1. General introduction

Twelve Branches are kinds of numbers like Ten Stems. Originally, they did not related with animal names.

Still there are several arguments about their origin, I think they were used to indicate directions at first. Because, in several Chinese theories, the Branches are oftenly called as 'Earthly Branches', and their arrangement is always the same. Because, in ancient China, Heaven was considered moving, and Earth was not. Therefore, it is natural that branches always stay at the same place.

On the other hand, people knew the time by the direction of the sun, moon, and other important planets, especially by sun and moon. This means, specified time or season is related with a specified position(or direction) of a specified planet. This can be seen typically in monthly aspects of year and hourly aspects of day.

2. Relationships between branches

There are two types of relashonship between branches, meeting and reacting. We can see some various types of both relationships.

2.1. Meeting-relations

First, there are three types of meeting, couple-meeting, trine-meeting and quadrangle-meeting.



Each member of the meeting-relationships is usually behaves friendly.

2.2. Reacting-relations