Ben is the thirteenth of the twenty day signs of the Tzolk'in, the 260-day sacred count of the Maya, still kept by highland daykeepers and reconstructed for the Classic period. Recorded here by its Yucatec name, Ben, it corresponds to the day Aj in the living K'iche' tradition. Its imagery is the reed or the growing maize stalk, and by extension the home, the household, and the authority of the one who upholds it; the K'iche' Aj is a day of the family and the pillar of the house. It is associated with growth, uprightness, and the flourishing of the home. In the directional scheme that runs through the twenty signs it belongs to the east and the colour red. These are the meanings the Maya calendrical tradition carries for the day.
Ben is the thirteenth of the twenty Tzolk'in day signs; the living K'iche' tradition knows the corresponding day as Aj, meaning reed or cane, matching the Yucatec sign's own association with the reed, growth and the home. In the directional scheme, Ben belongs to the east and the colour red, opening the fourth of the five four-day directional sets. The reed carried particular political significance in Postclassic Mesoamerica: the K'iche' capital Q'umarkaj, also called Utatlan, and the earlier legendary place of origin Tulan, whose name is cognate with words for reed across several Mesoamerican languages, both draw on the same association of reeds bound together as a symbol of a unified lineage or people, a metaphor the K'iche' sacred narrative, the Popol Vuh, invokes directly.