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INTRODUCTION

LIKE people of the West, Eastern people have a zodiac. Unlike that of the West, however, the Eastern system has a cycle of twelve years instead of months. Each year of the cycle has its own particular animal symbol whose roots of meaning, origin, and influence stretch back to ancient India and China.

One of the traditional Japanese stories pertaining to this zodiacal system and how it started runs as follows. On a certain New Year's Day, ages ago, Buddha called all the animals of the world to him. He promised that those who came to pay him homage would receive a gift for their fealty. As a mark of honor, they would be given a year which would thereafter be named for them. Of all the animals in the world, only these twelve came, and they came in this order: the rat and the ox, the tiger and the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, and the horse, the sheep and the monkey, the cock, the dog, and the boar.

When each animal received its year, each contributed its characteristic traits to that year, making the year distinctly its own. According to Japanese belief, people born in one of the cycle's years will have those characteristic traits peculiar to the year's animal.

From these twelve zodiacal symbols a person's fortune may be told. His character index may be gauged, and his strength and weaknesses may be known. What are his talents and how may he use them? What are his limits and how may he recognize them? These questions and their answers, answers for good or ill, are based upon the knowledge of when a person was born; and the elements of that person's birth year, coupled with the understanding of those elements, will determine the course of his or her life, socially, personally, and, in Japan, to some extent even politically.

There are three phases in a person's life span, and the fortune of each phase is clearly defined. Japanese fortune-tellers say that they are able to determine the events for all of these phases and advise or counsel alternative courses to avoid misfortune.

People born in one year may have the characteristics and traits belonging to those born in another. This is not at all unusual. Allowances must be made for those traits peculiar to the individual.

The order in which the animals appear in all cycles is always the same. The animals, as we have noted, are: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, cock, dog, and boar. As with any of the preceding cycles, the first year of the present cycle began with the year of the rat in 1960. The cycle will end in 1971, the year of the boar. The new cycle will begin in 1972, and it will start, again, with the year of the rat.

Serving as a guide, the end pages of this book have six cycles of the Japanese Fortune Calendar dating from 1900 to 1971. The animal years are in their proper sequence, and the standard calendar years on which they fall are listed. To discover your animal year, count backward from this present year in reverse order of the animal-year sequence, to the year of your birth. If you were born in 1928, for example, and this is 1965, the year of the snake, you would count: snake, dragon, rabbit, tiger, ox, rat, boar, etc., etc. backward until you reached your birth year, which would be the year of the dragon.

Coincidentally and conveniently enough, the 1900's started with the year of the rat. If you wish to count forward from the year 1900 to your birth year, you may find it easier. The Japanese find it easier for them to count from the present year back.