Earthly Branches

The Twelve Earthly Branches (Chinese地支, Pinyin dizhi or十二 支, shíèrzhī; jap jūnishi, dt " twelve branches " ) are an ancient Chinese numbering system.

• In the Chinese calendar, each of the twelve animals earthly branch is assigned a number, so that the earthly branches the Chinese Zodiac correspond to 1:1 and are often confused with him.
• Along with the ten tribes sky they give the sixty -year cycle of the Chinese calendar. At the same time, they stand for a (double) hour of the day and the three months of the seasons each.
• The Twelve Earthly Branches are also each a compass and also serve as a basis for more complex systems (see below ) with 24 or even 48 points of the compass. The table is represented as the zero point of the North Clockwise starting at the corresponding angle.

It is believed that the division is related in twelve years with the sidereal period of Jupiter, which is 11.86 Earth years.

Table of Earthly Branches

Twelve branches are introduced throughout CJKV culture as a numbering system. The following table has not been illustrated in Katakana and Hiragana, the corresponding characters are listed in other tables.

Directions based on the Earthly Branches

Although with the Chinese北(with " North" ) ,东( Dong "east" ) ,南( nán "South" ) and西( xī "West" ) words for the four cardinal directions exist, were of Chinese sailors and astronomers the twelve corners of the Earthly Branches (see above ) are preferred. Contrary to the eight cardinal directions of European character they have, instead of a 45 ° - a 30 ° scale. For sailors these twelve directions were not sufficient, which is why their number doubled, reaching a staggering 15- degree intervals. This new names have been introduced with different origin for the cardinal directions between the Erdkreisen.

For the four cardinal points, the corresponding names of the eight trigrams of the Book of Changes ( I Ching ) were used with the natural aspect corresponding to them, namely:

The other four correspond to turn the main points of the compass:

For the rest of you took advantage of the heavenly stems.

According to the Five Element theory you ordered wood to the east, the south, fire, metal and water to the west to the north (the earth in the center does not matter here ). It differentiates between yin and yang. This combination provides the missing eight directions, which have now been entered in each case with ( Yin) or against ( Yáng ) clockwise in each 15 ° interval of the respective principal direction. From the North as zero starting this results finally in a clockwise direction:

Experienced sailors such as Zheng He used a 48 - membered compass. Upon further halving of the 24er system was exploited its two closest wind directions and combined them. Thus, for example, the center for the direction of 172.5 ° between丙( bǐng, 165 ° ) and午( wǔ, 180 ° ), we obtain丙午( bǐngwǔ ).

For practical application, the Earthly Branches and sky strains are, for example acupuncture.