More than 3,000 years ago, Chinese people invented the 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches for chronological purposes. These signs are used to designate the hours, days, months and years. However, since most people at that time were illiterate, the signs were difficult to use. Later, to make things easier to memorize, people used animals to symbolize the 12 Earthly Branches. The animals in order are the mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.
Many Chinese people strongly believe that the time of a person's birth is the primary factor in determining that person's personality. Many fortune-tellers, when telling your fortune, say what they need to know is your exact time of birth. Then, whether you are successful in your life and career, or whether you will be happy is clear to the fortune-tellers.
According to one legend, during a Chinese New Year celebration, Buddha invited all the animals to his kingdom, but unfortunately, for reasons only known to the animals, a total of 12 turned up. The mouse was naturally the first, followed by the ox, then the tiger, the rabbit and so on and finally the pig.
Out of gratitude, Buddha decided to name the year after each of the animals in their order of arrival, and people born of that year would inherit the personality traits of that particular animal. These animals are also supposed to have some influence over the period of time they were named after.
It is essential in China that every person knows which animal sign he is born under. That is because it has been implicitly agreed upon that no important steps of life should be taken without consulting first the Chinese Zodiac. Some Chinese consider this superstition, but many truly believe that the signs reveal the hidden secrets of a person's character.
By the 5th century, the Chinese had cataloged 1464 stars.
In Beijing, there were about 5,000 stargazers.
Ancient astrologers could correctly predict when tides, seasons, and other things, just by looking at the stars and planets. One of the uses for astrology was for farming - the proper time to plant and harvest crops.
A lot of the Chinese looked to the stars, but some were drawn to the Earth, trying to solve riddles and mysteries of math. They did not know that everything was made from hundreds and millions of atoms, but instead they thought everything was made up of the five elements: fire, earth, metal, water and wood. They looked at how these elements could change, and explained how nature worked in those terms. Wood goes through a basic change to become fire (flames), fire turns into the earth (ashes), earth makes the metal (iron and other metals) mined from the earth. Metal brings water (metal collects dew if outside over night). And to make the circle, water produces wood (wood plants need water to grow). The scientists did not think of the five elements as DNA, but more like changing things in nature; and that is how the Chinese viewed life and nature.
Mythology:
The roots of this interpretive art, are based deeply in the classical philosophy of Confucius, Lao-tse and the Yi Jing (I Ching). According to Chinese legend, the order of the twelve signs was determined by Buddha, upon celebration of the Chinese New Year (which falls on different dates, from mid-January to mid-February.) The Buddha invited all of the animals in the kingdom together for a meeting, but only 12 creatures attended.
Chinese astronomy/astrology developed into a complex system entirely independent from Mesopotamian astronomy or astrology. The difference ranges from how the Chinese tracked objects through the night sky to the philosophical elements that made up the heavens, to their basic interpretation from what they perceived to be astrological predictions. However, the one thing both ancient cultures have in common is that they were both obsessed with finding out what made the heavens move and how their movement affected humans on Earth. Some of the earliest texts from Mesopotamia were stones inscribed with astrological data. The same can be said for the Chinese civilization. For example, some of the earliest written artifacts of Chinese civilization are found on so-called dragon bones, inscribed pieces of tortoise shell used by the ancients for divination.[1]
The most startling difference between Chinese and Western astrology is the method or system the Chinese used to track the planets throughout the night sky. Each civilization was able to distinguish planets from the other stars located in the sky, but the reference points found in the sky are much different. The Western (Mesopotamian-Babylonian-Hellenistic-etc...) stellar positions are found by reference to the ecliptic, known to the Chinese as the Yellow Path, that is, an imaginary line through the heavens traced by the Sun.[2] This may seem like the same thing, but the Chinese locate heavenly bodies with respect to the celestial north pole and the celestial equator (called the Red Path by the Chinese) rather than with respect to the ecliptic (termed the Yellow Path).[1]
As a consequence of the two different observational systems, two kinds of astrological interpretation sprang up. In the West, astrology is based on the computations of movements of planetary bodies along the ecliptic, or zodiac. In Chinese astrology, the "lunar zodiac" has prime importance. In this the sky is divided into 28 segments, each one representing a day of the moon's path through the sky.[2] This leads us to the fact that in Chinese astrology there are many stars and constellations of importance to the Chinese astrology that are irrelevant in Western astrology.[2] This being said, a Western astronomer would have a hard time recognizing a star map produced by a Chinese astrologer, even though its the same sky!!
A cultural and philosophical difference between the astrological systems of Western and Chinese astrology has to do with the classical elements. For example, the four classical elements of the Western World-earth, air, fire, and water-are comparable to, yet contrast with, the five elements of East Asian philosophy-earth, fire, water, metal, and wood. [1] The Chinese associate these five elements with the most visible planets- Saturn (earth), Mars (fire), Mercury (water), Venus (metal), and Jupiter (wood). These elements are a basis for the astrological predictions made about the future or divination. It is surprising how totally different civilizations happened to come up with almost the same fundamental elements of the Universe.
As mentioned above, in Chinese astrology importance is situated around the moon's motion through the zodiac rather than the motion of the Sun through the zodiac. The position of the moon for different days is referred to as the "lunar mansion" in Chinese Astrology. The 28 lunar mansions are particularly important for determine which action is most appropriate for a given day.[1] The lunar mansions are divided into 4 groups of 7 in relation to the seasons of the year. The groups are categorized as follows: The Green Dragon of Spring, The Black Tortoise of Winter, The White Tiger of Autumn, The Red Bird of Summer. The 28 lunar mansions constitute the oldest Chinese "zodiac". The Lunar Mansions form the traditional background for all of Chinese Astrology. However, I found it quite difficult to find an online source reliable enough to use with information about the 28 Chinese Mansions.
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