月令明義

Yuèlìng míngyì 月令明義

The Clarified Meaning of the Monthly Ordinances

by 黃道周 (撰)

About the work

A late-Míng monograph commentary on the Yuèlìng 月令 chapter of the Lǐjì KR1d0052 in 4 juàn by Huáng Dàozhōu 黃道周 (1585–1646), composed in 1638 (Chóngzhēn 11) when Huáng held the office of Shàozhānshì 少詹事 (Junior Supervisor of the Heir-Apparent’s Household). It is one of five parallel Lǐjì-chapter monographs (KR1d0062 Yuèlìng míngyì, KR1d0063 Biǎojì jízhuàn, KR1d0064 Fāngjì jízhuàn, KR1d0065 Zīyī jízhuàn, KR1d0066 Rúxíng jízhuàn) that Huáng composed and presented to the throne in the same year as imperial-lecture preparation. The work centres on a comprehensive astronomical-calendrical apparatus: 13 large diagrams including the Yuèlìng qìhòu shēnghé zǒngtú 月令氣候生合總圖 and twelve zhōngxīng tú 中星圖 (charts of culminating stars per month), with detailed measurements of the angular distance from the celestial pole and the Shòushí lì 授時曆 (“Season-Granting Calendar”) new measurements alongside the canonical Yuèlìng readings.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Yuèlìng míngyì in four juan was composed by Huáng Dàozhōu of the Míng. [Huáng] Dàozhōu has the Yì xiàng zhèng, already catalogued. In the eleventh year of Chóngzhēn [1638], [Huáng] Dàozhōu held the office of Shàozhānshì; [he] annotated five Lǐjì piān and submitted [them] — this is one of them.

His exposition: takes the èrzhì (two solstices), èrfēn (two equinoxes), sìlì (four seasonal openings) all as returning to the Central Earth (zhōngyāng zhī tǔ 中央之土); takes [it] as patterned on the central five of the Luòshū 洛書, and the five qì through this distributing — [from this] the year’s-success comes-forth, government-affairs come-from. Therefore he made the Yuèlìng qìhòu shēnghé zǒngtú. Further, because the Yuèlìng records the hūndàn (dusk-and-dawn) culminating stars, [he] has the twelve-month culminating-star diagrams, with detailed records of the culminating-star polar-distances in dùshù (degrees) and the Yín Tài Mǎo Dàzhuàng twelve hexagram tuàn and xiàng — taking it that this is the source of the sage’s spread-of-government.

For each month [he] divides into one chapter. Its solar-position-and-stellar-degrees are listed at the head from the original; and separately listed at the back are the Shòushí lì’s new measurements. Examining the Yáo diǎn culminating stars — they differ from the Yuèlìng — therefore the Dàyǎn lìyì says: “the Zhuānxū lì is the Xià lì; Tāng made the Yīn lì, further took the eleventh-month jiǎzǐ héshuò winter-solstice as the shàngyuán; the Zhōu people followed it. From Xī Hé [the legendary Yáo astronomers] a thousand cycles, the hūnmíng culminating stars all differ by half-a-position. This is [Lǚ] Bùwéi further-examining culminating stars and definitely-taking the close distance-measurement.” Yet former Confucians’ explanations mostly compute the discrepancy without retroactively correcting the canonical text. Coming to Táng Mínghuáng [Xuánzōng], for the first time the old Yuèlìng text was abolished and added with current-affair items, named the Yù shāndìng yuèlìng, and reset as the first chapter of the Lǐjì. Therefore the Kāichéng stone classic — for the hūndàn culminating stars — entirely changed [them] in accord with the Táng lì. In the second year of Sòng Jǐngyòu [1035], the old recension Yuèlìng was restored, while the Táng Yuèlìng circulated separately — because its disturbing-and-altering the ancient classic [was] insufficient to be a model.

[Huáng] Dàozhōu then separately set up canonical text [reading]: “Of the mèngchūn month the sun is at Wéi; at hūn the Mǎo is culminating; at dàn Fáng is culminating; zhòngchūn month the sun is at Dōngbì; at hūn Cān is culminating; at dàn Jī is culminating,” and so on. This [makes Huáng] Dàozhōu himself a [reviser of] Yuèlìng — falling into the Táng-people’s failing — most inappropriate.

But in his annotation, miscellaneously gathering from the Yì xiàng, Xià xiǎo zhèng, Yì Zhōu shū, Guǎnzǐ, Guóyǔ, examining-and-cross-checking kǎozhèng — on canonical-meaning [there is] considerable elucidation. His displaying historical-traditions is also entirely with intent for instruction-and-warning, not idly extending portent-and-omen [doctrine]. Then, although [his] altering the canonical [text] is mistaken, his sincere [intent] of accord-with-affair offering-instruction is in fact not contrary to canonical meaning. There is no harm in preserving his book on a per-author basis.

Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The Yuèlìng míngyì is the late-Míng counterpart of Zhāng Fú’s KR1d0056 earlier Sòng-period Yuèlìng jiě. Huáng Dàozhōu composed it in 1638 alongside four other Lǐjì-chapter monographs as part of his imperial-lecture preparation duties under Chóngzhēn — at a moment when the late-Míng court’s calendrical reform crisis (Chóngzhēn lìshū 崇禎曆書, completed under Xú Guāngqǐ and the Jesuits) had given new urgency to the question of how the canonical Yuèlìng astronomical readings related to current observed astronomy. Huáng’s solution — to amend the canonical Yuèlìng text in line with the Shòushí lì observations rather than preserve the canonical readings as a witness to early-imperial astronomy — is dramatic and unusual: the Sìkù editors mark it as a clear methodological error parallel to the Táng Xuánzōng Yù shāndìng yuèlìng of the eighth century (which Sòng Jǐngyòu had reversed in 1035 in favour of the canonical text).

The five-fold parallel structure of Huáng’s 1638 Lǐjì commentaries — Yuèlìng / Biǎojì / Fāngjì / Zīyī / Rúxíng — represents an unusually focused late-Míng jīngyán programme: each chapter is allotted a separate monograph, with shared editorial conventions (chapter rubrics created by Huáng, presentation as imperial-lecture material, intent of jiànjiè 鑑戒 “instruction-and-warning”). The Sìkù editors’ general view of the set is that Huáng’s commentary is methodologically casual — driven by current-affair concerns rather than by canonical exegesis (“not focused on explaining the canon, only [intending] to seize the current-affairs-fault and borrow the canon to express his loyal-anger”) — but that the works retain interest because of Huáng’s stature as a late-Míng martyr-figure (he was executed by the Qīng in 1646 after refusing to surrender, and became a paradigmatic late-Míng zhōngchén 忠臣).

The dating 1638 is fixed by the tíyào reference to “Chóngzhēn shíyī nián” and is consistent with the chronology of Huáng’s career.

Translations and research

• Lynn A. Struve, The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (Yale UP, 1984) — biographical material on Huáng Dàozhōu’s late-Míng career.
• Charles O. Hucker, Two Studies on Ming History (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, 1971) — discusses Huáng Dàozhōu in the Míng-Qīng transition context.
• Míng shǐ 明史 j. 255 (biography of Huáng Dàozhōu).
• Pèng Lín 彭林, Sānlǐ yánjiū rùmén 三禮研究入門 (Fùdàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2012) — covers the late-Míng Lǐjì commentary tradition.

Other points of interest

The astronomical-diagrammatic apparatus of the Yuèlìng míngyì — particularly the twelve zhōngxīng tú with new Shòushí lì observations — is one of the more substantial late-Míng efforts to integrate calendrical science with classical exegesis, anticipating the parallel project of Méi Wéndǐng’s KR3f0001 mathematical-astronomical school and ultimately Jiāng Yǒng’s Lǐshū gāngmù KR1d0086. Huáng Dàozhōu’s astronomical commentary is methodologically more casual than Méi Wéndǐng’s, but is part of the same late-Míng / early-Qīng intellectual current.

Links

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Daozhou
• Chinaknowledge: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Classics/liji.html