간지
천간(天干) Heavenly Stems
The ten Celestial or Heavenly Stems (Chinese: 天干; pinyin: tiāngān; Korean: 천간) are a Chinese system of ordinals that first appear during the Shang dynasty, ca. 1250 BCE, as the names of the ten days of the week. They were also used in Shang-period ritual as names for dead family members, who were offered sacrifices on the corresponding day of the Shang week. The Heavenly Stems were used in combination with the Earthly Branches, a similar cycle of twelve days, to produce a compound cycle of sixty days. Subsequently, the Heavenly Stems lost their original function as names for days of the week and dead kin, and acquired many other uses, the most prominent and long lasting of which was their use together with the Earthly Branches as a 60-year calendrical cycle.[1]
(from "Celestial_Stem", Wikipedia[1])
| Celestial Stem |
Meaning | |
|---|---|---|
| Original | Modern | |
| 甲 갑 | shell | first (book I, person A etc.), methyl group, helmet, armor, words related to beetles, crustaceans, fingernails, toenails |
| 乙 을 | fishguts | second (book II, person B etc.), ethyl group, twist |
| 丙 병 | fishtail [2] | third, bright, fire, fishtail (rare) |
| 丁 정 | nail(fastener) | fourth, male adult, robust, T-shaped, to strike, a surname |
| 戊 무 | lance | (not used) |
| 己 기 | threads on a loom [3] | self |
| 庚 경 | evening star | age (of person) |
| 辛 신 | to offend superiors [4] | bitter, piquant, toilsome |
| 壬 임 | burden[5] | to shoulder, to trust with office |
| 癸 계 | disposed grass [6] | (not used) |
(from "Celestial_Stem", Wikipedia[2])
- ↑ Smith (2011).
- ↑ Wenlin Dictionary: Picture of a fish tail.
- ↑ Wenlin Dictionary: 己 may have depicted thread on a loom; an ancient meaning was 'unravel threads', which was later written 紀 jì. 己 was borrowed both for the word jǐ 'self', and for the name of the sixth Heavenly Stem (天干).
- ↑ Wenlin Dictionary: "The seal has 𢆉 'knock against, offend' below, and 亠 above; the scholastic commentators say: to offend (亠 = ) 上 the superiors"
- ↑ Wenlin Dictionary: 壬 rén depicts "a 丨 carrying pole supported 一 in the middle part and having one object attached at each end, as always done in China" --Karlgren(1923). (See 扁担 biǎndan). Now the character 任 rèn has the meaning of carrying a burden, and the original character 壬 is used only for the ninth of the ten heavenly stems (天干).
- ↑ Wenlin Dictionary: 癶 "stretch out the legs" + 天; The nicely disposed grass, on which the Ancients poured the libations offered to the Manes
Bebliography
Smith, Adam (2011). "The Chinese sexagenary cycle and the ritual origins of the calendar". In John Steele (ed.). Calendars and years II : astronomy and time in the ancient and medieval world (PDF). Oxford: Oxbow. pp. 1–37. ISBN 978-1-84217-987-1. [3]
