The twelve Earthly Branches or Terrestrial Branches are a Chinese ordering system used throughout

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...

in various contexts, including its ancient dating system, astrological traditions,

zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pa ...

and ordinals.

Origin

This system was built from observations of the orbit of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

. Chinese astronomers divided the celestial circle into 12 sections to follow the orbit of ''Suìxīng'' (Jupiter, the Year Star). Astronomers rounded the orbit of Suixing to 12 years (from 11.86). Suixing was associated with ''Shètí'' ( η Boötis) and sometimes called Sheti. Jonathan Smith has proposed that the first meanings of the earthly branches, predating the

Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty a ...

, were

phases of the moon Concerning the lunar month of ~29.53 days as viewed from Earth, the lunar phase or Moon phase is the shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion, which can be expressed quantitatively using areas or angles, or described qualitatively using the t ...

, with the

heavenly stems The ten Heavenly Stems or Celestial Stems () are a Chinese system of ordinals that first appear during the Shang dynasty, c. 1250 BC, as the names of the ten days of the week. They were also used in Shang-period ritual as names for dead family mem ...

at that point referring to divisions of the ecliptic. After being adopted as a calendar these would have lost their clear lunar reference, permitting their repurposing for Jupiter stations.

History

In correlative thinking, the 12 years of the Jupiter cycle also identify the 12 months of the year, 12 animals (

mnemonic A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding. Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and image ...

s for the system), cardinal directions, seasons, and the 12 traditional Chinese units of time in the form of periods that each day was divided into. In this case an Earthly Branch can refer to a whole period, or to the exact time at its center. For instance ''wǔshí'' can mean either noon or 11am1pm. (The ''jiéqì'' system provided single hours and 15-degree arcs in time and space.) Chinese seasons are based on observations of the sun and stars. Many Chinese calendrical systems have started the new year on the second

new moon In astronomy, the new moon is the first lunar phase, when the Moon and Sun have the same ecliptic longitude. At this phase, the lunar disk is not visible to the naked eye, except when it is silhouetted against the Sun during a solar ecl ...

after the

winter solstice The winter solstice, also called the hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winter ...

. The Earthly Branches are today used with the

Heavenly Stems The ten Heavenly Stems or Celestial Stems () are a Chinese system of ordinals that first appear during the Shang dynasty, c. 1250 BC, as the names of the ten days of the week. They were also used in Shang-period ritual as names for dead family mem ...

in the current version of the "traditional

Chinese calendar The traditional Chinese calendar (also known as the Agricultural Calendar ��曆; 农历; ''Nónglì''; 'farming calendar' Former Calendar ��曆; 旧历; ''Jiùlì'' Traditional Calendar ��曆; 老历; ''Lǎolì'', is a lunisolar calendar ...

" and in

Taoism Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the '' Ta ...

. The Ganzhi (Stem-Branch) combination is a fairly new way to mark time; in the second millennium BC, during the

Shang The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and ...

era, the 10 Heavenly Stems provided the names of the days of the week. The Branches are as old as the Stems (and according to recent

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsc ...

may actually be older), but the Stems were tied to the ritual calendars of Chinese kings.

Twelve branches

Some cultures assign different animals:

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...

replaces the Ox and

Rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit sp ...

with the water buffalo and cat, respectively;

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

replaces the Rooster with the

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

. In the traditional Kazakh version of the 12 year animal cycle ( kz, мүшел, ''müşel''), the

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted a ...

is substituted by a snail ( kz, ұлу, ''ulw''), and the

Tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living Felidae, cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily pr ...

appears as a leopard ( kz, барыс, ''barıs'').

Directions

Though Chinese has words for the four

cardinal direction The four cardinal directions, or cardinal points, are the four main compass directions: north, east, south, and west, commonly denoted by their initials N, E, S, and W respectively. Relative to north, the directions east, south, and west are ...

s, Chinese mariners and

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

s/ astrologers preferred using the 12 directions of the Earthly Branches, which is somewhat similar to the modern-day practice of English-speaking pilots using ''o'clock'' for directions. Since 12 points were not enough for sailing, 12 midpoints were added. Instead of combining two adjacent direction names, they assigned new names: * For the four diagonal directions, appropriate trigram names of

I Ching The ''I Ching'' or ''Yi Jing'' (, ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zh ...

were used. * For the rest, the Heavenly Stems (1–4, 7–10) were used. According to the Five Elements theory, east is assigned to wood, and the Stems of wood are (''jiǎ'') and (''yǐ''). Thus, they were assigned clockwise to the two adjacent points of the east. The 24 directions are: Advanced mariners such as

Zheng He Zheng He (; 1371–1433 or 1435) was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China's early Ming dynasty. He was originally born as Ma He in a Muslim family and later adopted the surname Zheng conferr ...

used 48-point compasses. An additional midpoint was called by a combination of its two closest basic directions, such as (''bǐngwǔ'') for the direction of 172.5°, the midpoint between (''bǐng''), 165°, and (''wǔ''), 180°.

Current usage

The terrestrial branches are still commonly used nowadays in Chinese counting systems similar to the way the

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...

is used in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

. For example, names in legal documents and contracts where English speakers would use K, L, M, etc.

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

also use terrestrial branches on legal documents in this way. Since the celestial stems and terrestrial branches combined only consist of 22 characters, the four final letters – W, X, Y, and Z – cannot be represented by any of the celestial stems and terrestrial branches, and those four letters are represented by ‘物’, ‘天’, ‘地’, and ‘人’, respectively, instead. In case of upper-case letters, the

radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics * Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe an ...

of ‘口’ ( the ‘mouth’ radical) may be added to the corresponding terrestrial branch or any of ‘物’, ‘天’, ‘地’, and ‘人’ to denote an upper-case letter.
(pages 147 and 148)

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, China, Society, History Technical factors of Chinese astrology Jupiter (mythology) Eastern esotericism