An Essential Guide To Oriental Zodiac Symbols
The Chinese calendar has a special way of counting years as compared to the west. In the west we use a linear calendar whereas in the Chinese calendar we will find a lunar calendar which has a 12 years cycle to represent the concept of time. The Chinese have been following this cyclical calendar since ancient times. Their Zodiac calendar follows the images of different animals to represent each sign.
You will find that the functioning of Chinese calendar is absolutely opposite to that of western calendar. Western calendar is called solar calendar because it follows the sun whereas Chinese follow the moon’s movement and is called lunar calendar. The Chinese New Year too starts around end of January and beginning of February.
The present day China still stick to the lunar calendar for its traditional events and festivities though formally it had adopted the western calendar by 1911. To give an example the Chinese New Year is still celebrated as per the lunar calendar. The calendars which are printed in China today show both lunar and solar dates.
According to popular folk lore in China each year of the cyclic lunar calendar should be represented by a particular animal. For the whole year that animal will be the official sign marked for that year. There are twelve animals for twelve years with their distinctive personalities. As the lunar years are cyclical the same animal is repeated every twelve years.
You will observe that the Chinese animal symbols representing personality traits are not different from western monthly or daily horoscope. The difference lies in the yearly representation. It is believed that a person born in a particular year will take on the qualities of that animal which represents that year.
Apart from the personality traits that Chinese zodiac symbols are meant to portray which may or may not be taken seriously; they play another important function. One can use the Chinese lunar calendar to decide the age of an individual. Once you know the person’s animal sign then you can simply calculate their age by using a bit of common sense and basic math.
The other function which the Chinese calendar performs is to show the age of a person. By knowing the animal sign of an individual you can calculate the age applying basic math and common sense.
The sly rat rode upon the ox’s back and just as the ox was about to reach to the finish line the rat jumped off his back and took the lead. The last to reach the finish line was the pig. Hence we find the rat to be the first with the tricked ox second and the pig coming in last.
In the race the Ox took the lead and the rat rode on the Ox’s back. As the Ox almost reached the opposite bank, the rat being sly jumped off the Ox’s back on the bank and got the first position. So the rat leads the cycle of year till today with the ox being the second. The last is the pig to depict the last month.