Phag (Pig)

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 Pig a harsh portrait, with one surprise. In Dorje's translation: "Natives of the pig year are dull-witted and of poor taste. When it come to food they have a low level of hygiene, but they have the potential to become excellent yogins. Although they enjoy eating, in their conduct they are somewhat ascetic. They will not fear others, even when harshly addressed. They avariciously bite the hand that feeds them, without considering gratitude and blurring all moral scruples. They will tell many lies if it is to their advantage. This is a year when positive values are becalmed and negative ones aggravated, characterised generally by voracious appetites, dark frowns, anger, quarrels and malice."

Philippe Cornu's Tibetan Astrology draws the opposite picture: the Pig is "honest, simple, and good-natured", jovial and pure-hearted, a "good person", trustworthy, sincere and charitable but naive, an easy victim of swindlers; fond of money despite appearances, and of pleasure, "sometimes as far as depravity".

On no sign do the two readings diverge more than on the Pig. 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 Pig year shares the same vitality (srog): water, the element of the north, where the Pig 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 fire: the Pig belongs to the luck group of the Hare, Sheep and Pig, whose luck is the Snake's element, fire. The Pig's own element, water, is in turn the luck of the Ox, the Snake and the Bird.

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

Pig natives fall under the numeric squares White Eight, Black Two and Yellow Five, which also govern the Tiger, the Monkey and the Snake.

Wood Pig (shing-mo phag-lo). They are "corpulent and muscular, wrathful, fierce and thoughtless", "deceived by friends and lovers"; "it is generally feared that they will be inauspicious", though "the prospect of the family line coming to an end will be mitigated by wealth". Sixty-four years, five obstacles.

Fire Pig (me-mo phag-lo). Their "weak bodies … succumb to many ailments", fevers and bile disorders; "superiors will grow hostile and their house will be burnt down". Sixty-eight years, seven obstacles, three children.

Earth Pig (sa-mo phag-lo). They "will have little knowledge, but many enemies and afflictions" and "bring little benefit to their relatives", yet their share of food and wealth will be abundant. Seventy-seven years, six obstacles, two children.

Iron Pig (lcags-mo phag-lo). They are "perceptive and refined in conduct. If they are male, they will become worthy of veneration and suitable recipients of offering. They will have two spouses and glorious attributes." Seventy years, seven obstacles, two or four children.

Water Pig (chu-mo phag-lo). The last year of the sixty: "perceptive and endowed with firm intelligence", they "delight in exposing those who are manifestly proud or jealous", and they are wealthy, with cows, food, property and grain; the text warns of "the risk of suicide or fatal falls". Sixty years, five obstacles, four 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 Snake, 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 eighth day of the first spring month of a Pig year is a "black day".

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 Pig is more optimistic and indulgent than the Year of the Dog: a year of security and prosperity, with a tendency to waste and to "sybaritic excess".

• Excellent day: Wednesday
• Good day: Tuesday
• Bad day: Saturday
• Day of basis: day 2 of the lunar month
• Day of power: day 8 of the lunar month
• Day of success: day 11 of the lunar month
• Day of obstacles: day 26 of the lunar month
• Day of disturbance: day 3 of the lunar month
• Day of enemies: day 12 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 Pig day is "light" for men and "heavy" for women; its illnesses are exhaustion and breathlessness, imbalances of temperature, disorders of the brain, vomiting of blood, back pains, skin inflammations and pustules, 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 Pig 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". Among the twelve hidden spirit lords, the Pig's is Phyug-po.

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

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 Pig 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 Pig 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 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 Pig, the White Beryl warns that the demonic influence may fall on relatives of the Pig or Hare 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 Pig they contradict one another; we show them as they are. The Dog and the Hare form a loving triad with the Pig, yet another list holds that no compatible relationship is possible between the Dog and the Pig: "the dog will carry off the pig's child". With the Mouse or the Ox the couple has "a long prosperous life with many children", yet the Mouse and the Pig also see their family line end, and the Ox and the Pig have difficulty raising children.

With the Hare the couple has many children; with the Dragon it becomes rich and powerful. With the Tiger it divorces; with the Snake, "the mother-in-law will die prematurely, and the family line will be ended". Two Pig partners will be "disillusioned with the world despite having many children and much wealth" in one list, while another rates the same couple above average.

Philippe Cornu's table rates the Pig's partners differently. For him the Sheep is excellent, the Horse, the Bird and the Dog neutral and the Monkey a source of intolerance; 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".