Last revised: 2026-10-18
4 · Counting days, years and hours
| English | 中文 | Gloss | Termonline |
|---|---|---|---|
| ganzhi / stem-branch | 干支Fundamentals · time systems | The cycle formed by pairing the ten stems with the twelve branches, sixty to a round. Originally written 幹枝, “trunk and branches” — not at first ordinal signs at all. | — |
| heavenly stems | 天干Fundamentals · time systems | The ten: jia, yi, bing, ding, wu, ji, geng, xin, ren, gui. | TermonlineAstronomy · History of Astronomy · 2024 |
| earthly branches | 地支Fundamentals · time systems | The twelve: zi, chou, yin, mao, chen, si, wu, wei, shen, you, xu, hai. | TermonlineAstronomy · History of Astronomy · 2024 |
| the sixty-day cycle | 六十甲子Fundamentals · time systems | One full round of the pairing. Two such series admit 120 ordered pairs; pairing is permitted only within a class, so exactly sixty survive. | near: 六十干支周Astronomy · History of Astronomy |
| ganzhi day-count | 干支纪日Fundamentals · time systems | Numbering every day with a stem-branch pair. The count runs unbroken and can be used to check a date. | — |
| ganzhi year-count | 干支纪年Fundamentals · time systems | Numbering the years with stem-branch pairs. It was ordered for the whole country only in 85 CE; before that years were reckoned by Jupiter, by the counter-Jupiter, or by reign titles. | — |
| the ten-day week | 旬Fundamentals · time systems | Ten days, the time the ten stems take to complete one round. The oracle bones already count by the ten-day week. | near: 旬星Astronomy · History of Astronomy |
| reign-title dating | 年号纪年Fundamentals · time systems | Dating by the emperor’s reign title and a number — “the first year of Zhenguan”. Jianyuan, under Emperor Wu of the Han, is the first such title. | — |
| Jupiter year-reckoning | 岁星纪年Fundamentals · time systems | Reckoning the year by the station the planet Jupiter occupies — “the year star in Xingji”. Jupiter takes about twelve years to circle the sky and was named the “year star”. | TermonlineAstronomy · History of Astronomy · 2024 |
| counter-Jupiter year-reckoning | 太岁纪年Fundamentals · time systems | Because Jupiter moves eastward, counter to the order of the twelve stations, a counter-Jupiter was imagined running the other way, giving the twelve year-names such as Shetige. | TermonlineAstronomy · History of Astronomy · 2024 |
| the Twelve Jupiter Stations | 十二次Fundamentals · coordinates | Twelve regions along the ecliptic — Xingji, Xuanxiao, Juzi and so on — used for reckoning years by Jupiter. | TermonlineAstronomy · History of Astronomy · 2024 |
| the twelve earthly stations | 十二辰Fundamentals · coordinates | Twelve regions of the sky named by the earthly branches, running opposite to the Jupiter stations; used for counter-Jupiter dating and for field-allocation. | TermonlineAstronomy · History of Astronomy · 2024 |
| shetige | 摄提格Fundamentals · time systems | The year-name for a year with the counter-Jupiter in yin. The others are Chanyan, Zhixu, Dahuangluo, Dunzang, Xieqia, Tuntan, Zuo’e, Yanmao, Dayuanxian, Kundun and Chifenruo. | — |
| the ten year-names | 岁阳Fundamentals · time systems | Ten names given to the stems — Yanfeng, Zhanmeng, Rouzhao and so on — paired with the twelve year-names to yield sixty, much as stems pair with branches. | near: 岁实Astronomy · History of Astronomy |
| the leap of the year station | 超辰Fundamentals · time systems | Jupiter actually takes about 11.86 years, so in time it outruns the twelve-year reckoning by one station. This “leap” is one reason the stem-branch count displaced it. | — |
| field-allocation | 分野Mansions and star officials · star officials | Matching the stations and mansions of the sky to the provinces and states of the earth, so that a sign above portends below. The matching differs by age; it serves both astrology and calendar. | TermonlineAstronomy · History of Astronomy · 2024 |
| the double-hour (shichen) | 时辰Fundamentals · time systems | Twelve two-hour divisions of the day, one to each branch. The hour of zi begins at 23:00. | — |
| the night watch | 更Fundamentals · time systems | The night divided into five watches, for calling the hour. Watches and double-hours are two parallel scales for the dark hours. | — |
| the point | 点Fundamentals · time systems | A subdivision of the watch: five points to a watch, five watches to a night. Watches and points were for calling the hour; the almanac kept to the double-hours. | — |
| the quarter (ke) | 刻Fundamentals · time systems | One hundred to the day, each about 14 minutes 24 seconds; changed in 1670 to ninety-six to the day, each fifteen minutes, as now. | — |
| the twenty-four hours | 二十四时Fundamentals · time systems | Splitting each double-hour into an “initial” and a “central” half, turning twelve into twenty-four divisions of about an hour each. It came into general use with Western clocks. | — |
| the water clock | 漏刻Institutions · observational methods | An instrument of water-jars and a graduated float. The number of quarters in day and night shifts with the season, and calendars supplied the figures. | TermonlineAstronomy · History of Astronomy · 2024 |
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