Tibetan Zodiac

Astrology in Tibet is not a folk pastime but one of the classical sciences. Under the name rtsis-kyi rig-gnas, "the science of calculation" (Sanskrit jyotirvidyā), it counts among the five minor sciences of the Tibetan curriculum. The scholastic tradition, as summarised by 'Jam-mgon Kong-sprul in the nineteenth century, divides it into three branches: astrology proper (skar-rtsis), of Indian Buddhist origin; "martial conquest" (gYul-rgyal), of Nepalese Śaivite origin; and elemental divination ('byung-rtsis), of Chinese Buddhist origin. The twelve animals and the five elements of this zodiac belong to the third branch. Tibetans also call it nag-rtsis, the "black" or Chinese calculation, after rGya-nag, the "black area", their name for China. They set it against dkar-rtsis, the "white" calculation of Indian astrology, named after rGya-gar, India. Edward Henning describes the outcome as two systems "that have effectively been synthesized by the Tibetans", with "some details that appear to have their origins in ancient Tibet". Philippe Cornu adds the native Bön religion as a further source.

The Tibetans tell the origin of elemental divination as a legend set in China. The mythical emperor Fuxi, traditionally dated 2853–2738 BC, was offered a golden turtle, and as he inspected it the patterns of the eight trigrams first arose in his mind. From them came the systems built on the trigrams, the nine numeric squares and the twelve-year cycle. Chinese Buddhism attributes the first teaching to the bodhisattva Mañjughoṣa on Mount Wutai (Wu Tai Shan). According to one tradition, the elements came from his body: iron from his inner space, wood from his breath, water from his saliva, earth from his vision and fire from his sword. Around the golden turtle stood "twelve male and female offspring" who gave their names to the years, months, days and hours. These are the twelve animals. Lo-chen Dharmaśrī explains why the Mouse leads them. When Mañjughoṣa first taught divination, the great spirit lord of the soil, The-se, stood in the north-north-east, the Mouse's direction, "for which reason the mouse year was placed at the beginning". The sources date the moment differently. Gyurme Dorje has Mañjughoṣa emanate on the central peak of the mountain in a wood male pig year; Henning cites Phugpa texts that place the same event on the fifteenth day of the Tiger month of a Wood-male-Mouse year, "which calculates to 837 BCE".

The animals reached Tibet, according to the Tibetan histories, over the seventh and eighth centuries. Elemental divination was first introduced under King gNam-ri Srong-btsan (c. 560–630), but it did not spread at the time, because no texts were available. The decisive step came with his son Srong-btsan sGam-po and his Chinese queen, whom Dorje calls Wencheng and Henning and Cornu call Kongjo. Henning dates her arrival in Lhasa to 641, "together with the first translations into Tibetan of Chinese astrological methods". The king and queen sent four intelligent Tibetans to study in China under the master 'Bar-ba Tshom-tshom. Together they translated nine tantras, three commentaries and fifteen divination charts. More translations followed in the eighth century under a second Chinese princess, Jincheng. Under King Khri-srong lDe'u-btsan, the Chinese master Sems-brtse taught the "four gateways": obstacle years, marriage, geomancy and death. Further waves of translation came in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The sources themselves urge caution about this story. Cornu writes that the attribution to Kongjo rests on "late Tibetan sources" and "is by no means certain". Dorje notes that "none of the many texts which were reputedly translated from Chinese into Tibetan appears to be known to contemporary sinologists", and that many may be Tibetan compositions.

The way Tibetans name their years comes from two sixty-year cycles, one from China and one from India. The Indian cycle comes from the Kālacakra Tantra, which tradition says was translated into Tibetan in 1027. That year was Prabhava (rab-byung), the first of the Indian cycle. Ever since, Tibetans have counted their history in rab-byung cycles: the sixteenth began in 1927, the seventeenth in 1987, and the eighteenth will begin in 2047. In everyday use, however, a year almost always takes its name from the Chinese cycle. The name has three parts: one of the five elements (wood, fire, earth, iron or water), a gender and one of the twelve animals. Each element lasts two consecutive years. The gender always follows the animal: Mouse, Tiger, Dragon, Horse, Monkey and Dog are male; Ox, Hare, Snake, Sheep, Bird and Pig are female. The Chinese cycle opens with the Wood-Male-Mouse three years before the Indian one, so every rab-byung begins with a Fire-Female-Hare year, as 1027 and 1987 both did. Henning gives an example: 1989 is the "Earth-Snake of the 17th prabhava". Tibet also counts a royal era from 127 BCE, in which the year that began early in 2006 is year 2133.

The reference work for all this is the White Beryl (Vaiḍūrya dKar-po), written by the regent Sangs-rgyas rGya-mtsho (1653–1705). He governed Tibet from 1679 and completed the Red Palace of the Potala. He wrote the White Beryl between 1683 and 1685 to mark a new sixty-year cycle, which in elemental divination began with the wood mouse year of 1684. Of its thirty-five chapters, chapters 20 to 32 deal with elemental divination. In 1695, Dorje records, the regent founded the sMan-rtsis-khang of Lhasa, where medicine and astrology were taught together. Alongside the White Beryl stands the Moonbeams ('Byung-rtsis man-ngag zla-ba'i 'od-zer) of Lo-chen Dharmaśrī (1654–1717), written in 1684. Dorje calls it important for the living Phugpa tradition, because "the more extensive White Beryl … now has an interrupted transmission". The Phugpa calendar itself dates from 1447 and is still the most widely used, alongside the Tsurphu tradition.

A birth year, in Tibetan reckoning, is more than an animal: it carries a set of personal forces. Each of the sixty years has four elemental aspects. The first is vitality (srog), "the life-essence present in the heart … from the moment of birth until the moment of death". It is fixed by the animal and is the element of the animal's direction: wood for Tiger and Hare, fire for Snake and Horse, iron for Monkey and Bird, water for Mouse and Pig, earth for Ox, Dragon, Sheep and Dog. The second is the body (lus), which governs health. The third is power or destiny (dbang-thang), which governs "wealth, property, food, clothing and descendants", and is the element that gives the year its name. The fourth is luck, the wind-horse (rlung-rta), which stands for "good fortune and good reputation". A fifth force is often added, the life-spirit (bla): the element that is "mother" to one's vitality. Dorje stresses that in this Buddhist system "destiny" means "the ripening effect of … past actions (karma) and not … an irreversible predetermined fate". Each year the almanacs weigh every force against the element of the new year and mark it with a white or black pebble. When a force is weak, there are rites to restore it: a ransom for vitality, prayer flags raised for the wind-horse.

How Tibetans actually use all this is described by the Dalai Lama in his foreword to Dorje's book. Important decisions, "such as marriages or business agreements", are often made only after consulting a divination. When a child is born, "they want to know his or her prospects". The calculations are made by astrologers "who work and train in conjunction with the Tibetan medical profession". The sMan-rtsis-khang institutes in Lhasa and Dharamsala still compile the yearly almanac (lo-tho) for the public. Most people, Dorje writes, turn to simplified charts and published almanacs or, more often, to the rosary, dice or other methods; the full calculations are left to specialists. He stresses that the predictions "are not considered to be deterministic, but cautionary and prescriptive". If the portents are negative, the person performs rites to neutralise them: recitations, mantras, smoke offerings, thread-crosses, amulets, and the prayer flags seen across the Tibetan landscape. The year itself begins at Losar, between February and March. The Tibetan year is close to the Chinese lunar year but not identical: according to Cornu, about one year in three the Chinese year begins a month earlier.

The honest picture that emerges is that of a synthesis. The twelve animals came to Tibet from China, and Henning notes that they are "sometimes wrongly referred to as the Chinese zodiac". In Tibet they live inside a system that is no longer simply Chinese. Henning writes that the calendar's calculations come solely from the Indian Kālacakra, while the names of the years and most of the almanac's symbols come from China. The synthesis of the two is Tibetan, and so, Dorje suspects, are many of the texts said to come from China. The sources are frank about the tradition's limits too: Henning writes that the most common form of the calendar, the Phugpa, "is now in a sorry state", in need of the very reform the Kālacakra literature encourages. Dorje's conclusion places elemental divination where Tibetans themselves place it: it "does not contradict the higher understandings of Buddhism", but offers "a systematic approach to the exigencies of conventional life".