This page groups Chinese zodiac animals by the fixed one of the five elements each one is paired with. Wikipedia notes that "Chinese folkways held that one's personality is related to the attributes of their zodiac animal," an idea reflected in the fixed elemental pairing every animal carries. Browsing by fixed-element lets a visitor find every animal paired with the same element.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingThe twelve animals of the Chinese twelve-year cycle, an overlay on the older duodenary series of earthly branches. Not spirit animals or totems, and not the twelve signs of the Western zodiac; both are held as their own categories. 1 Size of the Traditional Set Origins
Place of OriginChina; carried with the branch cycle across Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Mongolia, Tibet and much of Southeast Asia, where local versions substitute some animals 1 Status
Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 1 Comparison
Cultural Origin Learn More
The Twelve Animals of the Chinese Zodiac
The twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac (rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig), name the twelve-year cycle and are attached to the twelve earthly branches that also mark the hours, months and directions. A person born in a given year is said to have that year's animal, with a character traditionally ascribed to it.
The animal names are a popular and memorable overlay on the older branch system, and the cycle is among the best-known features of Chinese and wider East Asian calendrical culture, marked at the New Year and used in popular astrology and compatibility.
Character and compatibility
Each animal carries a set of traits and, in popular astrology, relations of compatibility and conflict with the others, certain animals said to harmonise, others to clash, and the pairing of the animal with the year's stem-phase (a wood tiger, a fire horse) refines the reading. The system is used for character, luck and matchmaking across the region.
The atlas gives each animal its traits, its branch and its compatibilities. The earthly branches the animals name, and the stems they combine with, are treated in their own categories under Eastern Systems.
Fixed Element
Sources
1. Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth
2. Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
atlas entity-description, origin statementQuote, atlas entity-description, origin statement
The twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac (rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig), name the twelve-year cycle and the twelve earthly branches that also mark hours, months and directions.
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