Astrology | Chinese Lunar Calendar

Before adopting the Western solar calendar system, China exclusively followed a Chinese lunar calendar in deciding the times of seeding, harvesting, and festival occasions. However, people in China, nowadays, use the western calendar for the planning of daily life. The Chinese lunar calendar still serves and is being used to determine the numerous festive seasons and holidays for the year as shown in Table 1. The people of China have long adopted this coexistence of the two calendar systems - the Chinese lunar and Western solar calendar.

Chinese Lunar Calendar is One Of The Oldest Calendar

The Chinese lunar calendar is one of the longest chronological record in history, dating back to 2,600 BC. It was  during the reign of Emperor Huang Di who introduced the first cycle of the zodiac. The Chinese New Year usually begins somewhere between January and February of the Western calender.

Astrological Animals In Chinese Lunar Calendar

The Chinese lunar calendar are also known for its Chinese Astrology represented by the 12 astrological animals, namely the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. The Chinese calendar counts years based on a 60-year cycle. Each year is given a name based on two characters. The first is known as 'earthly branches' and the second is known as 'heavenly stems'. Each of the 12 'heavenly stems' is also associated with an animal, thereby assigning an animal to a year.

Characteristics Of Chinese Lunar Calendar

Chinese months follow the phases of the moon. As a result, they do not precisely follow the seasons of the solar year. To help farmers to decide when to plant or harvest crops, the Chinese calendar is marked with 24 seasonal markers, which follow the solar year.

A Chinese lunar month is determined by the period the moon requires to complete its full cycle of 29 and half days. It is a standard that makes the Chinese lunar year a full 11 days shorter than its Western solar counterpart. This difference is synchronized or sorted out every 19 years by the addition of the double seventh Chinese lunar months.

The Chinese lunar calendar, like the Hebrew, combines the solar and lunar calendar in that it attempts to have its years correspond exactly with the tropical year, and its months coincide with the synodic months. It is not surprising that a few likenesses exist between the Chinese and the Hebrew calendar. An ordinary year has 12 months and a leap year has 13 months. An ordinary year has 353 or 354 or 355 days and a leap year has 383 or 384 or 385 days. When determining what a Chinese year is going to be like, one must make some astronomical calculations.

First, one must determine the dates for the new moons. Here, a new moon is referred as the completely black moon, that is, when the moon is in conjunction with the sun. It is not the first visible crescent used in the Islamic and Hebrew calendars. The date of a new moon is the first day of a new lunar month.

Each solar term or node is the moment when the sun reaches one of twenty-four equally spaced points along the ecliptic, including the solstices and equinoxes, positioned at fifteen degree intervals. Because the calculation is solar based, these nodes fall around the same date every year in solar calendars, for example the Western Calendar, but do not form any particular pattern in the Chinese calendar. The dates below, Table 2, are only approximate and may vary slightly from year to year due to the interpolated rules, that is the system of leap years, of the Western calendar. Calendars with the 24 seasonal markers are published each year in farmers' Chinese almanacs.

The current year in the Chinese lunar calendar is 4707, the Year of the Earth Ox. It lasts from 26th January 2009 to 9th February 2010.

Table-1 :  Shows The Various Important Chinese Dates And Festivals According To Chinese Lunar Calendar.

Table-2 : The Twenty-Four Solar Terms With The 24 Seasonal Markers.

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