Dàxuě

Daxue, Major Snow, is the twenty-first solar term, at the sun's longitude of 255 degrees, around the seventh of December. It is a sectional (jie) term. Its name marks the season of heavier snowfall as winter deepens, when snow may blanket the land in the north. In the farming almanac it is a time of rest and preparation, with continued curing and storing of winter foods and the tending of livestock through the cold. Traditional customs emphasise warming, nourishing dishes suited to the depth of the season. Being a solar marker, it falls near the same Gregorian date each year. These are the observances of the East Asian agricultural tradition, resting on the twenty-four-fold division of the tropical year, each term naming a precise fifteen-degree step of the sun.

Daxue, Major Snow, falls at 255 degrees, around 7 December, and is a jie, or sectional, term, whose name marks the point in the traditional agricultural calendar when snowfall is expected to become heavier than at Xiaoxue two weeks before, though as with Xiaoxue the actual snowfall at this date varies widely by region and does not occur reliably everywhere China's calendar is used. Daxue sits at the midpoint of the six terms traditionally assigned to winter, following Lidong and Xiaoxue and preceding Dongzhi, the winter solstice, and in several regional folk traditions it is treated as an appropriate time to begin preparing cured meats and other preserved foods intended to last through the depth of winter.

The twenty-four solar terms divide the ecliptic into equal arcs of fifteen degrees, and this one falls at 255 degrees of the sun's apparent longitude. It is a sectional term, a jie, one of the twelve that fall in the odd positions of the twenty-four and open the twelve solar months. The sectional terms and the major terms alternate strictly around the year, so a jie is always followed by a zhong fifteen degrees later.

The system travelled with the Chinese calendar. Japan, Korea and Vietnam all adopted the twenty-four terms and kept their own readings of the same names, and the terms remain in use in each. In 2016 the twenty-four solar terms were inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, on the ground that they remain a living framework for agricultural and everyday practice rather than an obsolete scheme.

Daxue, major snow, is the second of the two snow terms and the last sectional term before the winter solstice. The system's regularity is easiest to see in the winter half of the year, where three consecutive pairs run minor and major snow, minor and major cold, with the solstice between them, giving the coldest part of the year the densest naming in the whole list.