China News Service, Beijing, December 12 (Xinhua) -- Why are the 22 solar terms the crystallization of China's agricultural civilization?

The author: Liu Xiaofeng, professor of history, Tsinghua University

The excellent traditional Chinese culture is the spiritual home of the Chinese nation, which provides rich nourishment for the nation's endless growth and development. As an excellent representative and classic symbol of traditional Chinese culture, the 24 solar terms condense the ancient wisdom of Chinese in observing nature, and still affect people's material production and spiritual life, and are a vivid window to appreciate Chinese civilization.

The 24 solar terms are summarized by the ancients after observing the annual movement of the sun, and the time of the year is scientifically divided. The reason for its occurrence needs to return to the historical context and the way of thinking of the ancient people.

The most important prerequisite for the emergence of the 12000 solar terms is the development of China's agriculture. The history of China's agricultural development is very long, and the history of Chinese civilization has extended from 8000,<> years to the well-known "<>,<> years of China", which is related to the history of China's agricultural development. Some foreign scholars are skeptical: Is this time span too large? In fact, from the perspective of the development of agricultural culture, such a time span is too conservative. I once visited the Shangshan Cultural Site in Yiwu, Zhejiang, which was the origin of rice cultivation civilization nearly <>,<> years ago. Archaeological findings show that artificial cultivation of rice has appeared during this period, and a large settlement site has been formed based on rice culture. However, the Shangshan cultural site is not the earliest agricultural site found in China. Archaeologists in Hunan have found that as early as more than <>,<> years ago, our ancestors began to domesticate rice and began to have rice farming methods. In the north, the history of millet cultivation also reaches more than <>,<> years.

Carbonized rice was unearthed at the Shangshan Cultural Site in Yiwu, Zhejiang. Photo by Sun Zifa

This means that, compared with the development of agriculture, the emergence of Chinese writing is relatively lagging behind. Before the advent of writing, our ancestors had a long accumulation of civilization, but because there was no written record, most of these accumulations were unknown and lost in the long river of history. But there is some accumulation, and we can find some traces from the archaeological remains.

"Zhou Yi" comes from the ancient people's efforts to grasp the "unknown" of natural phenomena, social phenomena and their own life phenomena. The world's earliest painted pottery technology appeared in the Shangshan culture, and on the painted pottery, there was a long and short line combination pattern that is considered to be the world's earliest, which is very similar to the hexagram in "Zhou Yi". However, the time when the combination of long and short lines appeared is too far back to be true, and no scholar can assert that this is the hexagram in the "Zhou Yi". This may be just an accidental pattern, but its significance cannot be completely denied. The presence of these long and short lines, which are very similar to hexagrams, reminds people that the ancients may have known the laws of the sun during the year during this period. Shangshan culture has been domesticating rice for thousands of years, and it should be normal for human beings to have such an understanding for such a long time.

Zhejiang Yiwu Shangshan cultural site unearthed pottery pots. Photo by Sun Zifa

More than 5000,<> years ago, the site of Lingjiatan in Anhui Province has unearthed jade plates and jade turtles, which makes people wonder that the saying that "the river is out of the map, and the Luo is out of the book" did not appear until the Warring States Period, and it is likely that it has appeared in a more ancient era. According to legend, there is a dragon and a horse negative picture out of the river, there are runes such as gossip, and Fuxi takes the law and draws the gossip; There is a turtle out of Luoshui, there is a text on the back, and Dayu takes the law to make a book. In this way, it is likely that "the river is out of the map, and the Luo is out of the book" is likely to be related to the ancient myth of the movement of the sun: after the sun is in the west, the turtle carries the sun back to the east, and after the sun rises in the east, the god horse carries the sun to the west. Although the theory that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west can only be explained through mythology, thanks to the long history of agricultural development, the ancients were able to fully understand the laws of the sun's movement, and finally formed the <> solar terms. In other words, the <> solar terms are not accidental, but the crystallization of the development of China's agricultural civilization over the past <>,<> years.

The jade Huang unearthed from the Lingjiatan site. Courtesy of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage

The 24 solar terms are a unique time culture in China, and their important feature lies in the holistic perspective. The ancients did not simply "cut" a year into 24 parts. It seems that each solar term is independent, but in fact each solar term is an interrelated whole with the other solar terms, and they are all part of the 24 solar terms. This holistic feature is closely related to the characteristics of the integration of time and space in ancient China.

Taking the beginning of spring as an example, in the ancient view of time and space integration, the significance of the beginning of spring does not only represent the beginning of agricultural production in a year. As the saying goes, "the people take food as the sky", although agriculture is the foundation of Chinese civilization and is particularly important to ancient society, but the significance of the beginning of spring is not limited to agriculture. "The Legend of the Ram" explains the cloud of "the first year of the Hidden Dynasty, the first year of the Spring King's first month": "The first year of the Spring King's first month." Who is the first year? The first year of the king... Who is the king? It is said that the king of Wen is also. Is it the king of the prophet and then the first month? Wang Zhengyue also. What does Wang Zhengyue say? Great unification also! It can be seen that the ancients, according to the principle of the integration of time and space, incorporated the operation order of all things in heaven and earth into the changes of the four seasons in spring, summer, autumn and winter, which is the idea of "great unification". Therefore, the "spring" of Lichun is not only a "spring" of agricultural production, but also a "spring" spent together by the whole world, and a spring shared by human beings, heaven and earth, mountains and rivers, and plants and trees.

On February 2023, 2, the "Beginning of Spring" solar term, farmers in Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province carried out agricultural production, and the fields were busy with people working hard and early in spring. Photo by Tang Dehong

For modern society, the 24 solar terms, which have a long history, are not behind the times, but are valuable assets that point to the future. How to "use the past for the present" is the key. More attention is now paid to the importance of the 24 solar terms in scientifically explaining the laws of the sun's movement in a year. But in fact, around the 24 solar terms, the ancients had a lot of very unique imagination and understanding, giving it a very rich ideological connotation. For example, the naming of the 24 solar terms is very particular. The generation of the 24 solar terms is basically isomorphic to the evolution process of the "Zhou Yi" Taiji giving birth to two instruments, two instruments giving birth to four images, and four elephants giving birth to eight trigrams, which is divided into yin and yang by one qi, four times by yin and yang, eight sections from four hours, and finally expanded from eight sections to 24 solar terms. These eight sections cover the beginning of spring, the beginning of summer, the beginning of autumn, the beginning of winter, the winter solstice, the summer solstice, the spring equinox, and the autumn equinox, and have very distinct structural characteristics. The time of the year is a cyclical process centered on the two yin and yang poles of the winter solstice and the summer solstice. This process can be divided into a cycle from the winter solstice to the summer solstice (from weak to strong yang and strong from strong to weak) and from summer solstice to winter solstice (from weak to strong yin and strong to strong yang from strong to weak). "The Seventy-two Candidate Explanations of the Lunar Order" explained the sting: "Everything is out of the earthquake, and the earthquake is thunder, so it is said that the stinging insect is frightened and runs away"; The ancients have long recognized the correspondence between the wind direction and the season, and the cloud "Huainanzi Topographical Training" cloud "the wind of the eight gates is the cold and summer of the festival", so the Qingming Dynasty is named after "the southeast is called Yangmen, and the Qingming wind is born"... The ancients condensed their understanding and imagination of all things such as wind, rain, thunder and lightning, mountains, rivers, grass and trees into the 24 solar terms, which contains rich Chinese culture and provides an excellent direction for the study of traditional Chinese culture.

Bagua Park, Turks County, Xinjiang. Photo by Liu Xin

The 24 solar terms are a kind of time culture, which is related to all aspects of modern people's lives, and is the common starting point for exchanges and mutual learning between different civilizations. In the time culture of many countries and nations in the world, there is content about the change of the solar cycle. As a unique time culture in China, how the 24 solar terms are similar and different from other time cultures in the world that change with the solar cycle, and how to make Chinese culture exchange and mutual learning with other cultures in the world is a direction for the future research of the 24 solar terms. "Zhou Yi" has clouds, "look at astronomy, to observe time changes; Looking at the humanities, in order to become the world", the 24 solar terms produced on the basis of agricultural civilization are the precious spiritual wealth of the people all over the world. (ENDS)

Interviewee Profile:

Liu Xiaofeng, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of History of Tsinghua University, vice president of the Chinese Society of Japanese Philosophy, executive director of the Chinese Society of Japanese History, chairman of the Professional Committee of Ancient Japanese History, and vice president of the Beijing Society for the History of Sino-Japanese Relations. He is engaged in the teaching and research of Japanese history and Japanese culture, and strives to develop the research horizon of the Chinese character cultural circle composed of Japan, Korea, Ryukyu, Vietnam, etc., looking back at ancient Chinese civilization, and focusing on the study of time and culture. His representative works include Ancient Japan (Katsura Shobo, Japan), Qingming Festival (China Social Publishing House), Time in East Asia: A Comparative Study of the Culture of the Years (Zhonghua Book Company), Faces of Japan (Central Compilation and Publishing House), Dragon Boat Festival (Joint Publishing House), Ryukyu Historical Theory (co-author, Zhonghua Book Company), Time and the Ancient World of East Asia (Social Sciences Academic Press), etc.