The origin of the year of the rat

     As the year of the rat approaches, we Chinese have a special affection for mice. Maybe, before we celebrate

The evening, the mouse is also busy doing the wedding! Why does the mouse always marry the cat in the legend? It's hard to say. Perhaps this is the cat's revenge -- who let the rat be the "first sign of the zodiac", but the cat is not on the list?

     According to modern people's feelings for the rat, it is strange why the rat can enter the Chinese zodiac, or the first, while the cat can not make the list.

The answer to this question is: the zodiac reflects the lives of ancient ancestors, not the lives of modern people. The ancestors saw the mouse nimble, rolling eyes, very worship. Our local people still regard the wisdom of the people as a vestige of this ancient bionics.

-- the mouse in the mural appears in the face of the child god, playing the role of exorcising evil spirits, nagy and attracting souls

     The rat's spirit is not only clever, it can "bite the sky open", lead people into the paradise, the ability is really great! From 1979 to 1981, when excavating the tomb of Lou rui, king of dong 'an county in the first year of wuping (570) in the northern qi dynasty of taiyuan, Shanxi Province, it was found that on the top of the tomb hall and the upper middle column were painted murals of stars, zodiac animals, lei gong and dianmu. Among them, the zodiac figure is the first. It is located in the tomb on the fence a week, according to due north for the rat, due east for the rabbit order, 1 meter high, 4.3 meters long, only remaining rat, ox, tiger, rabbit. The frescoes in the tomb, with auspicious and celestial signs as the content, are used to overcome boredom and drive away evil spirits, and guide the soul of the tomb owner to heaven. Murals in the mouse is the face of the child god appeared, also playing the role of exorcism, nagy, soul.

This philosophy of the rat boss, which is strange to modern people, is part of the spiritual history of the ancients.

-- "the book of songs, the master mouse" is the ancestor of the expression of the mouse worship of the contrary

    Of course, the ancients had different feelings for mice. "The book of songs · master rat" cloud: "master rat, no food my millet. Three years old through a girl, I will not care. The death will go to the female, suitable for the Promised Land. Happy land, happy land, hence I." Big mouse, big mouse, do not eat our millet. For many years you have been fed, but you have not seen us. Leave you, and we'll find ourselves the Promised Land, that's where we'll settle down.

This is in fact the ancestor expressed to the mouse worship of the contrary. This kind of feeling becomes mainstream gradually, be familiar with by modern people, down to a Taiwan children's song so to point to call a mouse: "a rat thief name, two cattle drive plough elder brother. Three tiger mountain rugged, four rabbit tour Tokyo. The five dragons emperor orders, six snakes by people. Seven horses run to barracks, eight sheep graze on the hills. Nine monkeys climb a tree, ten chickens crow three times. Eleven dog barking brother, twelve pig kitchen knife life ", clearly expressed the contempt for the mouse.

As for the rat's cleverness, also in the following song in suzhou to sell taohuawu rat wedding picture in the ballad has been completely overturned:

    The New Year's eve is a bad night for mice. The mouse is so clever, the toilet pot is a big one. Embroidered quilt first two or three, red lacquer box gold line. There are porcelain vases in the case, and a feather duster to hold on to. This is a really cute mouse, squinting and laughing in a sedan chair. His head was covered with a red scarf and he wore a flowered cotton-padded jacket. Blow dozen dozen to marry, relatives and friends follow in a hurry. Next to the yellow cat, a tower scraper eat all.

Almost all of the folk paper-cuts and New Year pictures on the theme of "mouse marriage" have a "hua-huang cat", which is used to mock the "boldness" and "imprudence" of the mouse. Three leopard cat mountain stand, swallow life to Yin "is also.

    Mouse marriage, a fairy tale of the New Year

Of course, there are also holding the "fairy tale artistic conception" to look at the "mouse marriage".

The annals of yu city records that they banned lamps on the 17th night of the first lunar month in order to allow mice to marry. Hangzhou customs that New Year's eve rat married a woman, shoo for sedan. Ancient anonymous describe the scene yue: "good set in my house, car mouse son Ya for shoe. The rat-woman has come to worship the rat-woman, but the rat-woman has gone away." Zhou zuoren once wrote a poem on this subject, saying, "the mice are now relatives. The bride wore her usual red dress, with her whiskers up ten roots." Which of these are mice? Clearly is a person!

Lu xun was even more proud of mice. He wrote in "chaohuaxishi" "dog, cat and mouse" that there were two pieces of paper pasted on the front of my bed. The other one is cute. There is not a bridegroom, bride, bridesmaid, guest, or deacon who does not have pointed cheeks and thin legs and look like a scholar, but it is vulgar to wear red and green trousers. But at that time want to see the "mouse marriage" ceremony, is extremely enchanted.

Mr. Lao she "turned over" the humor of lu xun's words in "mutatsu zhai zushi: cat's breakfast". He said that his mutatsu zhai was full of mice, so he bought a cat to catch them. However, the cat was small, and Lao she tied it up with a rope. Later, under Mr. Lao she's good care, the cat's diet gradually expanded, and one morning, Lao she found that it had caught a half-live mouse, with two dead frogs beside it. Even frogs! It's a carnivore. Lao she sighed on the side that he was quitting smoking, drinking, tea and meat, as if he and the fate of the cat switched.

Speaking of cats, it's time to address the question at the beginning of this article: why are there no cats in the zodiac? Because at the time of the creation of the zodiac, there were no cats in people's lives. The answer is as simple as that.

    -- year of birth of rat:

The year of the rat

Year of the rat (4)

1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020

The year of the year AD divided by 12 has a remainder of 4.

The formula is: the year sign ÷12= some quotient, and the remainder is 4.

For example, 2008÷12= 167, and the remainder is 4. So 2008 is the year of the rat.

Note that the above is only a rough correspondence, because the Gregorian calendar and the Chinese calendar are two different calendars.

    The year of the rat is counted as the beginning of spring, the twenty-four solar terms, because the year of the Chinese zodiac is dependent on the ganzhi calendar, which is the method of the ganzhi calendar. This is true of the official almanac through the ages. The lunar calendar is only borrowed to chronicle the year, the scope of a year in the first lunar month to New Year's eve, this point is not controversial. And the lunar calendar and the dry branch calendar are two different calendars, both in the year starting point, month division rules, each year the number of days are different. Because of the use of the Gregorian calendar after the republic of China, many people including a very few so-called experts in the lack of calendar knowledge, so the two are often confused.

The ganzhi calendar is a calendar that marks the year, month, day and hour with 60 different groups of heavenly stems and earth branches. It begins with the beginning of spring and is divided into 12 months with 24 solar terms. Each month contains two solar terms and there is no leap month. The dry calendar is related to the earth's periodic motion around the sun, and it can reflect the climate changes throughout the year. Since ancient times, the ganzhi calendar has been the official and folk general understanding, applied in astronomy, feng shui, numerology, selection and traditional Chinese medicine and other disciplines, and for the official almanac (that is, the almanac) records. Take the qing dynasty official history book "records of qing dynasty" as an example, the book in the ganzhi years are divided by the beginning of spring: for example, the Chinese book company photocopies "records of qing dynasty" volume 17, qianlong records of volume 9, page 573, December 22, qianlong 27 years (geng xu) start of spring, "records of" the record is: "geng xu. It is the beginning of spring." See also qing dynasty "a dream of red mansions" 95 return: "is the year of jia-yin year December 18 start of spring, yuan chun dead day is December 19, has already handed over to MAO year Yin month", here is clearly points out the dry branch calendar in the period of the month when the change point.

In 2020, the year of the rat in the gengzi lunar calendar has a "leap April", with a total of 384 days.