Glossary

六十干支 (60 Kanshi or Sexagenary Cycle)

"六十干支" (60 Kanshi) or "十干十二支" (10 Kan 12 Shi) are combinations of "十干" (10 Kan: Kou, Otsu, Hei, Tei, Bo, Ki, Kou, Shin, Jin, Ki) and "十二支" (12 Shi: Ne, Ushi, Tora, U, Tatsu, Mi, Uma, Hitsuji, Saru, Tori, Inu, I). 60 Kanshi or Sexagenary Cycle, originally came from China, is useful for counting long terms, like days or years.

10 Kan

10 Kan has some influence from "陰陽五行説" (the principles of Yin and Yang). "甲" means "木の兄" (Kinoe, big brother of tree), "乙" means "木の弟" (Kinoto, little brother of tree), "丙" means "火の兄" (Hinoe, big brother of fire), "丁" means "火の弟" (Hinoto, little brother of fire), "戊" means "土の兄" (Tsuchinoe, big brother of soil), "己" means "土の弟" (Tsuchinoto, little brother of soil), "庚" means "金の兄" (Kanoe, big brother of gold), "辛" means "金の弟" (Kanoto, little brother of gold), "壬" means "水の兄" (Mizunoe, big brother of water), "癸" means "水の弟" (Mizunoto, little brother of water).

12 Shi

12 Shi is used for counting months, hours, direction in the old days. They were originally just 12 marks which express the order of 12 months and later became familiar by the connection with animals.

Tables of 60 Kanshi

This table shows the order of 60 Kanshi and its native Japanese and pseudo-Chinese reading. Usually "no" is inserted between little brother character of 10 Kan and 12 Shi.

Combination of 60 Kanshi

As you can see above, there are 2 groups in 60 Kanshi. One is made up of "甲", "丙", "戊", "庚" and "壬" from 10 Kan and "子", "寅", "辰", "午", "申" and "戌" from 12 Shi, and the other is made up of "乙", "丁", "己", "辛" and "癸" from 10 Kan and "丑", "卯", "巳", "未", "酉" and "亥" from 12 Shi. Counting with 60 Kanshi starts with "甲子" and ends with "癸亥", and after that just goes back to "甲子" and repeats the same procedure again and again.

Kanreki

"還暦" (return of calendar) means 60 years old since 60 years old person completes all combinations of yearly Kanshi and returns to the same Kanshi for the year when he or she was born.