The Year of the Snake is here! But how did a legendary tale of twelve animals shape Chinese astronomy and culture for over 3,000 years?In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor John Steele from Brown University to dive into the origins of the Chinese Zodiac to mark the Chinese New Year. They uncover how this ancient zodiac, associated with 12 animals, ties into Chinese astronomy and philosophy. Professor Steele explains the intricate cycles of 12 earthly branches and 10 heavenly stems that form a 60-year pattern deeply embedded in Chinese culture. Discover the mythical origins, the influence of lunar calendars, and the evolution of this zodiac from the Shang dynasty to today. Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.Theme music from Motion Array, all other music from Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here.
Chapter 1: What is the Chinese Zodiac?
Yeah, I mean, it's not a silly question. It's actually not a simple question either, because it's kind of a misnamed concept. I mean, the zodiac in its technical meaning is a division of the path of the sun into 12 equal parts. So as we think of the Earth in the centre of the universe, as we view it, we have the sun moving around us and the moon and the planets moving around us.
and they trace out this path that we call the zodiac, and we can divide that into 12 equal parts. That's what the zodiac is in terms of astronomy. But the Chinese zodiac is actually something quite different. The Chinese zodiac is basically just a cycle of 12 that are associated with animals,
And because it's a cycle of 12 with 12 animals, people have just called it a zodiac because we have 12 animals in the Western Zodiac. So it's actually just a coincidence of the fact that there's 12 and they're named after animals or associated with animals that people call it the Chinese Zodiac. But it's really a misnamed concept.
Is it always that magic number, John? Is it always that magic number of 12, whether it's a zodiac officially, or as in the case of the Chinese zodiac, it's not actually a zodiac?
Chapter 2: How does the Chinese Zodiac relate to cycles of time?
Yeah. So we have from China various different cycles based on different numbers. So we have a cycle of 12, which is this thing that gets associated with the zodiac, which is a cycle that's actually officially called the 12 earthly branches. And it cycles through from 1 to 12 on a repeating cycle. We have another cycle of 10 called the 10 heavenly stems.
And you can put those two cycles together when they run side by side. And if you go through the whole cycle, then it takes 60 to go around in the whole cycle. So we have the cycle of 60 that keeps repeating, made up of a cycle of 12 and a cycle of 10. And that cycle is applied to all different aspects of Chinese life and society. So you have a cycle of the 60 years.
You also have a cycle of 60 days. So just like our days of the week, the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday is a cycle of seven. In China, you have a cycle of 60 days. And so the cycle of 12 is kind of one aspect of that cycle. So it's like a sub-cycle, if you like, of that 60. It's this repeating cycle of 12 that just keeps going round and round.
So you have a cycle of 12 days. and you have a cycle of 12 years, all of which have the same name. So there are 12 names for each individual entry in this 12 cycle. This cycle is applied to all sorts of things. So the Chinese day is divided into 12, what we call double hours, so 12 two-hour long intervals. And they're also named after these 12 different earthly branches.
So this cycle of 12 is used all throughout different aspects of Chinese life and Chinese concepts of the earth and the world around us. And then one aspect of this is they get associated with different things. And one of the associations is with the animals. And so that's why we get this cycle of 12 animals that have been associated with the 12 years. And this is quite aged.
I mean, this goes back almost 2000 years or so that we have this cycle of 12 going on and on. And this being associated with these animals that then the year, then we have the year, you know, we're just ending the year of the dragon and we're going into the year of the snake now.
I mean, from an outsider looking in, it does feel like that with the numbers 60 and 12 and animals only being a small part of it, that in the Chinese tradition, it's almost, and forgive me if I'm slightly wrong here, but it feels like layers of an onion because it is very detailed, dare I say complicated at first to get your head around these various parts of this whole system. Yeah.
Yeah, that's true. It is. I mean, I think the onion analogy is a nice analogy. It's like it is all these different layers of meaning that all these different cycles have. And we have to think of these cycles almost like gears going on together. They're all interlocking and changing. They complement each other, do they? Exactly. They complement and combine to give you various different...
associations that can be used and I mean I think for us it is you know coming as outsiders this is takes a while to get your head around but of course for the ancient Chinese this was so familiar to them that it's it's trivial because they've grown up with it it's just what they what they know so this cycle of 12 and all these associations are so part of everyday life that they're just familiar with it in the same way that we're familiar with the you know the 12 signs of the western zodiac or the 24 hours of the day or something.
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Chapter 3: What are the origins of the Chinese Zodiac?
Thank you for explaining that. I needed that a bit more because there was quite a lot of information right at the start. So now I understand that. And that tradition, you know, the 12 and the 10, and the animals are just put onto the 12, basically. They're added onto that 12.
Exactly, yes. So the animals are just one of the associations that are then imposed upon this cycle of 12.
And the Shang Dynasty, as you mentioned, before the Han Dynasty. So it's very interesting to hear how ancient the stems and the branches and the 60 pattern is.
Yeah, this is going back to, you know, 1500 BC or so. So this is very ancient, you know, three and a half thousand years ago. And it's run, as far as we can tell, it's run continuously since then with no interruption. You know, we don't have any evidence that people's missed a year or skipped anything here and there. It has run continuously since then.
But it's a fun fact, isn't it? Almost halfway between today and the Shang Dynasty, the animals were incorporated. So it's amazing to think, as you mentioned, for how long continuously that cycle was there in ancient China before the addition of these animals.
That's right. Yes, yes. I mean, I think that there were other associations earlier on. We know that in the Shang Dynasty, in very early times, These branches and stems were connected with various forms of astrology and divination and fortune-telling and rituals. There already existed a sort of an infrastructure of divinatory practices and rituals surrounding these that then the animals get...
embedded within or added to this existing structure.
And John, I mean, how much astrology, I guess also, I guess, philosophy, Chinese astrology and philosophy is really entwined in the 10 stems and the 12 branches and the animals later on?
Lots and lots. So the 12 branches, as I say, are associated with all sorts of things, including the animals, but also directions, the hours of the day, and so forth. So they're used in many different aspects. Similarly, the 10 stems have all sorts of associations.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of the 12 animals in the Zodiac?
And they produced almanacs distributed throughout the country that contained the calendar for the coming year. with all the calculated dates of when each month began, whether there was an intercalary month, and all the festival dates and everything that were embedded within this.
That must have been a massive job, considering the size of Han Dynasty China. And as you mentioned earlier, it's not a fixed calendar. It changes every year. So then the bureaucracy, the administration to distribute to all the people who... who knew it, you know, knowing what the situation was that year, a bit of a logistical nightmare, surely?
Well, yes. I mean, just the calculations. I mean, there was a whole bureau of astronomers who were tasked with producing this calendar. Well, the calendar, by the way, is not just the count of days for the Chinese. It was also included things like when there were going to be eclipses or when there were planets would pass by certain other planets or so forth.
So it's like an astronomical guidebook every year of every astronomical event that's going to happen. So there was a huge bureaucracy and part of the government, these were state employees who had to pass civil service exams to become astronomers employed by the court. And they were tasked with producing these almanacs every year.
And these almanacs were then presented to the emperor because one of the emperor's duties was to ensure that there was a calendar. This was one of the fundamental things the emperor had to do every year to prove that he was the right person to be emperor, that he was following justly. It was to show that he could harmonize heaven and earth.
And one way to harmonize heaven and earth was to have it written down on a calendar. was to show that you knew exactly what was going on when. And so this was not just a sort of a practical administered matter, but a real ideological matter for the Chinese state that the emperor had to produce a calendar and had to distribute it. And there's huge ceremonies around the distribution.
So in later times, it's not only to China, the Chinese calendar would then be sent off to Korea and elsewhere in official convoys with presentations of the calendar that these vassal states were expected to follow. So it was both a huge administrative task.
but also of huge ideological importance to the Chinese state, both to produce a calendar and to produce a calendar that was actually quite accurate. Because if people were observing things that they hadn't predicted, that was a real bad omen. That was a shame that the emperor was not doing his job right.
So we have this link between Chinese New Year and the zodiac, the year of the various animals stretching back 2,000 years, John. So it's extraordinary and it seems to endure. But something I also want to pick up there that you mentioned was you mentioned client states or client kingdoms of Han Dynasty China like Korea.
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Chapter 5: How do the Chinese Zodiac and Western Zodiac compare?
Chapter 6: What are the meanings associated with each Zodiac animal?
So did they also export the Chinese zodiac and their ways of thinking beyond the borders of present-day China?
Yes, so the Chinese zodiac and many aspects of Chinese philosophy and ritual and the Chinese calendar effectively were taken up throughout East Asia. So in Japan, in Vietnam, all areas around China's borders effectively follow the Chinese calendar. They placed their own interpretations upon it, of course, so they have interpretations.
You know, you get different animals, for example, in some different countries. You get some regional variation. They become localized to make them applicable to their local surroundings. I mean, this goes part and parcel along with many other aspects.
So many of these cultures in medieval times were also adopted things like the Chinese script and the Chinese language for writing, even if it's not what they were speaking. And often at times they were, if not part of China, they were heavily influenced by Chinese culture and Chinese government.
Were there any potential deviations? So I can imagine, would the year of the snake still be the year of the snake, let's say in Southeast Asia, or the year of the horse or so on? Or did they sometimes bring in their own animals into this story and the meaning and importance of the zodiac spread further afield?
So yes, they did bring in their own animals. Many of them are common across East Asia, of course, because they're common animals. But you did get local variations, local traditions coming along with new animals substituted for different ones from the Chinese system.
John, you've performed heroically today because I know that your main area of interest is actually a bit further to the west with Babylonian astronomy and the origins of the western zodiac, Taurus and Aries and so on and so forth. However, I want to bring in that now. Can you see any connections or contact between the Chinese zodiac and the western ancient Babylonian zodiac?
It's a good question. It's an interesting question. Not in terms of origin. So the Chinese and the Babylonian zodiacs are completely independent when they're created. And the Babylonian zodiac, we can trace the development of that quite well. And it comes across, it's developed sometime in the 5th century BC.
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Chapter 7: How is the Chinese Zodiac integrated into culture?
And it becomes pretty stabilised in terms of the names of the signs of the zodiac by around 300 BC. And that Babylonian zodiac is then taken up outside of Babylonia. So it goes to Egypt, it goes to Greece. It goes from Greece to India. So we have the Babylonian zodiac in India in the first centuries A.D. And then eventually it comes from India into China.
So with Buddhism coming to China, particularly in the fourth, fifth centuries A.D., Along with Buddhism, we get Buddhist astrology. There was a big tradition in India of astrology in the Buddhist tradition. And we get that coming into China along with Buddhism. And along with that comes the Babylonian zodiac. So we get these two systems interacting in China.
When the Western zodiac, the Babylonian zodiac, first enters China, There's a lot of debate as to how it should be interpreted, how we name these things. So we get the same names attributed. So they just take across the Chinese names from the 12 branches and use those to name the zodiac. Sometimes they translate the Sanskrit name all the science that came from the Babylonian.
Other times they associate them with the animals from the Chinese zodiac. So they're trying to sort of harmonise these two systems.
So it's not a completely hostile bull versus ox kind of thing. There is an attempt to incorporate this other zodiac with the zodiac in China that they have been accustomed to and for hundreds of years by that point.
Exactly, yeah. So they're quite comfortable taking on the system of it being a mathematical division of the band of the moon and the planets into 12 equal parts. So they take on that system, but then what they have to do is come up with their own way of naming each sign. And the Babylonian names had already been kind of transformed by the time they got to India.
So the Indians have slightly different names for them. And then by the time it gets to China, they're again renaming, partly because some of these things are not applicable to a Chinese context. You know, some of the names... are maybe not necessarily understandable because they're named after gods and things like that.
So we have what we call Sagittarius as the archer, the half-man, half-horse archer. For the Babylonians, there's a god called Pabelsag who looks like this, who's himself a half-man, half-horse archer. What would you call that in China? There's nothing you could call that.
So they either have a choice of just translating the name as it's a meaningless name, or else you have to re-identify it to something else. So what they do is they're searching around and trying out different ways of naming the 12 signs. And often they just kind of portal across from the 12 branches, the names of the branches, across to the 12 signs.
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