A Guide to Reading Old Chinese Gravestones: the Sexagenary Cycle
Chinese section, Beechworth Cemetery, Victoria; photograph by Paul Macgregor 2019.
Background:
This is the first in what I intend to be a series of posts aimed at helping family-history researchers, historians and others with some knowledge of Chinese characters to interpret inscriptions on old gravestones. I must stress, however, that it will not be a comprehensive guide, and that old texts contain many pitfalls for the native and non-native Chinese-speaking novice alike. On a happier note, much of the content will also be applicable to other types of texts.
Introduction:
It is not uncommon to see the year of a person’s birth or death expressed in Chinese gravestone inscriptions by means of characters that designate a specific “sexagenary year”. These sexagenary years are the sixty years of a Chinese cyclical calendar that begins again at year 1 after year 60. This post does not treat the system’s long history, on which there are already informative English-language references available, but instead focuses on the practical side of things, guidance on which is rare.
Overview:
The Chinese sexagenary cycle is composed of sixty pairs of Chinese characters, which correspond to the numbers 1 through to 60. These are used to record years, months, days and hours on the Chinese calendar, chapters in books, etc. When they designate years, the pair of characters representing the year is typically preceded by the expression “歲次“ or followed by the character “歲“. (Note that there are numerous variant forms of this character; in case of doubt, a variant-character dictionary—such as the 中華民國教育部異體字字典—should be consulted.)
In each pair, the first character is one of ten so-called “heavenly stems” (天干) and the second character one of twelve so-called “earthly branches” (地支).
In the array below, which I have put together as a visual aid, the top row of characters are the stems and the bottom row the branches. Each of the sixty pairs is shown vertically: the top character is the pair’s stem and the bottom character is its branch.
The bold numbers above the array are the numbers of the sixty pairs (shown from right to left); I have also marked zero, but there is no pair that corresponds to it. The numbers of the stems are shown immediately above them: note that the stems repeat six times over the sixty pairs (6 x10 = 60). The numbers of the branches are shown below them: note that the branches repeat five times over the sixty pairs (5 x 12 = 60). Because 10 and 12 are both even numbers, there are no pairs consisting of an even and odd stem and branch—a useful fact to bear in mind when examining antiques of dubious origin.
The Chinese Sexagenary Cycle; copyright Ely Finch 2021.
Memorisation:
It is not necessary to memorise all sixty pairs, but to interpret texts in the field without having to refer to the above table one does need to memorise the ten heavenly stems, and the twelve earthly branches, and their numerical sequence. Once achieved, the guidance below—which may look complex but is actually not—will enable you to determine, with some simple mental arithmetic, the number on the sexagenary cycle to which any given pair corresponds. Taking contextual information into account, it is then usually a simple enough business to determine the year on the Gregorian calendar to which the sexagenary year corresponds.
For speakers of standard Cantonese, the order and pronunciation of the heavenly stems is as follows (Yale and IPA romanisation): 1.甲 gaap [kaːp3]; 2. 乙 yut [yːt3] or yuht [yːt2]; 3. 丙 bíng [pɪŋ35]; 4. 丁 dīng [tɪŋ55]; 5. 戊 mouh [moːu22]; 6. 己 géi [kei35]; 7. 庚 gāng [kaŋ55]; 8. 辛 sān [sɐn55]; 9. 壬 yàhm [jɐm21]; 10. 癸 gwai [kwɐi33]. And the pronunciation and order of the earthly branches is as follows: 1. 子 jí [tsiː35]; 2. 丑 cháu [tshɐu35]; 3. 寅 yàhn [jɐn21]; 4. 卯 máauh [maːu13]; 5. 辰 sàhn [sɐn21]; 6. 巳 jih [tsiː22]; 7. 午 nǵh [ŋ13] or vulgar ḿh [m13]; 8. 未 meih [mei22]; 9. 申 sān [sɐn55]; 10. 酉 yáuh [jɐu13]; 11. 戌 sēut [sɵt5]; 12. 亥 hoih [hɔːi22].
For speakers of standard Mandarin, the order and pronunciation of the heavenly stems is as follows (Pinyin romanisation): 1.甲 jiǎ; 2. 乙 yǐ; 3. 丙 bǐng; 4. 丁 dīng; 5. 戊 wù; 6. 己 jǐ; 7. 庚 gēng 8. 辛 xīn; 9. 壬 rén; 10. 癸 guǐ. And the pronunciation and order of the earthly branches is as follows: 1. 子 zǐ; 2. 丑 chǒu; 3. 寅 yín; 4. 卯 mǎo; 5. 辰 chén; 6. 巳 sì; 7. 午 wǔ; 8. 未 wèi; 9. 申 shēn; 10. 酉 yǒu; 11. 戌 xū; 12. 亥 hài.
For the sake of brevity, I do not include lists of pronunciations in other Chinese languages or languages such as Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese. Please refer to dictionaries or knowledgeable speakers for confirmation of these.
It is worth noting, and possibly memorising for other purposes, that the twelve branches correspond to the twelve animals (十二生肖) that form the Chinese zodiac (in which the units are years, not months as with the Western zodiac). The animals are: (1) 鼠 the rat (or mouse, or in fact any member of the rodent family); (2) 牛 the ox (or buffalo); (3) 虎 the tiger; (4) 兔 the hare (or rabbit); (5) 龍 the dragon (i.e. the Chinese creature translated as “dragon” because it bears some similarity to the dragon of European myth); (6) 蛇 the snake (or serpent); (7) 馬 the horse; (8) 羊 the goat (or sheep); (9) 猴 the monkey; (10) 雞 the fowl (or rooster, hen, chicken etc.); (11) 狗 the dog; and (12) 豬 the hog (or boar, sow, pig, swine, etc.).
How to convert from a number to a corresponding character pair:
If the number is 12, 24, 36, 48 or 60, then its branch will be a 12, and its stem will be 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10 respectively.
If the number is not 12, 24, 36, 48 or 60, first determine the identity of its stem from the second digit, e.g. if the number is 52, the stem will be 2. Then determine which multiple of twelve is closest, and identify the branch by calculating the difference between the number and the multiple of twelve it is closest to, e.g. (a) 52 is 4 more than 48, therefore its branch is 4; (b) 23 is 1 less than 24, therefore its branch is 11.
How to convert from a character pair to a corresponding number:
Convert the stem and branch into their numerical equivalents, e.g. 丁未 → 4–8, 乙亥 → 2–12, 庚辰 → 7–5.
The stem gives the number’s second digit. If the stem is a ten, the second digit will be 0, because the number will be a multiple of ten.
If the branch is a twelve, simply choose which of the numbers 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60 ends in the digit given by the stem to determine the number. E.g. 2–12 → 12; 8–12 → 48.
Otherwise, determine what multiple of twelve would yield a number with that second digit if the value of the branch were added to it, e.g. 4–8 → 36 + 8 = 44; 7–5 → 12 + 5 = 17. Alternatively, count downwards from a multiple of twelve to arrive at the number, e.g. 7–9 → 60 – 3 = 57 (3 because 9 is 3 less than 12); 4–8 → 48 – 4 = 44 (4 because 8 is 4 less than 12).
Converting across to the Gregorian calendar:
Year 1 on the Chinese sexagenary cycle began early in 1984, 1924, 1864, 1804, etc. and ended early in the following year. If one of these dates is born in mind, then it is quite simple to roughly convert dates given by the Chinese sexagenary cycle to the Western calendar, providing that the period is known. An accompanying era name, or other contextual information, often indicates the period.