Burmese zodiac

Short description: Astrological classifications

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A painted ceiling at Kyauktawgyi Pagoda depicting the Burmese zodiac

The Burmese zodiac (Burmese: ဇာတာ ရာသီခွင် my) is the traditional Burmese system of astronomy and astrology. While it is still an important component of the Burmese calendar, today, the zodiac is closely identified with Burmese astrology, called Baydin (ဗေဒင်). Largely derived from Hindu astronomy and Vedic astrology, the Burmese zodiac consists of not only the same 12 signs of the Western zodiac but also 27 lunar mansions of the month and eight weekday signs.

## Contents

* 1 Structure
* 1.1 Seasons
* 1.2 Lunar mansions
* 1.3 Weekdays
* 2 See also
* 3 Notes
* 4 References
* 5 Bibliography

## Structure

### Seasons

The Burmese zodiac, like the Western zodiac, is divided into 12 signs called yathi (ရာသီ my). The Burmese signs are identical to Indian and Western signs as they were derived from Indian and ultimately Western zodiac. Each yathi is divided into 30 degrees (အင်္သာ my); each degree into 60 minutes (လိတ္တာ my); and each minute into 60 seconds (ဝိလိတ္တာ my).[1]

Longitude
အင်္သာ | Sign
ရာသီ | Sanskrit  | Latin  | Ruling planet
ရာသီခွင်

|
|
|
|

0°  | Meittha
မိဿ | Meṣa
मेष  | Aries | Mars
30°  | Pyeittha
ပြိဿ | Vṛṣabha
वृषभ  | Taurus | Venus
60°  | Mehton
မေထုန် | Mithuna
मिथुन  | Gemini | Mercury
90°  | Karakat
ကရကဋ် | Karkaṭa
कर्कट  | Cancer | Moon
120°  | Thein
သိဟ် | Siṃha
सिंह  | Leo | Sun
150°  | Kan
ကန် | Kanyā
कन्या  | Virgo | Mercury
180°  | Tu
တူ | Tulā
तुला  | Libra | Venus
210°  | Byeissa
ဗြိစ္ဆာ | Vṛścika
वृश्चिक  | Scorpio | Mars
240°  | Danu
ဓနု | Dhanuṣa
धनुष  | Sagittarius | Jupiter
270°  | Makara
မကာရ | Makara
मकर  | Capricorn | Saturn
300°  | Kon
ကုံ | Kumbha
कुम्भ  | Aquarius | Saturn
330°  | Mein
မိန် | Mīna
मीन  | Pisces | Jupiter

### Lunar mansions

The zodiac month consists of 27 days, approximating the mean sidereal month of 27.321661 days. Thus each zodiac day, called nekkhat (နက္ခတ် my), represents a lunar mansion, or a segment of the ecliptic along which the Moon revolves around the Earth. Though the names are Burmese adaptations of Sanskrit names, the Burmese system is not the same as the modern Indian system. The Burmese system uses unequal spaces for each segment (from 5° to 26°), and the first segment, Athawani, begins at 350° longitude. The modern Indian system uses equal segments of 13° 20' (360° divided by 27), and the first segment, Asvini, begins at 0°.[2] (The zodiac also recognizes a lost 28th constellation, called Abizi (အဘိဇိ; Sanskrit: Abhijit), which apparently made one revolution among these stars in 27 to 28 days.[3])

The nekkhats are usually used to calculate the zata (horoscope) of a person or an event. Many historical dates were represented with the nekkhat position, not with the more common calendrical date.[note 1]

Day  | Burmese  | Sanskrit  | Extent  | Range

|
|
|
|

1  | Athawani
အဿဝဏီ | Aśvinī  | 18°  | 350°–8°
2  | Barani
ဘရဏီ | Bharaṇī  | 10°  | 8°–18°
3  | Kyattika
ကြတ္တိကာ | Kṛttikā  | 16°  | 18°–34°
4  | Yawhani
ရောဟဏီ | Rohiṇī  | 12°  | 34°–46°
5  | Migathi
မိဂသီ | Mṛgaśira  | 14°  | 46°–60°
6  | Adra
အဒြ | Ārdrā  | 5°  | 60°–65°
7  | Ponnahpukshu
ပုဏ္ဏဖုသျှု | Punarvasu  | 27°  | 65°–92°
8  | Hpusha
ဖုသျှ | Puṣya  | 14°  | 92°–106°
9  | Athaleiktha
အသလိဿ | Āśleṣā  | 12°  | 106°–118°
10  | Maga
မာဃ | Māgha  | 11°  | 118°–129°
11  | Pyobba Baragonni
ပြုဗ္ဗာ ဘရဂုဏ္ဏီ | Pūrva Phālgunī  | 16°  | 129°–145°
12  | Ottara Baragonni
ဥတ္တရာ ဘရဂုဏ္ဏီ | Uttara Phālgunī  | 9°  | 145°–154°
13  | Hathada
ဟဿဒ | Hasta  | 10°  | 154°–164°
14  | Seiktra
စိတြ | Citra  | 15°  | 164°–179°
15  | Thwati
သွာတိ | Svāti  | 13°  | 179°–192°
16  | Withaka
ဝိသာခါ | Viśākhā  | 21°  | 192°–213°
17  | Anuyada
အနုရာဓ | Anurādha  | 11°  | 213°–224°
18  | Zehta
ဇေဋ္ဌ | Jyeṣṭha  | 5°  | 224°–229°
19  | Mula
မူလ | Mula  | 13°  | 229°–242°
20  | Pyobba Than
ပြုဗ္ဗာသဠ် | Pūrva Āṣādhā  | 15°  | 242°–257°
21  | Ottara Than
ဥတ္တရာသဠ် | Uttara Āṣādhā  | 5°  | 257°–262°
22  | Tharawun
သရဝဏ် | Śravaṇa  | 13°  | 262°–275°
23  | Danatheikda
ဓနသိဒ္ဓ | Dhaniṣṭha  | 12°  | 275°–287°
24  | Thattabeiksha
သတ္တဘိသျှ | Satabhiṣā  | 26°  | 287°–313°
25  | Pyobba Parabaik
ပြုဗ္ဗာ ပုရပိုက် | Pūrva Bhādrapadā  | 10°  | 313°–323°
26  | Ottara Parabaik
ဥတ္တရာ ပုရပိုက် | Uttara Bhādrapadā  | 16°  | 323°–339°
27  | Yewati
ရေဝတီ | Revatī  | 11°  | 339°–350°

### Weekdays

The Jupiter planetary post at the Shwedagon Pagoda, with the representative vehicle of the rat underneath

The Burmese zodiac employs eight signs in a seven-day week, with each sign representing its own day, cardinal direction, planet (celestial body) and animal;[note 2] it is known as the "Mahabote zodiac".[4] The zodiacs, with slight variations, are also found in Sri Lanka and Thailand.[5]

Cardinal direction  | Burmese  | Sanskrit  | English  | Planet  | Sign
(Myanmar)  | Sign
(Sri Lanka)  | Sign (Thailand)

|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Northeast  | Taninganwe
တနင်္ဂနွေ | Āditya | Sunday  | Sun | Garuda
ဂဠုန် | Horse

අශ්වයා

குதிரை

| Monkey

ลิง

[clarification needed]

East  | Taninla
တနင်္လာ | Candra  | Monday  | Moon | Tiger
ကျား | Elephant

අලියා

யானை

| Horse

ม้า

Southeast  | Inga
အင်္ဂါ | Angāraka | Tuesday  | Mars | Lion
ခြင်္သေ့ | Peacock

මොනරා

மயில்

| Buffalo

ควาย

South  | Boddahu
ဗုဒ္ဓဟူး | Budha | Wednesday a.m.  | Mercury | Tusked elephant
ဆင် | Buffalo

මී හරකෙක්

எருமை

| Elephant

ช้าง

Northwest  | Rahu
ရာဟု | Rāhu | Wednesday p.m.  | Ascending Lunar node | Tuskless elephant
ဟိုင်း | Donkey

බූරුවා

கழுதை

| Garuda

ครุฑ

West  | Kyathabade
ကြာသပတေး | Bṛhaspati | Thursday | Jupiter | Rat
ကြွက် | Lion

සිංහයා

சிங்கம்

| Deer

กวาง

North  | Thaukkya
သောကြာ | Śukra | Friday  | Venus | Guinea pig[note 3]
ပူး | Bull

ගොනා

காளை

| Ox

วัว

Southwest  | Sanay
စနေ | Śani | Saturday  | Saturn | Nāga
နဂါး | Crow/Raven

කපුට

காகம்

| Tiger

เสือ

While the eight signs are the most prevalent in modern Burmese zodiac, the zodiac officially also recognizes a ninth sign called Ketu (ကိတ် my), which rules over all of the signs . The same sign also appears in Sri Lanka and Thailand under the same name. Ketu's sign is a mythical Animal of Five Beauties called pyinsarupa (ပဉ္စရူပ my) with the antlers of a deer, the tusks and the trunk of an elephant, the mane of a lion, the body of a naga serpent, and the tail of a fish. Moreover, Rahu and Ketu, while borrowed from Hindu astrology, are different from their original versions. Hindu astrology considers Rahu and Ketu to be the ascending and descending lunar nodes but Burmese astrology considers them distinct planets.[6]

At any rate, the inclusion of Ketu is not due to astronomical necessity but rather cultural. (J.C. Eade points out that "there is no astronomical necessity" for Ketu, whose orbit can be derived from the value of Rahu, and suggests that Ketu was "superfluous to the system, and perhaps even as an entity that owes its origin to a mistake".[7] Htin Aung says the use of Rahu and Ketu in Burmese zodiac and astrology is for cultural, not necessarily astronomical, value, noting that the nine signs neatly fit the Nine Gods of Burmese animist tradition and indeed are an essential part of the "Ceremony of the Nine Gods" usually held when there is sickness in the house.[6])

The signs can be represented in a nine-square diagram. The exact arrangement is used to place the planetary figurines in the "Ceremony of the Nine Gods", with Ketu in the center, right behind a statue of the Buddha. All the planetary figures face the Buddha (as the animist practice has been absorbed into Burmese Buddhism).[6]

Northwest
Wednesday evening
Rahu
Tuskless elephant  | North
Friday
Venus
Guinea pig  | Northeast
Sunday
Sun
Garuda

|
|

West
Thursday
Jupiter
Rat | Center
Week
Ketu
Pyinsa Rupa  | East
Monday
Moon
Tiger
Southwest
Saturday
Saturn
Naga  | South
Wednesday morning
Mercury
Tusked elephant  | Southeast
Tuesday
Mars
Lion

The Sunday, Tuesday, Saturday and Rahu planets are considered to be Malefics, or planets with an evil influence while the Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday planets are considered Benefics, or planets with benign influence. Ketu is considered to be the most powerful and a Benefic but as the chief planet, it cannot be grouped with any other planet.[8] However, modern Burmese astrology rarely uses Ketu, and tends to use only the other eight planets.[8]

## See also

* Burmese calendar#Cycle
* Burmese culture

## Notes

1. ↑ See the Zatadawbon Yazawin chronicle (Zata 1960) to see how nekkhats are used to represent kings' birthdays and important events.
2. ↑ Certain letters of the Burmese alphabet are assigned to these 7 days, and names starting with the respective letter are given to children born on the respective day.
3. ↑ (Htin Aung 1959: 12): In Shan tradition, Friday's sign is the Ox.

## References

1. ↑ Irwin 1909: 7–8
2. ↑ Irwin 1909: 10–11
3. ↑ Luce 1970: 333
4. ↑ What's your Myanmar Zodiac sign? This is your Myanmar Zodiac sign
5. ↑ The History and Doctrine of Budhism: Popularly Illustrated: with Notices of the Kappooism, Or Demon Worship, and of the Bali, Or Planetary Incantations, of Ceylon
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Htin Aung 1959: 11–13
7. ↑ Eade 1989: 18–19
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Htin Aung 1959: 15

## Bibliography

* Eade, J.C. (1989). Southeast Asian Ephemeris: Solar and Planetary Positions, A.D. 638–2000. Ithaca: Cornell University. ISBN 0-87727-704-4.
* Eade, J.C. (1995). The Calendrical Systems of Mainland South-East Asia (illustrated ed.). Brill. ISBN 9789004104372.
* Htin Aung, Maung (1959). Folk Elements in Burmese Buddhism. Rangoon: Department of Religious Affairs.
* Irwin, Sir Alfred Macdonald Bulteel (1909). The Burmese and Arakanese calendars. Rangoon: Hanthawaddy Printing Works.
* Luce, G.H. (1970). Old Burma: Early Pagan. 2. Locust Valley, NY: Artibus Asiae and New York University.

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