In astronomy , the zodiac (Greek: ζῳδιακός, zōdiakos) is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across thecelestial sphere over the course of the year. The paths of the Moon and planets also lie roughly within the ecliptic, and so are also within the constellations of the zodiac. In astrology, the zodiac denotes those signs that divide the ecliptic into twelve equal zones of celestial longitude. As such, the zodiac is acelestial coordinate system, or more specifically an ecliptic coordinate system, taking the ecliptic as the origin of latitude, and the position of the sun atvernal equinox as the origin of longitude.
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Zodiac symbolism
This table[4] shows the zodiac names in Latin with their English translation. It also shows the element and quality associated with each sign.
| Symbol | Sign names | English name | Element | Quality | Polarity | Planet | Period of birth[5] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Aries | The Ram | Fire | Cardinal | Positive | Mars | March 21 - April 20 |
 | Taurus | The Bull | Earth | Fixed | Negative | Venus | April 21 - May 20 |
 | Gemini | The Twins | Air | Mutable | Positive | Mercury | May 21 - June 20 |
 | Cancer | The Crab | Water | Cardinal | Negative | Moon | June 21 - July 22 |
 | Leo | The Lion | Fire | Fixed | Positive | Sun | July 23 - August 23 |
 | Virgo | The Maiden | Earth | Mutable | Negative | Mercury | August 24 - September 22 |
 | Libra | The Scales | Air | Cardinal | Positive | Venus | September 23 - October 23 |
 | Scorpio | The Scorpion | Water | Fixed | Negative | Pluto (Traditionally Mars) | October 24 - November 21 |
 | Sagittarius | The Archer/Centaur | Fire | Mutable | Positive | Jupiter | November 22 - December 21 |
 | Capricorn | The Sea-goat | Earth | Cardinal | Negative | Saturn | December 22 - January 19 |
 | Aquarius | The Water Carrier | Air | Fixed | Positive | Uranus (Traditionally Saturn) | January 20 - February 19 |
 | Pisces | The Two Fish | Water | Mutable | Negative | Neptune (Traditionally Jupiter) | February 20 - March 20 |
Astrological signs represent twelve equal segments or divisions of the zodiac. According to astrology, celestial phenomena reflect or govern human activity on the principle of "as above, so below", so that the twelve signs are held to represent twelve basic personality types or characteristic modes of expression.[1] There are sun signs and moon signs, which both depend on your date of birth.
Various approaches to measuring and dividing the sky are currently used by differing systems of astrology, although the tradition of the Zodiac's names and symbols remain consistent. Western astrology measures from Equinox and Solstice points (points relating to longest, equal and shortest days of the tropical year), while Jyotiṣa or Vedic astrology measures along the equatorial plane (sidereal year). Precession results in Western astrology's zodiacal divisions not corresponding in the current era to the constellations that carry similar names,[2] while Jyotiṣa measurements still correspond with the background constellations.[3]
In Indian astrology, the twelve signs are associated with constellations, while in Chinese astrology and Western Astrology there is no connection with constellations, as it is simply the line of the equator that is divided into twelve equal segments.[citation needed]
In Western and Asian astrology, the emphasis is on space, and the movement of the Sun, Moon and planets in the sky through each of the zodiac signs. In Chinese astrology, by contrast, the emphasis is on time, with the zodiac operating on cycles of years, months, and hours of the day. A common feature of all three traditions however, is the significance of the ascendant or rising sign, namely the zodiac sign that is rising (due to the rotation of the earth) on the eastern horizon at the moment of a person's birth.
From the viewpoint of earth (geocentric), the Sun appears to move along a circular orbit across the celestial sphere, this circular orbit is called the ecliptic. The zodiac refers to the thin band along the ecliptic composed of the zodiac signs and constellations. The zodiac is divided into twelve different signs each of which is 30 degrees long and begins at Aries. In Tropical Astrology Aries begins at the vernal equinox. The order of the zodiac signs is Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio,Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. It is believed that the concept of the zodiac had evolved from Babylonian astronomy, and was later influenced by Hellenisticastronomy.
During ancient times, people monitored the passage of the sun because it was useful in predicting the change of seasons. Over time, however, people have begun to associate the zodiac sign, or Sun’s position in the zodiac, with birth dates and characteristics.
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Early history
The division of the ecliptic into the zodiacal signs originates in Babylonian ("Chaldean") astronomy during the first half of the 1st millennium BCE, likely during Median/"Neo-Babylonian" times (7th century BCE),[3] The classical zodiac is a modification of the MUL.APIN catalogue, which was compiled around 1000 BCE. Some of the constellations can be traced even further back, to Bronze Age (Old Babylonian) sources, including Gemini "The Twins", from MAŠ.TAB.BA.GAL.GAL "The Great Twins", and Cancer "The Crab", from AL.LUL "The Crayfish", among others.
Babylonian astronomers at some point during the early 1st millennium BC divided the ecliptic into twelve equal zones of celestial longitude to create the first known celestial coordinate system: a coordinate system that boasts some advantages over modern systems (such as equatorial coordinate system or ecliptic coordinate system). The Babylonian calendar as it stood in the 7th century BC assigns each month a constellation, beginning with the position of the Sun at vernal equinox, which, at the time, was the Aries constellation ("Age of Aries"), for which reason the first astrological signis still called "Aries" even after the vernal equinox has moved away from the Aries constellation due to the slow precession of the Earth's axis of rotation.[4]
Knowledge of the Babylonian zodiac is also reflected in the Hebrew Bible. E. W. Bullinger interpreted the creatures appearing in the books of Ezekiel and Revelation as the middle signs of the four quarters of the Zodiac,[5][6] with the Lion as Leo, the Bull is Taurus, the Man representing Aquarius and the Eagle standing in[7] Some authors have linked the twelve tribes of Israel with the twelve signs. Martin and others have argued that the arrangement of the tribes around the Tabernacle (reported in the Book of Numbers) corresponded to the order of the Zodiac, with Judah, Reuben, Ephraimand Dan representing the middle signs of Leo, Aquarius, Taurus and Scorpio, respectively.[8][9] Such connections were taken up by Thomas Mann, who in his novel Joseph and His Brothers, attributes characteristics of a sign of the zodiac to each tribe in his rendition of the Blessing of Jacob.
[edit]Hellenistic and Roman era
The Babylonian star catalogues entered Greek astronomy in the 4th century BC, via Eudoxus of Cnidus and others. Babylonia or Chaldea in the Hellenistic world came to be so identified with astrology that "Chaldean wisdom" became among Greeks and Romans the synonym of divination through the planets andstars. Hellenistic astrology syncretically originated from Babylonian and Egyptian astrology. Horoscopic astrology first appeared in Ptolemaic Egypt. TheDendera zodiac, a relief dating to ca. 50 BC, is the first known depiction of the classical zodiac of twelve signs.
Particularly important in the development of Western horoscopic astrology was the astrologer and astronomer Ptolemy, whose work Tetrabiblos laid the basis of the Western astrological tradition. Under the Greeks, and Ptolemy in particular, the planets, Houses, and signs of the zodiac were rationalized and their function set down in a way that has changed little to the present day.[10] Ptolemy lived in the 2nd century AD, three centuries after the discovery of theprecession of the equinoxes by Hipparchus around 130 BC, but he ignored the problem, by dropping the concept of a fixed celestial sphere and adopting what is referred to as a tropical coordinate system instead.
[edit]Hindu zodiac
The Hindu zodiac is believed to have influenced the Greek system,[citation needed] during the period of intense Indo-Greek cultural contact during the Seleucidperiod (2nd to 1st centuries BC), but the two are not identical. The Hindu system uses sidereal coordinate system referenced to the fixed stars, but the Tropical system followed by the Greeks is referenced to the seasons in the Northern hemisphere. The latter is affected by the precession of the equinoxes. As a result, the European and the Hindu zodiacs were aligned at the time of Indo-Greek cultural contact but have gradually moved apart over two millennia that have passed since.
The Hindu zodiac signs and corresponding Greek signs sound very different, being in Sanskrit and Greek respectively, but their symbols are nearly identical. For example, dhanu means "bow" and corresponds to Sagittarius, the "archer", and kumbha means "water-pitcher" and corresponds to Aquarius, the "water-carrier". The correspondence of signs is taken to mean that Sanskrit names were translated in Greek, and not the other way around.
[edit]Middle Ages and Early Modern period
The High Middle Ages saw a revival of Greco-Roman magic, first in Kabbalism and later continued in Renaissance magic. This included magical uses of the zodiac, as found, e.g., in the Sefer Raziel HaMalakh.
The zodiacal symbols are Early Modern simplifications of conventional pictorial representations of the signs, attested since Hellenistic times. The symbols are encoded in Unicode at positions U+2648 to U+2653 n the Miscellaneous Symbols block...
[edit]The twelve signs
What follows is a list of the twelve signs of the modern zodiac (with the ecliptic longitudes of their first points), where 0° Aries is understood as the vernal equinox, with their Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Babylonian names (but note that the Sanskrit and the Babylonian name equivalents denote the constellations only, not the tropical zodiac signs). Also, the "English translation" is not usually used by English speakers. The Latin names are standard English usage.
| № | Symbol | Long. | Latin name | English translation | Greek name | Sanskrit name | Sumero-Babylonian name[11] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♈ | 0° | Aries | The Ram | Κριός/Kriós | Meṣa (मेष) | MUL LUḪUN.GA "The Agrarian Worker", Dumuzi |
| 2 | ♉ | 30° | Taurus | The Bull | Ταῦρος/Tauros | Vṛiṣabha(वृषभ) | MULGU4.AN.NA "The Steer of Heaven" |
| 3 | ♊ | 60° | Gemini | The Twins | Δίδυμοι/Didymoe | Mithuna(मिथुन) | MULMAŠ.TAB.BA.GAL.GAL "The Great Twins" (Lugalgirra and Meslamta-ea) |
| 4 | ♋ | 90° | Cancer | The Crab | Καρκῖνος/Karkinos | Karkaṭa(कर्कट) | MULAL.LUL "The Crayfish" |
| 5 | ♌ | 120° | Leo | The Lion | Λέων/Léōn | Siṃha (सिंह) | MULUR.GU.LA "The Lion" |
| 6 | ♍ | 150° | Virgo | The Maiden | Παρθένος/Parthénos | Kanyā(कन्या) | MULAB.SIN "The Furrow"; "The Furrow, the goddess Shala's ear of corn" |
| 7 | ♎ | 180° | Libra | The Scales | Ζυγός/Zygós | Tula (तुला) | zibanitum "The Scales" |
| 8 | ♏ | 210° | Scorpio | The Scorpion | Σκoρπιός/Skorpiós | Vṛścika(वृश्चिक) | MULGIR.TAB "The Scorpion" |
| 9 | ♐ | 240° | Sagittarius | Centaur The Archer | Τοξότης/Toxótēs | Dhanus(धनुष) | MULPA.BIL.SAG, Nedu "soldier" |
| 10 | ♑ | 270° | Capricorn | "Goat-horned" (The Sea-Goat) | Αἰγόκερως/Aegókerōs | Makara(मकर) | MULSUḪUR.MAŠ "The Goat-Fish" |
| 11 | ♒ | 300° | Aquarius | The Water Bearer | Ὑδροχόος/Hydrokhóos | Kumbha(कुम्भ) | MULGU.LA "The Great One", later qâ "pitcher" |
| 12 | ♓ | 330° | Pisces | The Fish | Ἰχθύες/Ιgthues | Mīna (मीन) | MULSIM.MAḪ "The Tail of the Swallow", later DU.NU.NU "fish-cord" |
