In the previous article, I talked to the treasures about the ten heavenly stems and the twelve earthly branches, for example, this year is the year of Jiachen, Jia is one of the ten heavenly stems, and Chen is one of the twelve earthly branches. So today, let's talk about the past and present lives of the ten heavenly stems and the twelve earthly branches.
To briefly recap, there are ten heavenly stems, which are: 甲 (jiǎ), B (yǐ), C (bǐng), 丁 (dīng), 戊 (wù), 己 (jǐ), 庚 (gēng), 辛 (xīn), 壬 (rén), 癸 (guǐ).
There are twelve earthly branches, namely: 子 (zǐ), ugly (chǒu), 寅 (yín), 卯 (mǎo), 辰 (chén), 巳 (sì), 午 (wǔ), 未 (wèi), 申 (shēn), 酉 (yǒu), 戌 (xū), and 海 (hài).
In fact, the heavenly stem and the earthly branch exist as a counting symbol, mainly used for the year, month, day, and hour, which can be simply regarded as a literal expression of the numbers we commonly use today. For example, the ten heavenly stems are equivalent to 1 10 ten numbers, and the twelve earthly branches are also equivalent to 1 12 twelve numbers, not that there was no concept of numbers in ancient times, yes, you see this is a number in the oracle bone inscription.
For example, an alkane with one carbon is called methane, a monoalcoholic with two carbons is called ethanol, and an olefin with three carbons is called propylene, which is easy to remember. Such two sets of sequences, in the traditional Ganzhi year, can have 60 non-repeating combinations, so it is often said that 60 years is one Jiazi.
Some treasures may ask, there are more than 60 combinations of 1 10 and 1 12! Indeed, however, the chronology of the stem branch is not simply for the sake of combined counting, it has its own rules: the stem branch is divided into yin and yang, the yang stem is matched with the yang branch, and the yin stem is matched with the yin branch. The singular number is yang, and the even number is yin, so 1 10 is divided into five numbers of yin and yang, A, C, E, G, and Ren are yang stems, and B, Ding, Ji, Xin, and Gui are yin stems, and 1 12 is also divided into six numbers of yin and yang, Zi, Yin, Chen, Wu, Shen, and Xu are yang branches, and Chou, Mao, Si, Wei, You, and Hai are yin branches, so that there are sixty kinds of collocations.
Some treasures may have doubts, since they all represent numbers, and the earthly branch represents 1 12, including the 1 10 of the heavenly stem, why is the heavenly stem not the first ten of the earthly branch? This is actually two sets of numbers with different meanings, and when they match, in order to avoid ambiguity and confusion, they are given different names. For example, in the organic chemistry mentioned above, alcohols containing two carbon atoms have a single alcohol, which is called ethanol, and there are also diols, called ethylene glycol, B means "2", and two also means "2".
In fact, according to our current life experience, or the experience of different people in our substitution of things, it is conceivable that in the era of the birth of the Ganzhi, there must have been a variety of calculations among ethnic groups of different regional cultures, and in the end, it must be a simple, practical and not easy to confuse method that has been widely circulated and preserved. Therefore, in ancient times, it should also be a pure digital chronology as the treasures thought, and we can take a look at it.
Comparing the two boxes, do you find that the original two-word year will eventually become three words or four words, and if the two years are written together, there will even be fallacies, such as 51111 is 51 (Wuzi) and 111 (Jiaxu), or 511 (Wuxu) and 11 (Jiazi)? In ancient times, when the text was written vertically and there were no punctuation marks, would this make people bald?
Don't say it, before the set of Jiazi codes we use now, the names of the recorded cadres and branches are really bald. For example, in "Erya Shitian", it is recorded that "Tai Sui is said to be in Jia, in B, in B, in Bing, in Bing, in Ding, in Ding, in Wu, in Wu, in Tuwei, in Geng, in Xin, in Xin, in Xuan, in Gui, Zhaoyang", in this, the names of the ten heavenly stems are 阏逢 (yān féng), 旃蒙 (zhān méng), rouzhao (róu zhào), qiang 圉 (qiáng yǔ), 著雍 (zhù yōng), Tu Wei (tú wéi), 上章 (shàng zhāng), 重光 (chóng guāng), 玄黓 (xuán yì), zhaoyang (zhāo yáng), difficult to remember. This shows that in the time when Erya was written, there were already ten heavenly stems, and the name of the original ten heavenly stems had been replaced by A, B, C, D, and may have replaced a certain year, so it should be pulled out separately to explain, saying that in ancient times, A, B, C, D, were not called A, B, C, D, and Yunyun.
The earthly branch is also recorded, in the "Erya Shitian" it is recorded that "Tai Sui is in 寅曰拍格 (shè tí gé), in 卯曰Single 阏 (chán è) in Chen 曰执徐 (zhí xú), in 巳曰大荒落 (dà huāng luò), in the afternoon 曰敦牂 (dūn zāng), in 未曰合合合 (xié qià), in 申曰涒tan (tūn tān), in 酉曰作噩 (zuò è在戌曰阉茂 (yān mào), in Hai曰大源示 (dà yuān xiàn) , in Zi曰懣Dun (kùn dūn), in ugly曰赤奋若 (chì fèn ruò) "Look, how difficult it is to understand, there are still three words."
Do you feel a bit of a foreign transliteration? It's hard to say, after all, there is a language first and then there is a text, and if you transliterate Cantonese and Wenzhou dialect, it is also like a foreign language. Blind guess, in ancient times, in the era before writing, people passed on the knowledge of the calendar such as the year and the month by word of mouth, and why the calendar? Because the calendar is related to the changes of the four seasons, the agricultural civilization relies on the calendar to guide farming, once the calendar is messed up, such as delaying sowing, it may face the extinction of the ethnic group. Word of mouth, the difference in accent in various places can be big, and at a certain time, the pronunciation may be like this, in ancient times, the text can still be preserved, and the voice cannot be reproduced.
Of course, there is also a figure of the Tai Sui era above, so let's open a chapter next time to talk about the year.
Such a cadre year, according to the above form of the row, there will be a five-word year, you look at the oracle bones on those carved words, many strokes, lettering is laborious, such a long age, change who is collapsed, it is simplified, replaced by simpler symbols is also a reasonable thing.
Some treasures may wonder, is there really such an example of age in ancient times? How do I remember that they are all such as the first year of Taichu, the third year of Tianbao, the tenth year of Kangxi, and the thirtieth year of **? This kind of chronicle with the name of the country and the year of the emperor is indeed more common, and it often appears in the classics, such as the notation of the "Yan Feng Setig" (Jiayin) in the previous article, which is listed in the "Historical Records, Almanacs" and "Historical Records, Tianguanshu", but the name is slightly different from Erya, and the comparison is as follows:
It can be seen that the information from the Warring States period to the Han Dynasty, there have been some changes, the earth branch is fine, but the words have changed a little, it may be because of the copying of the literature, or it may be because the pronunciation has changed, most of the heavenly stems are just the words changed, today's pronunciation is still close, the individual order has changed, I don't know what the reason is, maybe the literature is different, the pronunciation and writing are different? Here, the real name is thanks to the First Emperor for his book and text policy! Or maybe different texts record the customs of different regions? For example, Qi Di Gui is "Zhaoyang" and Qin Di Gui is "Shang Zhang", which is also unknown.
In short, Tai Shi Gong has a separate description in the book, indicating that in the historical classics he came into contact with, there is indeed such a record. However, when he wrote his own book, he used the monarch's year such as the second year of Mu Gong and the thirteenth year of Xiangong, which was convenient and trouble-free. The historical documents of later generations basically followed the monarch's year and the year name year, and also used the Ganzhi year, until the "Zizhi Tongjian", the official history used the term Ganzhi year, and in the folk and religion, the Ganzhi year is more widely used.
So, since when did the Ganzhi year exist? It is really difficult to have an exact research, because there are already characters of the Ganzhi in the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty, but there are not many words found before the Shang Dynasty. However, according to the Taoist calendar, it began in the first year of the Yellow Emperor (2697 B.C.), according to the Taoist "Taiyi Shutongzong" record, "when the ancient Jiazi year Jiazi month Jiazi day Jiazi, Tianxin luck is on the winter solstice, the sun and the moon are combined, and the five stars are connected with the pearls, all of which are in the son, which is for the Shangyuan", the Yellow Emperor ascended the throne on this day, and began to use the Ganzhi year, and there is also the "Historical Justice" mentions, "The Yellow Emperor was inspired by the gods, and ordered to make Jiazi". The era of the Yellow Emperor must have had its own calendar, and before the end of the Qin Dynasty, ancient China used the Zhuan calendar, which was recorded in the "Historical Records" and was a descendant of the Yellow Emperor. In addition, it is recorded in the "Huangji Jingshishu" written by Song Shaoyong that the year of Tang Yao's accession to the throne was the year of Jiachen (2357 BC), and 340 years forward is exactly the year of Jiazi, corresponding to 2697 BC. So many people agree with this statement.
Another theory is based on the literature, "Zizhi Tongjian, Han Ji 39, Emperor Zhangxia" contains: "In the second year of Yuanhe, spring, the first month, Yiyou,......The "Primal Calendar" has been implemented for more than 100 years, and the day after tomorrow. Shang Ming Zhi Calendar Compilation, Li Fan and other comprehensive school of its state, as "Four-point Calendar"; In February, it was implemented. Here the second year of Yuanhe, that is, 85 A.D., is set as the year of "Yi You". From this year onwards, although the "Imperial Chronology" was still used, the "Ganzhi Chronology" was also used.
Of course, there are rumors that the ancient emperor created the Ganzhi, which is too long ago, close to the age of the creation myth, and those who are interested can check it out.
There is a question, after talking about it for a long time, why are there ten heavenly stems? Why are there twelve? Good question.
The Classic of Mountains and Seas, the Great Wilderness South Classic": "Beyond the southeast sea, between the sweet waters, there is the country of Xihe. There is a woman's name Xihe, and Fang Yu is in Ganyuan. Xihe, the wife of Emperor Jun, was born for ten days. This is a legend about the ten suns, of course, the day also means not only the sun, but also a day, coincidentally, the oracle bone inscription shows that the Shang Dynasty implemented a ten-day cycle of ten days to calculate the date, ten days for a decade.
In addition, the solar calendar of the Yi nationality is a very ancient October solar calendar, which divides the year into ten months, with 36 days per month, and the remaining five or six days of the year are the New Year's Day, which is not counted in the ten months. The Yi people are descendants of the ancient Fuxi clan, and the October calendar of the Yi people may be inherited from the ancient calendar.
That is to say, since ancient times, the ancestors of a certain region have created a method of counting days and years with ten as the basic unit after a long period of observation and exploration, and slowly derived the myth of the ten suns, of course, also produced the counting symbol from one to ten, which in later generations was abstracted as ten heavenly stems.
Or "The Classic of Mountains and Seas", this is really a strange book, treasures, you can really read it if you have time! "The Classic of Mountains and Seas: The Great Wilderness of the West" has a saying, "There is a woman who bathes in the moon, and the emperor's wife Changxi, and there are two out of ten in the birth month, and this is the beginning of the bath." "See, Xi and the great god not only gave birth to ten suns, but also gave birth to twelve moons (some say that Xi and Chang Xi are one person, some say that they are two people, this has to ask Emperor Jun (dì qūn)). Ibid., it is also the projection of the long development of human civilization in the myth of the 12 months. As for how to discover that there are 12 months in a year, it may be that the ancients observed for a long time and found that the waxing and waning of the moon is very regular, with an interval of about 30 days between the two full moons, and 12 cycles from one winter to another, and then combined with the cycles of farming, fishing and hunting, it is roughly determined that these twelve cycles can be cycled as a whole over and over again, resulting in the concept of 12 months of a year. So, it's not too much to say that the symbols and proper nouns that mark these twelve months are there, right? It is also logical that it slowly evolved into the twelve earthly branches.
With the accumulation of cognition, people gave full play to their creativity on these basic numbers, and later had concepts such as the twelve signs and twelve hours, so it was also a matter of accident that the symbols marking the month of December were used to mark the hours. As for arranging various images to make the zodiac signs for these twelve earthly branches, it is really icing on the cake.
Let's talk about a slightly colder knowledge point, A, B, C, D is an idiom, indicating the order of things or the general outline of things. Well, Xin Ren Jiajia is also an idiom, which is used to refer to the spirit of single-mindedness for the public and disregarding personal interests, which comes from the allusion of Dayu's water control. Zi Chou Yin Mao is also an idiom, a metaphor for a set of truths, theories or reasons.
Well, after talking about the past and present lives of the heavenly stem and the earthly branch, do you want to know how to convert our current Gregorian calendar into the Ganzhi year?Simple
First of all, divide the year of the Gregorian calendar by ten, and the remainder is the heavenly stem, and if it is less than ten, it is directly the remainder;
Secondly, divide the year of the Gregorian calendar by twelve, and the remainder is the earthly branch, and less than twelve is the remainder;
Third, compare the following table, according to the map, it should be noted that the comparison table is not the same for the years after BC and AD.
Let's try it, for example:
This year 2024, divide by 10 and the remainder is 4;Divide by 12, the remainder is 8, check the table after the A.D., 4 is A, 8 is Chen, Jiachen year, correct.
For another example, as mentioned earlier, the first year of the Yellow Emperor in 2697 BC was the year of Jiazi, check whether it is correct:
2697, divide by 10, the remainder is 7, divide by 12, the remainder is 9, check the table of BC, 7 is A, 9 is the son, and the year of Jiazi is correct.
How's it going, have the treasures learned?What?I also want to know how the months and hours are calculated using dry branches?Let's talk about it in the next one, it's too much, this one is already more than 4,000 words!I can't finish writing ......The storm cries