Byi (Mouse)

Tibetan sources present these portraits as warnings, not as a fixed fate. In Gyurme Dorje's words, the predictions "are not considered to be deterministic, but cautionary and prescriptive", and a negative portent is met with rites that "have the power to nullify" it.

The White Beryl, the seventeenth-century treatise of the regent Sangs-rgyas rGya-mtsho, gives each sign a short portrait. In Dorje's translation: "Those born in the mouse year characteristically covet the wealth of others. Though it is none of their business, they try to move like thieves in the night, and although they hope to achieve their own happiness, their actions have the opposite effect, generating many enemies. Outwardly untidy and inwardly fastidious, they show little generosity to their relatives, even by word of mouth. Yet once their grand designs have faded, they will achieve some minor successes as they scurry around."

Philippe Cornu's Tibetan Astrology draws a different picture. His Rat is charming, sociable and direct, independent, careful with money, adaptable and a skilled organiser, sensual and generous to its family. He also calls it "in reality egotistical, calculating, and manipulative", with "great interior aggression" behind a calm surface.

The two portraits meet in the Mouse's eye for gain, but they are different readings. ZodiAtlas gives the White Beryl first because it is the Tibetan text itself, written down in the seventeenth century; Cornu does not say which Tibetan text his portraits come from.

Every Mouse year shares the same vitality (srog): water, the element of the north, where the Mouse stands on the divination turtle. Its life-spirit (bla) is iron, the element that is "mother" to water. Its wind-horse (rlung-rta), the force of luck and good reputation, is wood: the Mouse belongs to the luck group of the Mouse, Dragon and Monkey, whose luck is the Tiger's element, wood.

Body (lus) and power (dbang-thang) change with each of the five Mouse years. In the Wood Mouse year the body is iron and the power wood; in the Fire Mouse, water and fire; in the Earth Mouse, fire and earth; in the Iron Mouse, earth and iron; in the Water Mouse, wood and water. The power element is the one that names the year.

Mouse natives fall under the numeric squares Red Seven, Green Four and White One, which also govern the Horse, the Bird and the Hare.

Wood Mouse (shing-pho byi-lo). The White Beryl credits them with "clear intelligence" and skill "in arts and crafts", but says they "excel in deceit and lying". They are prone to ailments caused by serpent spirits; it gives them an average life of seventy-five years, five or three children and seven obstacles.

Fire Mouse (me-pho byi-lo). They have "many thoughts" and "a great craving for wealth and food", and are "skilled at exposing the faults of others"; the text adds that they "strive to steal or kill". It foresees stomach ailments, fevers and heart disease, a life of sixty-eight years and five obstacles. Yet, "despite being garrulous, in the depths of their heart they are self-controlled".

Earth Mouse (sa-pho byi-lo). Short in stature, they "take delight in killing", are indolent and "endowed with severe faults", "gentle in speech" but "selfishly intent upon achieving their own advantage". Phlegm disorders and death by injury threaten them; sixty-eight years, seven obstacles, one child.

Iron Mouse (lcags-pho byi-lo). "Corpulent and perceptive", elegant and fond of games, they act "with good faith and good will" and meet "few enemies". They also "enjoy fighting and incur great losses of wealth", yet "play down their own ambitions and respect those of others", and "will be respected by all persons". Fifty-seven years, five children, six obstacles.

Water Mouse (chu-pho byi-lo). "Extremely elegant, calm and collected", but "full of desires" and given to "guile and deceit"; they may suffer great losses of wealth and food. Seventy-two years, seven obstacles, two or five children.

The years of one's own sign, at ages 13, 25, 37, 49, 61 and 73, bring what the White Beryl calls "natural obstacles" (rang-keg). In them it advises performing virtuous actions, drawing in prosperity and long life by ritual means, and avoiding contact "with those in grief, or invalids". The years of the seventh sign, the Horse, fall at ages 7, 19, 31, 43 and 55. At seven, adversarial forces must be ritually averted; the nineteenth year is "the time for making money"; the thirty-first brings the risk of divorce, the forty-third hostile forces against wealth, and the fifty-fifth difficult breathing.

According to sMon-'gro Paṇḍita, as Dorje reports, the seventh day of the mid-spring month of a Mouse year is a "black day". As a general rule, in Mouse months the Bird day is black.

Philippe Cornu adds a table of good and bad days for each sign, shown below; he does not name its Tibetan source. For Cornu, a Year of the Rat is "a year of prosperity and plenty", calm and good for progress and investment, provided one avoids too many risks.

• Excellent day: Wednesday
• Good day: Tuesday
• Bad day: Saturday
• Day of basis: day 20 of the lunar month
• Day of power: day 6 of the lunar month
• Day of success: day 3 of the lunar month
• Day of obstacles: day 26 of the lunar month
• Day of disturbance: day 10 of the lunar month
• Day of enemies: day 23 of the lunar month

From Philippe Cornu, Tibetan Astrology, tables 26 and 27. Cornu does not name the Tibetan source of these days.

The White Beryl also divines illness from the animal of the day. A Mouse day is "light" for men and "heavy" for women, and its illnesses are those of the joints and swellings. For the most severe diseases, those with signs of impending death, the text adds that the rites vary with the year-sign of the sick person.

On the divination turtle the Mouse belongs to the north, the sector of water, the kidneys, the trigram Kham and the planets Moon and Mercury. Diviners use it to divine matters concerning "in-laws and female ancestors". It heads the cycle because, according to tradition, Mañjughoṣa first taught elemental divination in a Wood Mouse year, while the great spirit lord of the soil, King The-se, stood in the north, the Mouse's direction. Among the twelve hidden spirit lords, the Mouse's is gNyan-khra.

The Mouse also has a set place among the five constitutional types. For a person of the wood type, Mouse and Pig years are "mother" years; for the fire type, enemy years; for the earth type, friend years; for the iron type, son years; for the water type, destiny years.

The White Beryl judges a birth by the father's sign. A father born in a Mouse or Pig year and a child born in a Tiger or Hare year give the auspicious prediction called the "flourishing wish-granting tree"; with a child of the Ox, Sheep, Dog or Dragon, the prediction is "short lifespan, inauspicious in both the short and long term".

Seen from the child's side, a Mouse child of a Bird or Monkey father has the auspicious "bottomless ocean"; with a Horse or Snake father, the prediction is short life. When four generations of paternal ancestors were all Horse or Snake, Lo-chen Dharmaśrī calls the prediction the "Fixing of Bondage and Impediments".

For a Mouse child, the winter months are the delicate ones. Birth in the Pig month falls in the sector of ill-health, in the Mouse month in that of death, and in the Ox month in that of the tomb, "inauspicious to oneself and one's father".

The White Beryl makes water the presiding element at death when a deceased of the Mouse or Pig sign also bears the other marks of water: the water constitutional type, the trigram Kham, the numeric square Black Two or Blue Three, the Moon or Mercury as planet, and three generations of the family, father and son included, of the same sign. Such a body should not be buried underground, "particularly during the first or second winter month".

Entombment is auspicious for someone who dies in a Mouse or Pig year if most living relatives are Horse or Snake; water burial is auspicious if they are Ox, Dragon, Sheep or Dog. In each case the trigrams or numeric squares must also agree. The corpse itself should not be carried towards the intermediate directions, "otherwise, it will be inauspicious for friends".

When the deceased is a Mouse, the White Beryl warns that the demonic influence may fall on relatives of the Dragon or Horse sign: "four married relatives will depart on a demonic blue horse". The text then prescribes rites "for the slaying of the avengers".

For every negative reading the White Beryl gives a remedy. In the years of one's own sign it prescribes recitations, such as the sNang-brgyad and the Pañcarakṣā at thirteen and the Vajravidāraṇa and the Amitāyus Sūtra at twenty-five, together with long-life rituals. Weak forces are restored with a ransom for vitality (srog-bslu) and with prayer flags for the wind-horse. As the book itself says, "if the appropriate rituals are correctly undertaken, the negative conjunctions will turn out to be auspicious."

The White Beryl manuscript gives several lists of couples, each with its own prognosis. For the Mouse they contradict one another, and we show them as they are. The Ox appears both among the loving couples and among those that "will have no descendants". The Tiger appears among the loving couples and among those for whom "the family line will come to an end", and so does the Pig, which elsewhere brings "a long prosperous life with many children". The Bird appears in the loving triad Mouse–Dragon–Bird, where the painted plate shows a Monkey instead, and also among the "six inauspicious fears".

The Mouse and the Horse have "no descendants" in the text, where the plate puts a Bird instead, and their union brings "unhappiness and many sorrows". No compatible relationship is possible between the Mouse and the Hare: "the mouse will pick up the hare's child". Two Mouse partners will have "many impoverished sons"; a second list calls the same couple one of "difficulty in having children or obtaining wealth".

Philippe Cornu's table rates the Rat's partners differently. For him the Dragon is excellent, the Ox very good and the Snake good, while the Tiger and the Hare are neutral; he prints nothing for the other six signs. Cornu himself admits that "Chinese, Tibetan, and Western writers are not in complete agreement as to compatibility".