The 5 Cows in the Years of Ox, me which one ?

Dear Friends,

Lets talk a bit about Ox since we will be entering Year of the Ox in just a few days.

In posting 己丑年 (Ji Chou Year) : 2009, Year of Ox it was said that there are 5 different type of Oxen in the 60-year cycle of Chinese Calendar.

The mechanism of the 60-year cycle was briefly discussed in postings  The Cosmic Forces in Year 2008 and Red Underwear & Your Birthday in Anno F.X. ? We see the 60-year cycle as a result of combination of 2 rotating sub-cycles, namely :

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1. 天干 Cycle : (“tian gan”, Heavenly Axis, the Vertical Axis), consisting of the following 10 elements :

甲、乙、丙、丁、戊、己、庚、辛、壬、癸

(Jia,    Ji,       Bing,   Ding,   Wu,      Ji,     Gen,     Xin,    Ren,  Gui)

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2. 地支 Cycle : (“di zhi”, Earthly Axis, the Horizontal Axis), consisting of the following 12 elements :

子、丑、寅、卯、辰、巳、午、未、申、酉、戌、亥

(Zi,     Chou,  Yin,    Mao,  Cheng, Si,     Wu,      Wei,  Sheng, You,   Xu,    Hai)

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For both sub-cycles,

the Odd-position elements (such as 甲 and   子 ) are the Yang elements and,

the Even-position elements (such as 乙 and   丑 ) are the Yin elements.

So we see for the 2 rotating sub-cycles, Yang elements of Tian-gan Cycle combine only with Yang elements of Di-zhi Cycle (similarly for Yin elements) in the 60-year cycle, starting from 甲子, 乙丑, 丙寅..…and ends  in 癸亥. This 60-year cycle is called “一甲子”, i.e. One Jia-zi cycle.

When people talk about the Chinese Zodiac cycle (i.e. the Animal Cycle), they are refering to the 地支 Cycle of 12 elements, each represented by an animal sign. (You will therefore immediately see that the 12 animals have got nothing to do with calendar, just an easy way for normal folks to remember, given learned scholars were restricted to the privileged few in ancient time). The Animal Cycle is only a small part of the 60-year cycle, since each Animal Cycle is only 12 years and it does not tell much about the nature of the animals.

• You will  realise that each animal sign will occur 5 times in the 60-year cycle. For example the year Ox, represented by   丑, will appear 5 times in  One Jia-zi cycle.

Next, you will also realise that each Ox will be different from the other 4 Oxen in the cycle because each is combined with a different 天干 element, therefore   丑 will appear 5 times in One Jia-zi cycle as :

• 乙丑, 丁丑, 己丑, 辛丑, 癸丑

You will also recall from the rules of Tian-gan/Di-zhi combination described earlier, all the 5 Oxen are Yin (call them females if you prefer).

• Year of Ox is therefore a misnomer. As per Webster dictionary, an Ox is “An adult castrated bull of the genus Bos,B. taurus” ! It is more correct to say Year of the Cow. (since all 丑s  are Yin)

Before risking making this posting a book, the conclusion of the 5 cows are :

• 乙丑           : Metal Cow  (White Cow)
• 丁丑           : Wooden Cow (Green Cow)
• 己丑 ……..: Earthen Cow (Earth-Yellow Cow)
• 辛丑           : Water Cow (Black Cow)
• 癸丑           : Fire Cow (Red Cow)

So you see,己丑 , the 3rd in the series, afterall, is a poor domestic Yellow Cow, toiling nonstop in the paddy field.

Before you start creating a spread sheet and wonder which “cow” you might be, unless you are around 60, you are not “Yellow Cow”.

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