Bya (Bird)

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 the Bird a proud portrait. In Dorje's translation: "Natives of the bird year will characteristically squander their inherited wealth. Arrogant and haughty, they ponder the limitations of others, while denying their own. Their nature is one of great passion, for which reason they often have no choice when it comes to keeping good or bad company. They like to cleanse themselves and can make do with little sleep. Despite their closed or blinded eyes, they are physically light and agile, the head and body assisting their motion. However, they have a tendency to befriend others with negative ideas."

Philippe Cornu's Tibetan Astrology sees the Bird as sparkling and honest, hungry for life and novelty, frank and sometimes brutal in criticism, fond of display and anxious about its image, "a perfectionist and a scientist" with sound financial sense, generous and rich in friends; "if it learns how to calm itself, it can find happiness in simplicity".

Both portraits see a proud Bird that judges others, but the White Beryl's squanders and keeps bad company, while Cornu's is organised and generous. 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 Bird year shares the same vitality (srog): iron, the element of the west, where the Bird stands on the divination turtle. Its life-spirit (bla) is earth, the element that is "mother" to iron. Its wind-horse (rlung-rta), the force of luck and good reputation, is water: the Bird belongs to the luck group of the Ox, Snake and Bird, whose luck is the Pig's element, water.

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

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

Wood Bird (shing-mo bya-lo). They suffer "many chronic ailments", and the old are disturbed by imbalances of the humours; "friends and relatives will become enemies", and the ghosts of female murder victims afflict them. Sixty years, one or three children.

Fire Bird (me-mo bya-lo). They "have many ideas and great guile", can feign wrath and, the text says, "make efforts to excel in theft and killing"; they fear being wounded and enjoy promiscuity. Sixty-five years, six obstacles.

Earth Bird (sa-mo bya-lo). "Light-hearted and perceptive", they "will be friendly to others", but have a short temper with "great jealousy, miserliness, pride and desire"; weak eyesight and bile diseases trouble them. Seventy years, seven obstacles, six children.

Iron Bird (lcags-mo bya-lo). They are "glorious and masterful, endowed with much wealth, grain, and an abundance of food and drink"; they "have strong attachments but can love their enemies" and "will become leaders of mankind"; yet demons of blood feuds and leprosy threaten them. Seventy years, seven obstacles, four children.

Water Bird (chu-mo bya-lo). "Physically and mentally indolent and distracted", forgetful and unreliable, they "enjoy travelling and have a wide circle of friends, but they also take delight in deception", and fall under the sway of others. Sixty years, nine obstacles, two 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 Hare, 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 tenth day of the mid-winter month of a Bird 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 Bird is energetic but scattered and calls for concentration; "on the global scale, there is political hardening and repression".

• Excellent day: Friday
• Good day: Thursday
• Bad day: Tuesday
• Day of basis: day 14 of the lunar month
• Day of power: day 7 of the lunar month
• Day of success: day 25 of the lunar month
• Day of obstacles: day 3 of the lunar month
• Day of disturbance: day 11 of the lunar month
• Day of enemies: day 24 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 Bird day is "light" for men and "heavy" for women; its illnesses are fevers of the solid organs, especially the heart, pains of the brain and the bones of the limbs, fatigue and poor appetite. 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 Bird belongs to the west, the sector of iron, the lungs, the trigram Dva and the planet Venus. Diviners use it to divine matters concerning "maternal relatives and protector deities". Among the twelve hidden spirit lords, the Bird's is Byi-dur.

Among the five constitutional types, Monkey and Bird years are enemy years for the wood type, "friend" years for the fire type, son years for the earth type, destiny years for the iron type and "mother" years for the water type.

The White Beryl judges a birth by the father's sign. A father born in a Bird or Monkey year and a child born in a Mouse or Pig year give the auspicious prediction called "bottomless ocean"; with a child of the Horse or Snake, the prediction is "short lifespan, inauspicious in both the short and long term".

Seen from the child's side, a Bird child of an Ox, Sheep, Dog or Dragon father has the auspicious "spear at the top and sister at the bottom"; with a Tiger or Hare father, the prediction is short life. A Bird child born under the trigram Li brings the mother difficulty in raising it, and one born under the trigram Gin brings affliction by the spirit lords of the soil upon "the wife, mother-in-law and brother-in-law".

For a Bird child, the delicate months are those of the Tiger, the Hare and the Dragon: birth in them falls in the sectors of ill-health, death and the tomb, "inauspicious to oneself and one's father".

The White Beryl makes iron the presiding element at death when a deceased of the Bird or Monkey sign also bears the other marks of iron: the iron constitutional type, the trigram Dva, one of the three white numeric squares, the planet Venus, and three generations of the family, father and son included, of the same sign. Such a body should not be cremated, "particularly during the first or second autumn month".

Interment is auspicious for someone who dies in a Bird year if most living relatives are Tiger or Hare; entombment is auspicious if they are Horse or Snake. In each case the trigrams or numeric squares must also agree. The corpse itself should not be carried towards the south, "otherwise, it will be inauspicious for friends".

When the deceased is a Bird, the White Beryl warns that the demonic influence may fall on relatives of the Hare or Ox sign, and 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, and for the Bird they contradict one another; we show them as they are. The Bird forms two loving triads, with the Mouse and the Dragon (in the White Beryl's reading; the painted plate shows a Monkey there) and with the Monkey and the Dragon. Yet the Mouse and the Bird also meet the "six inauspicious fears", and the Monkey and the Bird see their family line end.

With the Snake the couple has many children but its family line ends; with the Ox it becomes rich and powerful. With the Sheep it has no descendants; with the Tiger it divorces; with the Hare, "the mother and her child will be separated"; with the Dog it meets the "six inauspicious misfortunes". No compatible relationship is possible between the Horse and the Bird: "the bird will hold onto the horse's saddle". Two Bird partners will have "difficulty bringing up their children, and their savings will be exhausted by demons"; a second list foresees hunger for the same couple.

Philippe Cornu's table rates the Bird's partners differently. For him the Horse, the Sheep, the Monkey and the Pig are neutral and the Dog an enemy; 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".