Ten Heavenly Stems of Chinese Astrology

There are 10 Stems and 12 Branches in the Chinese astrology calendar. The Stem and the Branch are used together. The Stem is used in front of (on top of) the Branch. They are combined into a cycle of 60 counting systems for Year, Month, Day, and Hour cycles. The counting system begins with Wooden Rat and ends with Water Pig. Chinese Birth Chart is built using this Stem-Branch calendar.

No one knows who invented the Stem-Branch for Day counting system, but the characters of Day Stem-Branch were found on Oracle bones. The Stem-Branch was applied into the Month and Year system around 206 B.C. (between the Chin and Han dynasties). The astrology animal names were assigned in the Han dynasty.

Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, and Earth are called Five Elements. Ancient Chinese Five Elements scholars observed yearly weather, farmer's activities, and plant life cycle in China, which is in the northern hemisphere. They found that the cycle of "to born in spring, to grow in summer, to harvest in the fall, and to hide in the winter" can apply to the Five Elements area.

Based on the theory of Yin Yang, Yin and Yang coexist all the time. Ancient Chinese distinguished the Five Elements into Yin and Yang groups.

Order	Symbols	Calendar Symbols	Pronunciation
1	Yang Wood		Jiǎ
2	Yin Wood		Yǐ
3	Yang Fire		Bǐng
4	Yin Fire		Dīng
5	Yang Earth		Wu
6	Yin Earth		Jǐ
7	Yang Metal		Gēng
8	Yin Metal		Xīn
9	Yang Water		Ren
10	Yin Water		Guǐ

The 10 Chinese characters were developed from the ancient pictographic characters. From the following chart, we can see the meaning of the characters has a relationship with the cycles of farmers' activities with the plant during the year.

Chinese Characters	Pronunciation	Chinese Pictographic Characters
	Jiǎ	Yang seed spouts from the ground
	Yǐ	Young and tender stem grows
	Bǐng	Sunshine on the plant
	Dīng	Tree grows like a man
	Wu	Flourishing tree and plant
	Jǐ	Fruit on the bending stems
	Gēng	Cut and keep the crop
	Xīn	Prepare crop to different food on the table
	Ren	Yang livings hide under the ground
	Guǐ	Complete close like pregnancy, wait for spout

The sequence of these 10 characters is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. That means they are a decimal counting system. One king was named , which means Kon First, in 1897 B.C. of the Yin Dynasty. More than 20 kings in Shang Dynasty (1783 - 1185 B.C.) used these 10 characters as their names.