Mark
Well-known member
I am a Western astrologer trying to understand the best way to implement Eastern knowledge in my current work. The first stumbling block I ran into was the same for Tibetan/Chinese systems as it was for the Hebrew system, the lunisolar calendar. The trouble is that the lunisolar calendar uses a leap month to keep the activities of the Sun and Moon relatively (though not very closely) synchronised over long periods of time. The Gregorian calendar uses leap days to adjust for the fact that a year can't be measured in whole days and must use fractions of a day. This means that both calendars have an inherent drift and the drifts are based on different things. Either one could be superior, depending on what it is you're trying to measure.
It's worth mentioning that the Chinese calendar changed several times in the first few centuries B.C., which is certainly after the peak of Chinese prediction/astrology. My worry here is that revisions of the calendar were made for political reasons and the predictive/astrological value of the calendar was not adequately considered. A quick read on Wikipedia describes several of these changes that may or may not have broken the calendar. At any rate, it is clear that the Chinese calendar is NOT a long, unbroken line of measured time.
The Chinese lunisolar calendar is the one used for prediction/astrology, but intercalary (leap) months were often inserted in an almost arbitrary manner until the advent of the Sifen calendar (around 484 B.C.), which was much more mathematical than intuitive. It seems that the previous arbitrary nature of the months didn't effect the predictive accuracy of Chinese divination/astrology, even though that divination/astrology often depended on counted days from the beginning of a year or month.
As a Western astrologer, my first thought as to how all this can be simplified is to anchor the Chinese zodiac to the tropical year. As dr. farr mentioned in another thread, the Rabbit (a time of year I understand is called Chunfen or Shunbun) is supposed to begin with the vernal (Spring) equinox. Anchoring the zodiac to the tropical year has worked quite well in the West, so it stands to reason that the same should work for the Chinese zodiac. This, however, is not a simple problem of choosing tropical or sidereal measurements of the same things. The months of the Chinese calendar are lunar months, not 12 divisions of solar movement, and there are a number of predictive/astrological techniques that require this lunar foundation. Auspicious days, for example, are often counted from the beginning of a lunar month. Without the lunar month, those techniques make no sense.
It seems that if we were to do nothing more than anchor the Chinese zodiac to the tropical year, we would have a Chinese version of the Western zodiac and not much more. The official Chinese calendar, however, is not an unbroken, linear measurement of time, so we can't trust that the Chinese calendar would give us the same information today that it would have a few thousand years ago. Therefore, we can't rely on a simple accumulation of days counted since an anchor date to provide us with reliable information. Luckily, given the "broken" nature of the Chinese calendar, this may not be necessary. After all, people were still using it for prediction/astrology while it was being changed. I have no idea, though, whether they compensated for the changes or followed them.
So, here are some direct questions. Is it true that the predictive/astrological calendar of the Chinese is supposed to "float" around observed phenomena, meaning that the equinox and solstice points are not the beginning or end of any year, but the full or new moons that fall around them provide the beginning and end points of the year? I suppose what I'm really trying to ask is how the beginning of the year should be determined if you had no knowledge of the beginning of last year? Should the starting point be the last full moon before the vernal (Spring) equinox? Should it be the new moon before the equinox? Forgetting all the calendrics and mathematics, what simple rule could be used to determine the beginning of the predictive/astrological year?
Of course, if I am mistaken about some of the things I've said, please correct me. Forgetting math and calenders, what acts of the Sun and Moon should be the start of the year that is useful for prediction/astrology?
It's worth mentioning that the Chinese calendar changed several times in the first few centuries B.C., which is certainly after the peak of Chinese prediction/astrology. My worry here is that revisions of the calendar were made for political reasons and the predictive/astrological value of the calendar was not adequately considered. A quick read on Wikipedia describes several of these changes that may or may not have broken the calendar. At any rate, it is clear that the Chinese calendar is NOT a long, unbroken line of measured time.
The Chinese lunisolar calendar is the one used for prediction/astrology, but intercalary (leap) months were often inserted in an almost arbitrary manner until the advent of the Sifen calendar (around 484 B.C.), which was much more mathematical than intuitive. It seems that the previous arbitrary nature of the months didn't effect the predictive accuracy of Chinese divination/astrology, even though that divination/astrology often depended on counted days from the beginning of a year or month.
As a Western astrologer, my first thought as to how all this can be simplified is to anchor the Chinese zodiac to the tropical year. As dr. farr mentioned in another thread, the Rabbit (a time of year I understand is called Chunfen or Shunbun) is supposed to begin with the vernal (Spring) equinox. Anchoring the zodiac to the tropical year has worked quite well in the West, so it stands to reason that the same should work for the Chinese zodiac. This, however, is not a simple problem of choosing tropical or sidereal measurements of the same things. The months of the Chinese calendar are lunar months, not 12 divisions of solar movement, and there are a number of predictive/astrological techniques that require this lunar foundation. Auspicious days, for example, are often counted from the beginning of a lunar month. Without the lunar month, those techniques make no sense.
It seems that if we were to do nothing more than anchor the Chinese zodiac to the tropical year, we would have a Chinese version of the Western zodiac and not much more. The official Chinese calendar, however, is not an unbroken, linear measurement of time, so we can't trust that the Chinese calendar would give us the same information today that it would have a few thousand years ago. Therefore, we can't rely on a simple accumulation of days counted since an anchor date to provide us with reliable information. Luckily, given the "broken" nature of the Chinese calendar, this may not be necessary. After all, people were still using it for prediction/astrology while it was being changed. I have no idea, though, whether they compensated for the changes or followed them.
So, here are some direct questions. Is it true that the predictive/astrological calendar of the Chinese is supposed to "float" around observed phenomena, meaning that the equinox and solstice points are not the beginning or end of any year, but the full or new moons that fall around them provide the beginning and end points of the year? I suppose what I'm really trying to ask is how the beginning of the year should be determined if you had no knowledge of the beginning of last year? Should the starting point be the last full moon before the vernal (Spring) equinox? Should it be the new moon before the equinox? Forgetting all the calendrics and mathematics, what simple rule could be used to determine the beginning of the predictive/astrological year?
Of course, if I am mistaken about some of the things I've said, please correct me. Forgetting math and calenders, what acts of the Sun and Moon should be the start of the year that is useful for prediction/astrology?
