Chinese Astrology

Chinese Astrology makes use of twelve diverse signs or symbols to describe and classify twelve fundamental groups of human beings. These are identified as Chinese Animal Signs. The Chinese Astrology System utilizes an individual or an occurrence of birth date as the basis for his/her sign.
Chinese zodiacal symbols run in a year based arrangement. Every Chinese sign has a separate animal name and associated to one Chinese calendar year. Chinese astrology is intertwined into the Chinese calendar and its 12-year cycle of animals. The fortune-telling feature of a person’s animal sign is dogged according to the movement of the planets across the Chinese constellations in the sky.
Definite date of derivation of Chinese Astrology is not known. Various scholars place its origin between 4000 and 2000 BC. It is supposed that the Astrology in China was all widespread approximately from the time of the middle ages. The Chinese Zodiac consists of a 12-year cycle; every year of the cycle is named after a different animal that gives dissimilar and discrete uniqueness to its year. A 13th "leap" year is occasionally added to maintain the system in balance. According to one myth, a Chinese emperor invited all the friends of the forest to a New Year party, he was expecting many visitors, but only twelve animals came. The rat was first, followed by the ox, and so on. The emperor pleased the animals by naming the years after them. Another Chinese myth suggests that more than five centuries before the birth of Christ, when Chinese Astrology was at it's peak, the dying Buddha asked all the animals of the planet to come before him to bid them farewell, for which they would be given gifts. Most of the animals failing to understand the cause behind the appeal, failed to appear before the Buddha. Those who did emerged before the Buddha, however, were only 12 in number. These twelve animals were the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. These twelve animals bearing Chinese Signs represent the Chinese zodiac cycle, each of which have control over one year in the same order of their arrival at the meeting. According to popular Chinese beliefs, the year of a person's birth is the main factor in shaping that person’s character traits, physical and mental attributes, aptitude and degree of success and happiness all through his or her lifetime. Proceedings and occurrence in a given year are prejudiced by the nature of that year's animal.