In today's world, the state is best described by the term "globalization" remains of fewer and fewer crops remains that can boast of something truly original, truly unique and peculiar only to them. A long time ago the world lives on European civilization belonging to the Gregorian calendar and is now living generation is natural, they do not remember any other calendars. Once again, the uniqueness manifests Chinese culture - although officially in China has all the same Gregorian calendar, but along with it there is a national calendar of the ancient, well-known outside the country. Moreover, the Chinese calendar is the interaction of different complex calendar systems: the moon, the lunar and solar-cyclical.

The history of the Chinese calendar

The Chinese calendar, is one of the most striking manifestations of the uniqueness of Chinese civilization, it is perhaps the oldest on the planet, along with the astronomical-calendrical systems of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India .  Information about the astronomical observations of the Chinese scientists for celestial phenomena refers to a period of more than 4000 years ago .  On the first "Calendar" (to call them so we can only conditionally) sources reported already from the beginning of the second millennium BC, and the first true Chinese calendars can be a certain degree of confidence attributed to the middle of the same, the second millennium .  And at the turn of the second and first millennia BC the development of the Chinese calendar have acquired mature forms: local "experts" were able to establish that the astronomical year of 365 days and still a quarter of the day: it is able to carry out due supervision over the moon (the length of the lunar month has been identified 29 and a half days) and the sun .  It is this duality and caused further divisions calendar and astronomical research of Chinese scientists, so there was and to this day there is a lunisolar calendar of national duality .

In the ancient Chinese lunar-solar calendar (Zhuan Xu Li-) divided the year into 12 months, the duration of which was alternately 29 and 30 days, which add up to a duration of 354 days .  To bring the calendar into line with the astronomical year seven times in 19 years in the year to insert additional 13 month . Thus obtained a leap year .  At the same months they had their own names, and shared only by serial numbers .  As for the ancient calendar, determines the order and timing of agricultural operations, then it was a year divided into 24 agricultural season, do not depend on the existing months .  Later, at the turn of our era, the works of many prominent Chinese calendar astronomers continued to grow, mainly in the direction of clarifying the true length of the lunar month and the solar year, as well as ways to correct inaccuracies in earlier versions of the existing calendar .

The Chinese calendar: Lunar and lunisolar

Related heavenly bodies Chinese calendar systems differ in their practical use .  The lunar-solar calendar (CR) is designed primarily for traditional mystical relations celestial events and events on earth with the help of the Chinese define favorable and unfavorable days for various important events: the naming of the newborn, the opening of the company, beginning of the journey and so further .  To a certain extent lunisolar calendar performs some of the functions of the Chinese horoscope and related .  At the same time, the lunar calendar since ancient times has been associated with agricultural work, and this due to its longevity and continued popularity is still .  It is through the lunar calendar and are determined by traditional folk Chinese festivals .  It is through this calendar China's "national" new year (called Spring Festival), comes at the first new moon after the entry of the Sun in the constellation of Aquarius, which can not occur before January 21 and later on February 19 .  Similarly, other periods of the lunar calendar, which in total there, as in antiquity, 24, have names that are directly related to climate and agricultural omens .  For example, the season 5 (or 6) March 20 (or 21) in March called "Awakening of Insects", during 7-8 June 21-22 June called "earing bread", and the segment from 23-24 September October 8-9 is called "White Dew" .

Chinese cyclical calendar

Along with the calendar systems, describe and organize the life within the astronomical year and month, in China there is a traditional system of chronology, the so-called cyclical calendar .  Its essence is to structure time statistical parameters .  In ancient Rome, the principle of use decimal (ten days - a decade), in medieval Europe was in the course of a week of seven days, and the Chinese in this regard addressed the sexagesimal cycle .  According to him the days designated by a combination of one of the ten digits of a number of so-called "trunk" and one of the 12 signs of a number of "branches" .  The first day of the cycle is marked by the first signs of both series, and the second - a combination of the second character, and so on .  The sixty-day cycles stood a kind of "decades" .  About two thousand years ago sexagesimal principle was widespread and chronology .  Only now the "trunks" and "branches" were measured, respectively, 10 and 12 years .  Due to the fact that half of the combinations with unequal parity, unused, Chinese calendar cycle is only half of the total 120-year cycle, i.e. 60 .  During this cycle are 5 times 12 "earthly branches", which are the names of various mythological or for various reasons revered animals: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, pig .  To transfer the same year on the modern "Western" chronology in Chinese cyclical calendar year to the number necessary to add the number 2397 (the year taken as the beginning of the cyclical account), and the resulting sum is divided by the number 60 .

Alexander Babitsky

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