3:00 a.m., is the most vigorous time for cattle to ruminate activity, so this time belongs to cattle; Yinshi, that is, 3:00 a.m., is the time when the tiger comes out to hunt; at midnight, 5:00 to 7:00 a.m., it is the time when the hare comes out of the hole to feed; the hour, that is, from 7:00 to 9:00 in the morning, is the time when the dragon wakes up and looks up; the time of the day, that is, from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., is the time when the snake is out to hunt; noon, 11:00 to 1:00 a.m., the time of day when the yang is at its strongest. It is also the moment when the horses gallop; above is the first half of the day.
Never began, that is, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., the day entered its second half, during which time the sheep reached the peak of grazing; at the time of Shen, that is, from 3 to 5 p.m., the monkeys began to churn up and down in the woods after a midday break and became extremely active; at the unitary hour, that is, from 5 to 7 o'clock at dusk, the chickens returned to the nest in groups, and when the time came, that is, from 7 to 9 p.m., the dogs began to become active and became very sensitive; at the hour of the hour, that is, from 9 to 11 o'clock in the evening, the pigs entered a wonderful state of sleep.
Bada Shanren "Rat Melon Diagram"
You see, the ordering of the zodiac beasts seems to be based on people's observations of animal habits. But this arrangement is actually quite far-fetched, such as the time when the chickens are on duty at dusk, but don't the roosters start chirping early in the morning? Isn't early morning the most active time for roosters? But everyone has long been accustomed to this kind of conventional ordering, anyway, as long as you put an animal name on the twelve hours, it is convenient for everyone to express and remember, this is enough.
Let's take a look at what types of animals there are, and join the team of zodiac beasts. The first is domestic animals, most closely related to humans, including pigs, sheep, cattle, horses, and chickens; the second belongs to wild animals, such as monkeys, snakes, tigers, and rats. Among them, the role of the mouse is more ambiguous, although it is wild, but like to parasitize in the farmer's home, by stealing food for a living, so it is called a house mouse, even if the hamster living in the granary, the field mouse living in the field, also depends on human food for a living, so in essence, it should be the mortal enemy of humans; the third type is a mythical animal, that is, the dragon. Among the zodiac beasts, the dragon has the highest status, but it is also the loneliest because it does not have a phoenix as a companion.
The question is, why do these twelve animals form the basic camp of the human zodiac beasts? Why didn't Chinese favorite auspicious beasts, such as phoenixes, unicorns, turtles, cats and lions, but instead appeared the snakes and rats that humans hated the most? No one can answer such a question. But I can answer you because they are not inventions of Chinese at all1.
Just like dumplings all over the world, the traces of zodiac beasts are all over the world. For example, Babylon, Egypt, and Greece all have twelve calendars, unlike China in that there are donkeys, crabs, cats, crocodiles, cranes, and eagles2; the French zodiac signs are the twelve constellations of the heavens, from January to December, including Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces, etc., of which in addition to bottles and libras, the others are animals; the Indian zodiac beasts are more recent than China, the only difference is that they are not only human zodiac signs, but also the mounts of the twelve great gods. People not only have to ask, since the zodiac beast phenomenon is all over the world, who is the real source of it? There is still a lot of controversy in academia. However, I personally prefer that its source should be in Mesopotamia 3.
The twelve Xiao beasts in Zhuhai's "Yuan ming new garden" are partial
Mesopotamia was the first civilization in the world to create astronomy due to the needs of astrology, which divided each year into twelve months with the lack of a full moon and a cycle, and established the zodiac of the sun. On the clay tablets of the Assyrian Empire in the first millennium BC, the name of the ancient Babylonian twelve months was inscribed.
For the first time in human history, the Mesopotamian civilization established the binary rules of space-time, and also established the corresponding system of twelve beasts. Because Sumer and Egypt did not have horses and donkeys were commonly used, and eagles and snakes were important mythological animals, they were put into this system.
How mesopotamia's decimal system spread to China is indeed a matter of great concern to everyone. Mesopotamian bronze casting techniques, horse-drawn chariots, and ecliptic observations, which had been transmitted to China through South and Central Asia as early as the Yin Shang period, should also have traces of the twelve beasts, but Chinese may have initially transformed it into a twelve-earth branch and became the basis of the lunar calendar, while Chinese also used a solar calendar, based on decimal and decatural stems. These two calendars were combined to form the Yin-Yang Calendar, as well as the Sixty Branches System.
In the fourth century BC, Alexander the Great destroyed Persia and attacked India, so that the knowledge of ancient Babylonian astronomy inherited by Greece poured into East Asia. The war also led to large-scale population movements, fueling a new wave of cultural diffusion. The revamped Zodiac said that it is estimated that it was at this time that it spread to China 4, and then from China to the Americas.
How did the Indians transform the twelve beasts from Mesopotamia? As far as I know, they added rats, and reaffirmed the importance of snakes, also rearranging their order5. Indians believe in snakes, believing that it is the embodiment of the great god Shiva, an important retinue of the great god Vishnu, and a symbol of sex and reproduction, Indians like to dance with snakes with flutes, and the seven-headed cobra is called the Dragon King.
Indians also believe in rats because they are the mounts of The Elephant Head, the son of Shiva, and not only that, but Indians also believe that when people die, they will reincarnate into rats, and then reincarnate from rats to humans, so those rats that roam in dark corners are likely to be their dead relatives. They built a "rat temple" to feed them, providing them with delicacies including milk, candy, and corn every day. It is for this reason that snakes and rats were put into the camp of the Zodiac beasts despite the opposition of their eastern neighbors. Not only that, but due to the preference of indians, rats were also placed at the top of the zodiac beasts.
Hindus built a rat temple and spent more than 100,000 rupees a month to feed rats
The 12 Zodiac Beasts, which were transformed by the Indians, and the 28-year system of India, were transmitted to China during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, bringing a new cosmology, life concept and science and technology to China in a state of opening up and change. At that time, Chinese underwent the first process of India and Persianization, and Persian Zoroastrianism, Indian Vedicism and Shamenism had already emerged in East Asia and had a profound impact on the formation of the Hundred Sons and Hundreds of Families.
But in that era, the zodiac beast had not yet been widely used in the folk. It was not until the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties that it was widely accepted and applied to daily life, and even turned it into a burial vessel, that is, the appearance of the beast head, placed in the tomb, used to town the house and avoid evil, protect the dead and the living, and the shape looks very exquisite and lovely.
Chinese have you transformed the Zodiac Beasts from outside the realm? I think it's basically accepted as it is. The only change was that there were no lions in the Central Plains, so it was replaced with the familiar Tiger 6 Chinese. Guo Moruo speculated in the article "ShiZhigan" that the Chinese zodiac sign originated from the Babylonian prototype 7 imported through the Western Regions and India.
But the ancient Chinese never gave up all foreign good things because of their narrow nationalist stance. They gleefully accepted this cultural gift from their western neighbors, abandoned their prejudices against snakes and rats, and turned it into the most beloved necklace of their lives, which they wear to this day.
concentrate:
1. See: Li Shuhui, "The Origin and Rheology of the Zodiac", Journal of Kashgar Normal University, No. 1, 1999.
2. The Babylonian zodiac signs are: ox, goat, lion, donkey, dung beetle, snake, dog, cat, crocodile, flamingo, ape, eagle; the Egyptian zodiac signs are: oy cow, goat, ape, donkey, crab, snake, dog, cat, crocodile, flamingo, lion, eagle; The Greek zodiac sign is: oyster, goat, ape, donkey, crab, snake, dog, rat, crocodile, flamingo, lion, eagle. The members of the three are basically the same.
3. The Complete Works of Guo Moruo, Volume I, Studies on Oracle Bone Scripts, Shi Zhigan, Jiu Yu, XII: "The Twelve Xiao Beasts First Appeared in Wang Chong's "On Balance"... This was not founded in Wang Chong, nor did it start in the Eastern Han Dynasty... The system of this beast is not limited to the East, But also in India, Babylon, Greece, and Egypt, and its system is not very ancient, and there is no one who is more than a hundred years after the Western Age. The kingdoms of the Western Regions were formulated in imitation of the Twelve Houses of Babylon, and then spread to the surroundings. ”
4. The earliest Chinese record of the Twelve Beast Calendars is found in the "Book of the Sun" in the "Sleeping Tiger Di Qin Jian" and "Fang Ma Tan Qin Jian" excavated in the 1970s, which shows that at least in the Warring States period, the concept system of "Zodiac" that matched the stem and branch already existed. Considering the extraterritorial cultural imports of the pre-Qin period, this may imply that the "Zodiac" has its more ancient cultural origins.
5. The Hindu zodiac signs are: Rat, Cow, Lion, Rabbit, Mahabharata (Python), Naga (Dragon), Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Garoulo (Goldenfinch), Dog, Pig.
6. When comparing the Chinese and Indian zodiac signs, Yi Hua pointed out that "there can only be one origin for such a striking similarity, either from India to China or from China to India", but he insists that the Chinese-Indian zodiac system is very different from the Babylonian-Egyptian zodiac system and has no inheritance relationship, see "Multi-ethnic Cultural Perspectives: The Twelve Beasts and the Calendar", in Encyclopedia of Knowledge, No. 08, 1994.
7. See The Complete Works of Guo Moruo, Volume I, Studies on Oracle Bone Scripts, Shizhigan, San, Twelve Chen, And Shu: "The Twelve Elephants are found in Babylon, Egypt, and India, but they are not very ancient, and it is suspected that those who are slightly behind the ancient peoples of Central Asia, such as the Moon's Kangju, imitate the meaning of the Zodiac, so they spread to all sides." When it entered China when Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty passed through the Western Regions, the alternating facts of Zi Wei proved the guiding monument of this historical fact, but since the Qin and Han Dynasties, the dry branches of ancient artifacts are rare, and there is no accurate theory of breaking the ear. ”
The pictures in this article are from the Internet
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