Mr. Liu Yao Han, an ethnographer, believes that the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac are related to the "Twelve Beasts" and the "October Calendar" of the Yi people. The Yi ethnic group living in the Daliang Mountain area of Sichuan Province, there are twelve beasts of the calendar, they are twelve animals, today is the day of the rat, tomorrow is the day of the ox, and so on three rounds of a month, counting thirty-six days, thirty-six days a month, a year will be ten months, which is later the "October Calendar" method. Mr. Liu Yaohan believes that the October Calendar, which is based on the twelve phases of the solar calendar, was created in the Xia Yu era (see Liu Yaohan's collection of research on the social history of the Yi people), and is related to the primitive totem worship, and that the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac were influenced by the October Calendar, and that the twelve animal calendars of the Yi people were developed into the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac.
Speaking of the origins of the Chinese zodiac, it is necessary to link the Chinese zodiac with the heavenly stems and earthly branches. In recent times, the oldest surviving stem and branch table in China unearthed in Yinxu, Anyang, shows that in the Yinshang era, the stem and branch of the solar calendar has been skillful and comfortable. After that, the function of the stem and branch gradually diversified with the passage of time, and it acted as the mark of the time unit, which was enlarged on the one hand to be used for the chronology, and narrowed on the other hand to be used for the chronology (twelve hours of the day). According to historical records and research to prove that the Chinese Zodiac is following the "dry branch chronology" was created after the emergence of the twelve animals is the twelve Earthly Branches of the one-to-one correspondence to the animals for the Earth's branch symbols. People born in which year will have which year's Earthly Branches are matched with the animals, and thus the twelve animals are used for the chronology of the year, the date, and the calculation of each person's phases. From this, we can see that the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac are inseparable from the twelve earthly branches. For a long time, some scholars found that the ancient characters of the twelve branches implied the information of the Chinese zodiac, and they compared the twelve branches with the twelve ancient characters of the Chinese zodiac, and found that the twelve ancient glyphs of the twelve branches had some connections with the twelve animals. A closer look reveals that there are indeed similarities and differences. Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "Shuowen Jiezi", that is to say, "has" for the snake's hieroglyphic character, the same has "Ohio", "boar". Recent people have also proved that the oracle bone inscriptions, gold inscriptions in the Chinese character and the Chinese zodiac characters have similarities, one would guess that the twelve branches is the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac hieroglyphic characters, due to the twelve branches of the Zi-Ug-Yin-Mao easy to remember mixed up, the folk will be used in place of the twelve kinds of animals to animals to borrow the symbols of the ordinal number, and the Earth's branches to match the symbols of the system of the chronicle. Although the above conjecture has a certain degree of credibility, but think about it can be judged, twelve branches can not be twelve animal pictograms, because it has already been said that twelve branches in the Yin and Shang Dynasty has been skillfully used, and the Chinese zodiac is the Spring and Autumn period before the production of the two are not the same source. If the earthly branches were related to the Chinese zodiac at the time of the creation of the characters, wouldn't the Chinese zodiac have been created at the same time as the earthly branches?
Summary of the above, I believe that the birth of the Chinese zodiac later than the twelve Earthly Branches, but with the twelve Earthly Branches has an inseparable relationship, the Chinese zodiac is the twelve Earthly Branches of the attachment to the twelve animals as a replacement for the twelve Earthly Branches of the symbols, but also originated from the ancient animal worship mentality.
2. Selection and Arrangement of the Chinese Zodiac
The selection of the twelve animals in the Chinese Zodiac is not complicated, and it can be guessed that it is close to the daily life and social life of the Han Chinese. The twelve animals in the Chinese Zodiac can be roughly divided into three categories: one is the domesticated "six animals", i.e., cows, goats, horses, pigs, dogs and chickens, which are domesticated by human beings for economic or other purposes, and account for half of the twelve animals. The "six animals" is an important concept in Chinese agricultural culture, with a long history, and in the traditional concept of the Chinese people, "six prosperous animals" represents a prosperous and auspicious family. During the Spring Festival, people usually mention "prosperity of the six animals", so it is inevitable that these six animals become the Chinese zodiac. The second category is the wildlife in the people are familiar with, and people's daily, social life has a close relationship with the animals, they are tiger, rabbit, monkey, rat, snake, which are feared by the people to intervene in human life, such as tigers, snakes; there are also for the people are disgusted by, taboo, but dependent on human survival of the rodents; and there are people love, such as rabbits, monkeys. The third category is the Chinese traditional symbolic mascot - the dragon, the dragon is the symbol of the Chinese nation, is a set of many animal characteristics in one of the "man-made objects", is the people's imagination, "spirit! "The dragon is a symbol of the Chinese nation. The dragon represents the wealth and good fortune, is the most symbolic color of the auspicious animals, so the Chinese zodiac more less dragon's position.
From the above, we can see that the choice of animals in the Chinese Zodiac is not arbitrary, but has a certain meaning, people choose animals are out of different perspectives, and with a certain meaning.
So what is the order of these twelve animals? As I said earlier, the Chinese Zodiac was born in the ancient animal worship, totem worship atmosphere, people only use the animals to borrow the ordinal symbols with the Earth's branches, why choose the twelve animals, who is first and who is second, in accordance with what kind of order and there is no conclusive evidence, because the Chinese Zodiac is produced in the ancient ancient culture, because of the long time people have been arranged to the original intention of the loss of the present day people's legends, stories and so on, but only to its attachment, and can only rely on legend and imagination. The legends and stories of today's people are just an adaptation of it, which can only be relied on legends and imagination. On the issue of the arrangement of the Chinese Zodiac, there are three aspects of the following explanation.
One is the arrangement of the Chinese zodiac in folklore stories. Han folk tale that: when Emperor Xuanyuan wanted to choose twelve animals as the palace guards, the cat entrusted the mouse to enroll, the mouse to forget, the results of the cat was not selected, and from then on with the mouse to make enemies. Elephants also came to participate in the race, was a mouse into the nose, to drive away, the rest of the animals, originally pushed the cow as the first, but the mouse scurried to the back of the cow, the pig also followed the coaxing, so the mouse ranked the first, the pig ranked last. The tiger and the dragon did not obey, was named king of the mountain and the king of the sea, ranked behind the rat and the ox. The rabbit was not satisfied again, and raced with the dragon, and ended up in front of the dragon. The dog, again not satisfied, bit the rabbit in a fit of pique, and was penalized for this by being placed second to last. Snake, horse, goat, monkey, chicken also after a fight, one by one, the position of the ranking, and finally formed the order of the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, chicken, dog, pig. Although the legend is not a scientific explanation of the problem , but it reflects the desire to explain the choice of the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac.
The second is that the ancient Chinese scholars from the perspective of the ancient day and night twelve hours to explain the relationship between the earth's branches and Xiao beasts. Black sky and earth, chaos, the rat, nearly half past midnight when out of the activities of the chaotic state of heaven and earth to bite out of the gap, "the rat bites the sky open", so the son of the rat. After the heavens opened up, the earth was opened up, and the ox plowed the fields, which was the thing that opened up the earth, so the ox belonged to the ugly. C is the time of birth, there must be life and death, put people to death than a tiger, c, and the meaning of fear, so c is a tiger. D time, for the sunrise, the sun should be away from the trigrams, away from the trigrams like fire, contained within the yin lines for the sun that is the essence of the moon Jade Rabbit, so that the d will be a rabbit. Cinnabar, the trigrams of March, when the group is at the time of the dragon line rain. Chen naturally belongs to the dragon. Has , April's trigrams, worth this time, spring grass, is a good day for snakes, such as fish in the water. In addition, has time for the morning, this time the snake is returning to the hole, therefore, has belonged to the snake. Afternoon, when the afternoon, Yang Qi reached the extreme, Yin Qi is sprouting. Horse this animal, gallop running, four hooves in the air, but also from time to time on the ground. Prancing for the Yang, the ground for the Yin, the horse in the yin and yang leaping between, so became the afternoon of the genus. Sheep, after the afternoon to eat grass for the best time, easy to fat, this time is not time, so not belong to sheep. After not Shen time, is the sun near the west mountain apes and monkeys cry of the hour, and monkeys like to stretch their arms at this time to jump, so the monkey with the Shen. You for the moon appeared at the time, the moon is water, should be Kan Gua. Kan Gua, its upper and lower yin lines, and the center of the yang lines on behalf of the sun, the essence of the Golden Crow. Therefore, You is the Rooster. When night falls, it is the eleventh hour. The dog is the domestic animal that keeps watch at night, and it is also associated with the Hundred Days of the Dog. Then came the Hai Shi, and heaven and earth were again immersed in a state of chaos, like a fruit wrapped in a kernel, the Hai Shi night covered all things in the world. Pigs are chaotic creatures that only know how to eat, so pigs became the genus of Ohio. Zhu Xi, a famous rationalist of the Song Dynasty, held this view.
Third, according to the Chinese people believe that the concept of yin and yang, the twelve animals are divided into yin and yang two categories, the animal's yin and yang is according to the animal's toes of the parity of the ranking. Animals before and after the number of toes is generally the same, and the rat alone is the front foot four, five feet after the parity of the same body, things are rare, of course, ranked first, followed by cattle, four toes (even); tiger, five toes (odd); rabbit, four toes (even); dragon, five toes (odd); snake, no toes (the same even); horse, a toe (odd); goat, four toes (even); monkeys, five toes (odd); chicken, four toes (even); dog, five toes (odd); pig, four toes (even); pig, four toes (even); dog, five toes (odd); pig, four toes (odd); pig, four toes (even); dog, five toes (odd); pig, four toes (odd); pig, four toes (odd); pig, four toes (odd); pig, five toes (odd); pig, five toes (odd); pig, five toes (odd); pig, five toes (odd). Pig, four toes (even). Holding this view is the Song Hong Xun, the Ming dynasty scholar Lang Ying on the basis of its categorization, in his "seven repair class draft - twelve zodiac signs" proposed that "the Earth's branches in the next", so don't yin and yang when to look at the number of toes. Mouse is four paws in front, even number for Yin, back foot five paws, odd number for Yang. The first half of the first half of last night's yin, the second half of today's yang, just use the rat to symbolize the son. Cow, sheep, pig's hooves, chicken four paws, plus the rabbit lack of lips and four paws, snake tongue points, six should be even number, Yin, accounting for the six branches of the earth. Tiger five-clawed, monkey, dog also five-clawed, horse hooves round and not divided, six are odd, belonging to the Yang, together with the Yang rat, accounting for the other six branches of the earth. Lang Ying's categorization method is borrowed from Hong Xun's classification method, and the two are similar.
The above three explanations are from different perspectives to explain the arrangement of the Chinese zodiac, folk legends about the arrangement of the animals of the Chinese zodiac are very rich in stories, the circulation of these legends on the one hand enriches the content of the Chinese zodiac, on the other hand, promotes the inheritance and development of the culture of the Chinese zodiac. The purpose of dividing the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac into two categories, yin and yang, and incorporating them into the concept of the five elements of the Chinese people's beliefs is to link the phases of the zodiac with the rituals of life, and correspond the yin and yang, the five elements and the Chinese zodiac, so as to explain the other cultural phenomena related to life.