Do you want to know which animal you could be? Find out the legendary evolutions of the Chinese New Year animals.

The event of Chinese New Year is without a doubt considered to be the most important event in the Chinese lunar calendar. The cultural celebrations have been going on for years and the festive spirit is pretty much alive even today. The unique characteristic of the Chinese New Year is however the twelve year cycle that associates the coming of the year with an animal symbol.

Every twelfth year of the Chinese lunar calendar, the animal symbol repeats. Their current standing shows that next year will be the year of the Ox. The ancient thinkers of China studied on the actions of the animals in the calendar and resolved in deriving a similarity between animal personality traits and human nature.

Thereby if any person is born on the year of a certain animal he is supposed to bear resemblance to the nature of the animal of that particular year. Any individual who has taken birth in the year of the ox is bound to have good organizational talent and they are considerably dependable and loyal. Also such people are patient and strong.

The concept behind the twelve year cycle with these beasts symbolizing each year was taken from the Buddhist dharma. Ancient history states that it was Buddha himself who summoned all these animals before he himself descended to Earth. Then a race was held between these animals where the victorious one would be responsible for the first year.

The race started during which there was intense competition and betrayal especially on the part of the rat that had made a deal with the cat but didn’t adhere to his word. All the while it seemed as if the ox would take the top spot as it made its way through the crowd. Little did the ox know that the clever rat was actually riding on its back and just when the ox was about to reach the finish line the rat leaped forward to claim the first position.

Hence, we will see that the starting year of the twelve year lunar cycle is the year of the rat as he cleverly managed to come first in the race and then it is followed by the year of ox as the hardworking animal secured second place. The ox is then followed by the rest of the animals in order of the positions they secured with pig having the last position.

If you are in a doubt as to why only twelve animals came to Buddha and why only these specific animals came, then do not look for any answers to such questions. As a matter of fact, this is nothing but an ancient tradition which has been just made alive up till today and is strongly followed. As a token of honor and appreciation for their coming, Buddha assigned a year each to the animals.

Chinese new year animals are symbolic representations of personality archetypes. If you would like to learn how to give the traditional Chinese new year greeting click on the preceding links.

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