In traditional culture, why don t the zodiac signs have cats?

There is a theory that the reason why there are no cats in the zodiac is because cats are not native to China, and they were introduced to China much later than the formation of the traditional culture of the zodiac. For this reason, it is first necessary to figure out when the zodiac signs appeared and when cats were introduced to China. As far as the appearance time of the zodiac is concerned, this traditional culture has actually begun to take shape as early as the pre-Qin period, and this information can be known from the relevant records on the "Bamboo Slips of the Qin Tomb of the Sleeping Tiger Land".

The "Bamboo Slips of the Qin Tomb in the Sleeping Tiger Land" is a group of bamboo slips that record the relevant history from the late Warring States period to the early Qin Dynasty, and its content is divided into ten parts, among which the zodiac culture is mentioned in the "Thief" chapter in the "Book of Days". In this part of the record, the ancients of the pre-Qin period have very clearly corresponded the twelve hours to the animals one by one. Except for the time when there is no corresponding animal, the animals corresponding to the rest of the hours are very familiar to everyone, and there is no cat in it.

In addition to the "Bamboo Slips of the Qin Tomb of the Sleeping Tiger Land", the "Qin Slips of Tianshui Fangmatan" unearthed a little later also mentions the 12 zodiac signs. The content recorded in "Tianshui Fangmatan Qin Jian" is mainly the history of the late Warring States period, in which the 12 zodiac signs appear in the content of this part of the "Book of Days". The 12 zodiac signs recorded on this bamboo slip are somewhat different from the "Sleeping Tiger Land Qin Tomb Bamboo Slip", but the cat also does not appear as an animal.

Judging from the content of these two bamboo slips, the zodiac culture has appeared at least in the late Warring States period and has a relatively complete system. <>

On the other hand, the cat is an animal, and the records of this animal in history have appeared in ancient books such as "Lü's Spring and Autumn Period" and "The Book of Rites". It can be inferred that cats appeared in China more than 2,000 years ago. Combined with the compilation time of "Lü's Spring and Autumn Period", that is to say, cats and zodiac signs actually existed in the late Warring States period.

As a result, the claim that cats were not included in the zodiac because they were not introduced to China becomes very credible. Because the origin of the zodiac is so old, the origin of this traditional culture has always been controversial. In addition, it is not known what the twelve animals corresponding to the zodiac are based on, and it is still unknown why the cat did not appear in the zodiac.

In traditional culture, the setting of the zodiac is in a certain way, and the cat is not in the zodiac. This is the art of traditional Chinese culture.

Because cats are not native to China, and they were introduced much later than other zodiac signs, there are no cats in the zodiac.

Because cats are not native to China, they entered China relatively late, so there are no cats.

Although the zodiac culture was modified once in the Eastern Han Dynasty after the introduction of cats into China, cats did not gain widespread popularity at that time. The animals involved in the zodiac are very familiar to people in their daily lives, so cats are still not included in the zodiac. After entering the Tang and Song dynasties, which were economically prosperous, this kind of cat became gradually popular, and the number of poems and paintings about cats also increased.

Later, after Vietnam introduced the zodiac signs from China, because there were no rabbits in Vietnam, they replaced the rabbit with a cat.

There are many folk rumors about the absence of cats in the zodiac, and there are also rumors on the Internet that there were no cats in ancient China.

Why are there no cats in the zodiac?

Say goodbye to the old and welcome the new year of the dog is coming to an end We are about to usher in the Year of the Pig Why are there no cats in the zodiac?

Legend has it that the cat was deceived by a mouse and was eventually disqualified from the zodiac.

The zodiac first appeared in the Warring States period, and the appearance of cats did not appear until the Northern and Southern Dynasties. That is to say, in the flat zodiac, there is no cat at all. So cats appear a little later than the zodiac, which is already stereotyped.

The 12 zodiac signs, also known as the zodiac, are 12 animals in China that match the 12 earthly branches with the year of birth of a person, including rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.

Popular science why there are no cats in the zodiac.

Cats, belonging to the feline family, are divided into domestic cats and wild cats, and are the most widely used pets in families around the world. The ancestors of domestic cats are presumed to have originated in ancient Egypt, the Persian cat of Persia, which has been domesticated by humans for 3,500 years (but not completely domesticated like dogs).

Because when the zodiac was established, there were no cats in China, and I heard that the zodiac signs had been established in the pre-Qin period, but the cat only flowed into China during the Western Han Dynasty, so it did not catch up.

The zodiac signs come from the sexagenary branch and are formed very early. The origin of the cat is not China, and when it enters China with the **, the zodiac has already been formed.

The cat was denied. Cats are looking at formations, they can't enter the zodiac, they can only arrest fake zodiacs.

So why the zodiac signs instead of the 120 or 1,200 or 1,200 zodiac signs? That's where the problem comes in.

This question has become a very funny mass problem in modern times, and I will briefly extract a few references:

1.Story: At the beginning of the chaotic division, the heavenly and earthly branches were just timed, and the Jade Emperor issued an order to summon the animals of the world, and to select twelve genera according to the twelve earthly branches of Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, and Hai.

2.Because there were no cats in ancient China, the DU zodiac had already been formed when domestic cats were introduced to China.

The origin of the zodiac is related to animal worship, according to the Qin Jian unearthed in Yunmeng Sleeping Tiger Land in Hubei Province and Fangmatan in Tianshui in Gansu Province, it can be known that there was a relatively complete zodiac system in the pre-Qin period.

3.The 12 zodiac signs are the figurative representations of the 12 earthly branches, namely Zi (Rat), Chou (Ox), Yin (Tiger), Mao (Rabbit), Chen (Dragon), Si (Snake), Wu (Horse), Wei (Sheep), Shen (Monkey), You (Rooster), 戌 (Dog), Hai (Pig).

In the first column, the story that has been circulated begins with an important element, which is the selection of the genus, not the animal.

What is the aspect? As far as I understand, rhinoceros and buffalo cattle are both bovine genera, star baboon monkeys are monkey genus, birds are unified into chicken genus, tigers, leopards and cats are all felines, so why are tigers listed in the zodiac but not cats?

This is because when the zodiac was first proposed, the physiognomy animals selected were all well-known animals in history at that time, although cats have now become the representative of tigers, it does not mean that the cats of that year were not collectively called tigers.

At the same time, it is rumored that the ancients regarded the crocodile hippopotamus as a dragon, but now it is rare to see this kind of record, so what kind of animals does the dragon genus of the zodiac species represent, or, what kind of animals do the twelve genera (zodiac) represent and whether there is a relative basis for their order, is the real need for ** thing.

There is no cat in the zodiac, and legend has it that it is because the Jade Emperor does not like cats as an animal, so he did not make cats one of the zodiac.

In fact, the earliest cat in China entered the country during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and the breed was an Indian cat, so in fact, the reason why there were no cats in the zodiac was that when the ancients invented the zodiac, there were no cats at all. There is a scientific basis for guessing that cats have not entered the zodiac, because there are no domestic cats in Chinese history, and there have always been only wild cats, so there is no cat in the zodiac.

Because cats are not loved by the royal palace nobles, they have always been regarded as unlucky animals, so they do not appear in the zodiac.

Zodiac Origin

The 12 zodiac signs, also known as the zodiac, are 12 animals in China that match the year of birth with the 12 earthly branches, including rats, oxen, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes, horses, sheep, monkeys, chickens, dogs, and pigs. The origin of the zodiac is related to animal worship, according to the Qin Jian unearthed in Yunmeng Sleeping Tiger Land in Hubei Province and Fangmatan in Tianshui, Gansu Province, it can be seen that there was a relatively complete zodiac system in the pre-Qin period, and the earliest document that records the same zodiac signs as the modern one is Wang Chong's "On Balance" in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

Zodiac is born in the ancient animal worship, totem worship atmosphere, people only use animals to borrow algebraic ordinal symbols and earth branches to match, why choose these twelve animals, who first and who last, according to what kind of order is not conclusive, because the zodiac is produced in ancient ancient culture, can only rely on the legend and imagination of hunger.

But in fact, it is because there were no cats in ancient China, and the earliest cats were introduced to China from the Western Regions at least in the Tang Dynasty. But"Cats"The word came in the Spring and Autumn Period, and it was proved that it referred to a large wild lynx. China's Ganzhi chronology, the legend is born in Xia.

Whether this legend is correct or not is not proven by history, but it will not be later than Shang at the latest, as it is already recorded in the oracle bone inscriptions. From the perspective of biological evolutionary history, the history of cats is longer than that of humans, but before the Han Dynasty, there were only wild cats in China, that is, the lynx mentioned in the "Book of Rites", and perhaps the leopard cat in the "Book of Songs" "There are bears and stalks, cats and tigers".

Today's domestic cats in our country, according to research, are the desert cats of India. The introduction of Indian cats into China began after the Ming Emperor of the Han Dynasty, because at that time, Sino-Indian exchanges became more frequent through Buddhism. It has been a thousand years since the generation of the Ganzhi chronology.

When the zodiac was born, the cat had not yet come to China and was still staying in Persia. The introduction of Indian cats into China began after the Ming Emperor of the Han Dynasty, because at that time, Sino-Indian exchanges became more frequent through Buddhism. But before the Han Dynasty, there were only wild cats in China, that is, the lynx mentioned in the "Book of Rites", and perhaps the leopard cat in the "Book of Songs" that "has bears and stalks, cats and tigers".

Therefore, cats were not included in the zodiac at that time.

One of the main reasons is that there were no cats in ancient China, that is to say, there were no cats when China invented the zodiac, and the current cats were later introduced from abroad. The cats that eat mice in our lives were first born in Sudan, Africa, and then to Egypt, and then to foreign countries very late, and of course China is among them. So there are no cats in the 12 zodiac signs.

Cats don't contribute much to humans

Both cats and tigers belong to the feline family, and it is enough to have tigers representing the feline family.