Yos (Hare)

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 Hare the portrait of a solitary. In Dorje's translation: "Natives of the hare year are characteristically bachelors or spinsters who avoid idle conversation, favouring instead the renunciation of social activities. Being well suited to the life of a vagabond, they will make do with an inadequate diet, and they will be indifferent to their fathers, whether great kindness is shown to them or not. They will wear clothes simply to ward off the cold and do not expect clothing to be provided through their mothers' kindness. They think only of the present, but despite their meagre diet, they are skilled in deceit. They can set aside their anger and affect a gentle smiling demeanour. They will be susceptible to phlegm, bile and dental disorders."

Philippe Cornu's Tibetan Astrology sees the Hare as "a model of calm, virtue, and prudence": elegant, well-mannered, kind and soft-spoken, an excellent diplomat who loves comfort and luxury and avoids difficulties. He warns that it is polite even to its enemies, "but beware!": it can attack by crafty and devious means.

The White Beryl's Hare is an ascetic wanderer, Cornu's a refined diplomat; they share only the gentle surface and the hidden guile. 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 Hare year shares the same vitality (srog): wood, the element of the east, where the Hare stands on the divination turtle. Its life-spirit (bla) is water, the element that is "mother" to wood. Its wind-horse (rlung-rta), the force of luck and good reputation, is fire: the Hare belongs to the luck group of the Hare, Sheep and Pig, whose luck is the Snake's element, fire.

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

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

Wood Hare (shing-mo yos-lo). "Crafty", they "greatly enjoy the company of the opposite sex", "commit adultery and constantly indulge in play, song and dance"; the text foresees step-relations and illegitimate children. Sixty-seven years, six obstacles.

Fire Hare (me-mo yos-lo). This is the year that opens every rab-byung cycle. The White Beryl gives its natives "great mental afflictions and unpleasant speech", deceit and self-praise, though they respect "the names of holy persons" and are "of an erudite character". Their wealth is abundant, but "their parents may die of leprosy". Seventy-five years, seven obstacles.

Earth Hare (sa-mo yos-lo). "Extremely talkative and intelligent", they "will master grammar and various treatises", but have little wealth, commit adultery and "bring many disasters upon their relatives"; they may die of chronic lung disease. Fifty years, six obstacles, one child.

Iron Hare (lcags-mo yos-lo). "Broad-minded and indolent", yet with "a great sense of endeavour and keen intelligence", well-educated, and showing "loving kindness and generosity to others", despite painful diseases and the risk of accidental death. Sixty-one years, five obstacles, five children.

Water Hare (chu-mo yos-lo). They "do not place their trust in others", yet keep negative company; fond of business and of over-sleeping, forgetful and miserly, they "will allow their paternal home to be snatched away". Seventy-two years; they are "destined to have important 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 Bird, 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-winter month of a Hare year is a "black day". As a general rule, in Horse months the Hare 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 Hare is "a year of general relaxation, an easy life", so calm that it "leads to a certain degree of indolence".

• Excellent day: Thursday
• Good day: Saturday
• Bad day: Friday
• Day of basis: day 11 of the lunar month
• Day of power: day 27 of the lunar month
• Day of success: day 12 of the lunar month
• Day of obstacles: day 26 of the lunar month
• Day of disturbance: day 25 of the lunar month
• Day of enemies: day 18 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 Hare day is "light" for men and "heavy" for women; its illnesses are those of the chest and the brain, lumbar pains and conjunctivitis. 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 Hare belongs to the east, the sector of wood, the liver, the trigram Zin and the planet Jupiter. Diviners use it to divine matters concerning "male ancestors". Among the twelve hidden spirit lords, the Hare's is Rus-sbal ser-po.

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

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

Seen from the child's side, a Hare child of a Mouse or Pig father has the auspicious "flourishing wish-granting tree"; with an Ox, Sheep, Dog or Dragon father, the prediction is short life. A Hare child born under the trigram Dva brings the mother difficulty in raising it, and one born under the trigram Khon "is predicted to be afflicted by the spirit lords of the soil".

For a Hare 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 wood the presiding element at death when a deceased of the Tiger or Hare sign also bears the other marks of wood: the wood constitutional type, the trigram Zin, the numeric square Green Four, the planet Jupiter, and three generations of the family, father and son included, of the same sign. "In all such cases, and during the first or second spring month", the body should not be entombed.

Water burial is auspicious for someone who dies in a Hare year if most living relatives are Ox, Dragon, Sheep or Dog; sky burial is auspicious if they are Bird or Monkey. In each case the trigrams or numeric squares must also agree. The corpse itself should not be carried towards the west, "otherwise, it will be inauspicious for friends".

When the deceased is a Hare, the White Beryl warns that the demonic influence may fall on relatives of the Tiger 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 Hare they contradict one another; we show them as they are. The Dog and the Pig form a loving triad with the Hare, and the Pig also brings many children. The Ox is listed among the couples that "will have no descendants" and among the "six inauspicious fears", while the text adds that "an ox and hare couple will have long prosperous lives and good reputation".

The Hare and the Sheep become rich and powerful. With the Snake the couple has no descendants; with the Tiger the family line ends; with the Monkey, divorce; with the Bird, "the mother and her child will be separated". No compatible relationship is possible between the Mouse and the Hare: "the mouse will pick up the hare's child". Two Hare partners will lose their baby and have "many daughters who are easy to raise, but who will eventually end the family line"; a second list rates the same couple average.

Philippe Cornu's table rates the Hare's partners differently. For him the Rat is good, the Cow and the Snake neutral, the Tiger a source of intolerance and the Dragon 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".