The Zodiac, also known as the Zodiac, is twelve kinds of animals in China that match the twelve earthly branches according to the year of birth, including rats, cows, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes, horses, sheep, monkeys, chickens, dogs and pigs.
The origin of the zodiac is related to animal worship. According to the Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Yunmeng Shuihudi, Hubei Province and Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu Province, there was a relatively complete zodiac system in the pre-Qin period. The earliest handed down document that recorded the same Chinese zodiac as the modern one was Lun Heng written by Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
folk culture
The zodiac is an intuitive representation of the twelve earthly branches, namely, Zi (mouse), Ugly (ox), Yin (tiger), Mao (rabbit), Chen (dragon), Si (snake), Wu (horse), Wei (sheep), Shen (monkey), You (chicken) and Xu (chicken). In modern times, more people regard the zodiac as the mascot of the Spring Festival and become a symbol of entertainment and cultural activities.
As a long-standing symbol of folk culture, the zodiac has left a lot of poems, Spring Festival couplets, paintings, calligraphy and paintings and folk arts and crafts that depict the image and symbolic meaning of the zodiac. Apart from China, many countries in the world issue stamps of the zodiac during the Spring Festival to express their wishes for the New Year in China.
Folk story theory
Xuanyuan Huangdi wanted to choose twelve kinds of animals as court guards, and the cat asked the mouse to sign up. As a result, the mouse forgot, and since then, the cat has been seeking revenge when it sees the mouse. Originally, the cow pushed first, and the mouse sneaked up the cow's back and took the lead. Not convinced, the tiger and dragon were named as mountain gods and sea gods, ranking behind cattle. The rabbit refused to accept it and wanted to race the dragon. The rabbit ran in front of the dragon. The dog was so angry that he didn't want to bite the rabbit that he was finally punished. Snakes, horses, sheep, monkeys and chickens also went through some contests, and finally pigs came to occupy the last position.
believe
Zodiac belief is an imaginative belief system formed by the combination of China's traditional religious philosophy and mathematical culture, supplemented by the association of Zodiac animal temperament, which further affects people's ideas and behaviors. The core is that the zodiac plays a decisive role in the people and things it marks.
According to this logic, the operation of human society has nothing to do with any other events, but it naturally appears because of the human zodiac attribute, which obviously cannot stand verification. However, as a belief itself, it does not need logical proof, but is directly taken for granted. Therefore, the belief in the zodiac still has a market among contemporary people, and it is constantly derived.
The ancients attached importance to naming, and names should make up for the lack of fortune. The zodiac is an important reference. Zou Yinglong, a scholar in Song Dynasty, was born in Wang Chen, and was named "Ying Long" after eight years of official career. According to legend, Tang Bohu was born in 2005, named Tang Yin. In the past, it was popular among the people to give children nicknames and let them earn their own living. As a result, Lao She, who wrote dogs, was nicknamed "puppy tail" and painted sheep leaves as "A Yang".
The ancients thought that the zodiac year could reflect the farming year. "Cattle and horses plow well in one year" and "fat pigs eat enough in one year" describe favorable weather, while "golden sheep and water monkeys starve in one year", "chickens and dogs beg in one year" and "repeated disasters in the year of the tiger" mean poor harvest. Pan Tiefu, a modern meteorologist, also statistically analyzed the probability relationship between the zodiac year and meteorological disasters. But in fact, natural disasters do not have absolute periodicity.