The origin of the twelve zodiac signs
The origin of the twelve zodiac signs is related to animal worship, and there are many historical versions.
The origin of the twelve zodiac signs is related to animal worship. Each zodiac sign has rich legends, which form a system of conceptual interpretation and become an image philosophy in folk culture, such as the zodiac sign in marriage. , animal year, etc.
In the constellation theory, the ancients divided the stars near the ecliptic and the equator into "twenty-eight constellations". Each of the twenty-eight constellations represents an animal. In ancient times, the sky was divided into twelve equal parts, represented by twelve branches, and the twelve branches belonged to the zodiac, and there was a corresponding relationship between the zodiac signs and the twenty-eight constellations. Wang Hao, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, believed that twenty-eight kinds of animals were assigned to twenty-eight constellations and were "unified by seven rays", forming a pattern of "female earth bat, empty sun rat, Weiyue swallow, son". Li Changqing of the Qing Dynasty believed in "Songxiaguan Fuyan" that the animals matched by the twenty-eight stars "are those with double the first twelve genera", "Kang Jinlong, Chenguan, and Jiaomu Jiao attached to it. Jiao, also a dragon", which reflects Twenty-eight constellation animals are gathered based on the twelve zodiac signs. However, this statement is inevitably supplementary. The records of animals matching the 28 constellations are later than those of the 12 zodiac signs.
Sui Xing said that Jupiter moves around once every twelve years, and the annual branch sequence can be determined from the position of Jupiter. "Yuhan Shanfang Collection of Lost Books" believes that every twelve years, "three years old, three years old, ruined, three years old, healthy, three years old, drought". It is also said that "the world is six years old, one year old, six years old, one healthy, dozens of twelve years old" Hungry every year." There are cycles of the rise and fall of plants and the living environment of animals. The living conditions of herbivores (rats, cows, horses, sheep) and carnivorous omnivores are very different in different years. If people born in different years can imitate the animals that grow vigorously in that year, they will The zodiac animals are formed, and it is presumed that the rise and fall of the animals are related to the year of Jupiter, and the twelve zodiac signs and the twelve zodiac signs are unified.
In terms of totems, "Historical Records: The Chronicles of the Five Emperors" records that the Yellow Emperor "taught the bear Pi Xiu the body of the tiger to fight against the Yan Emperor in the wilderness of Banquan." The article said that they are the totems of various tribes, and they are definitely not capable of subduing dragons and tigers. . The twelve zodiac signs originated from the totem worship of primitive society and became a convincing theory.