| Ox | |
|---|---|
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Other Names |
Ox, Bull, Cow, Water Buffalo |
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First Appearance |
Chinese Mythology |
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Created by |
Unknown |
Origin[]
The Ox is the second of the 12-year periodic sequence (cycle) of animals which appear in the Chinese Zodiac related to the Chinese calendar, and also appears in related calendar systems. The Chinese term translated here as ox is in Chinese niú , a word generally referring to cows, bulls, or neutered types of the bovine family, such as common cattle or water buffalo. The zodiacal ox may be construed as male, female, neutered, intersex (formerly referred to as hermaphroditic), and either singular or plural.
There are also a yearly month of the ox and a daily hour of the ox (Chinese double hour, 1:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m.). Years of the oxen (cows) are cyclically differentiated by correlation to the Heavenly Stems cycle, resulting in a repeating cycle of five years of the ox/cow (over a sixty-year period), each ox/cow year also being associated with one of the Chinese wǔxíng, also known as the "five elements", or "phases": the "Five Phases" being Fire (火 huǒ), Water (水 shuǐ), Wood (木 mù), Metal (金 jīn), and Earth (土 tǔ). The Year of the Ox follows after the Year of the Rat (the first year of the zodiacal cycle) which happened in 2020 and is then followed by the Year of the Tiger, which happened in 2022.
An ancient folktale called "The Great Race" tells of the Jade Emperor's decree that the years on the calendar would be named for each animal in the order they reached him. To get there, the animals would have to cross a river.
The Cat and the Rat were not good at swimming, but they were both quite intelligent. They decided that the best and fastest way to cross the river was to hop on the back of the Ox. The Ox, being kindhearted and naive, agreed to carry them both across. As the Ox was about to reach the other side of the river, the Rat pushed the Cat into the water, and then jumped off the Ox and rushed to the Jade Emperor. It was named as the first animal of the zodiac calendar. The Ox had to settle for second place.
Another version of the folktale tells that the Rat deceived the Ox into letting it jump on its back by promising the Ox that it could hear the Rat sing, before jumping off at the finish line and finishing first. Another variant says that the Rat cheated the Cat out its place at the finish line, by hiding on the back of the Dog, who was too focused to notice that he had a stow-away. The Cat tried to attack the rat in retaliation, but hurt the Dog by accident. This is said to account for the antagonistic dynamic between cats and rats, beyond normal predator and prey behavior, and also why dogs and cats fight.
In Buddhism, legend has it that Gautama Buddha summoned all of the animals of the Earth to come before him before his departure from this Earth, but only twelve animals actually came to bid him farewell. To reward the animals who came to him, he named a year after each of them. The years were given to them in the order they had arrived.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
All published appearances of the Ox of the Chinese Zodiac from before January 1, 1930 are public domain in the US.
Some notable appearances are listed below:
- Ancient Calendars and Constellations (1903)
- Things Japanese (1905)
- 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica