Why are Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches extremely important in ancient China? Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches were associated with many Chinese traditional cultural fields. The history of the creation of the Heavenly Stem (Stem) and Earthly Branch (Root) goes all the way back to 4000 years ago, at the time of Xia Dynasty where the first heavenly stem 甲 was named after the emperor Kong Jia (孔甲) in the late Xia. Ancient Chinese divided a day and night into twelve sections and named each as a 'shi chen', which, in todays terms, is equal to two hours, and has a fixed Earthly Branch name. The time from 11 pm at night to 1 am in the morning, is decided to be the first one - 'zi shi', then the second two hours is 'chou shi', on the analogy of this.
The Chinese Numerology of "Heavenly Stems" and "Earthly Branches" is very important in Chinese astrology, because they have close connection with the Five Elements, which are wood, water, soil, fire and metal.
These elements can be seen below:
The "+" mark means Yang, "-" means Yin.
Earthly Branches are invented to count time in years, months and hours. When counting years, they are used with the 12 |