The Chinese Zodiac

Anyone who has eaten in a Chinese restaurant knows the ox, dragon and other symbols in the Chinese zodiac. They may not, however, realize that traditionally, Japanese also used those signs in astrology and as part of a calendar that showed the time of yea r, date, time and even direction.

Jikkan Junishi (literally 10 stems and 12 branches) refers to the Chinese zodiac symbols, also called eto in Japanese. The 10 heavenly stems referred yin-yang principles and the elements of wood, fire, earth, metal and water. The 12 earthly branches included 12 animals: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and wild boar.

The two sets were used together to enumerate years and other elements of the civil, or official, calendar. The 10 stems and 12 branches were used together to create a cycle of 60 two-symbol combinations. The complex calendar, called the sexagenary cycle, was officially adopted in Japan in 604 by the Empress Suiko.

Typically the calendar is depicted in a line, but when written out in a circle, the symbols are also used to note the time of day and directions. For example, the period between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. corresponds roughly to the hour of the rat and points nort h. The horse indicates a two-hour interval around midday and points south.

Just as some Westerners believe people take on the character of the zodiac symbol under which they are born, the Japanese believed that people took on the character of the animal sign of one's birth. For example, people born in the year of the rat (i.e., any year in which the rat symbol is part of the two-symbol combination) were restless. Those born in the year of the ox were patient. In Japan, women born in the year hinoe uma (fire-yang-horse) were thought to be headstrong and inclined to kill th eir husbands. The year also was thought to bring a rash of fires.

Koshin is the year or day within the sexagenary cycle that falls on the combination of ko (associated with metal and the planet Venus) and the monkey, or ninth symbol on the zodiac. In ancient Taoist tradition, on the night of a koshin day, three worms believed to dwell in the human body would sneak out and report a person's sins to the Celestial God. Upon learning of the person's sins, the god would shorten that individual's life. To prevent this, people stayed awake on koshin nights and the day eventually became known as the koshin machi or koshin wake.

Such beliefs were particularly widespread during the Edo period (1600-1868) when people regularly tried to determine auspicious (good) or inauspicious (bad) times before beginning activities such as a new business, marriage or other venture. Even though m ost Japanese today would largely dismiss superstitions, just as modern U.S. newspapers still print each day's horoscope, the zodiac continues to have a role in Japanese society. Since it would be discourteous to ask someone his or her age, Japanese people often will ask what someone's sign is and then privately calculate that person's age.

--From Japan Now (January 1996)

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