Sān zhèng kǎo 三正考
An Investigation of the Three Regnal Calendars by 吳鼐 (撰)
About the work
A focused 2-juǎn monograph by Wú Nài 吳鼐 (1696–1747) on the Chūnqiū-calendar problem — specifically, the question of whether the Chūnqiū uses the Zhōu, Shāng, or Xià calendar for its year-and-month notations and whether Confucius’s editorial activity included calendar adjustment. The work argues from the post-Sòng evidential side: the Chūnqiū records time by the Zhōu calendar (Zhōu zhèng — first month begins at the zǐ lunation, around the winter solstice), and there is no warrant in the canon itself for the Sòng-era doctrines either of “month-changed-but-not-season-changed” (Hú Ānguó, Cài Yuándìng) or of “neither-month-nor-season-changed” (others). The two juǎn contain a gǎi shí gǎi yuè tú 改時改月圖 (synoptic table of the Xià / Shāng / Zhōu / Qín calendars and their Tàichū re-numbering) and a sequence of focused topical essays.
Tiyao
Imperially edited Sìkù quánshū, Classics, Chūnqiū category. Sān zhèng kǎo in 2 juǎn. Composed in the present dynasty by Wú Nài, zì Dànián, native of Wúxī. Qiánlóng bǐngchén (1736) jìnshì; held office as Secretary of the Board of Works (工部主事).
The Chūnqiū records time by the Zhōu calendar — originally there was no doubt about it. From Sòng onwards, the Confucians clung to Confucius’s saying “put into effect the Xià calendar” (xíng Xià zhī shí) and from that one phrase the dispute swarmed up. In Míng, Zhāng Yǐníng 張以寧 wrote Chūn wáng zhèng yuè kǎo 春王正月考 and Lǐ Lián 李濂 wrote Xià Zhōu zhèng biàn yí 夏周正辨疑, and from then on the canonical sense was clear. Wú Nài takes the two predecessors’ arguments, prunes their excess, supplements them with arguments from recent Confucians on the points they had not covered, refutes the Hú Ānguó and Cài Déjìn (蔡德晉) doctrine of “month-changed but season-not-changed” and the others’ “neither-month-nor-season-changed”, and so makes plain the Zuǒshì phrase “the king’s Zhōu first month” (王周正月). The argument is solidly grounded.
The section “Sān zhèng tōng yú mín sú” (the three calendars in popular usage) draws on Chén Tíngjìng 陳廷敬, Cài Déjìn, and others on the various year-month discrepancies in the Three Dynasties literature, dissecting each one’s actual cause — and so breaks through speculative reasoning. Although the work is short, the citations are precise and clear; it adjudicates a controversy of a hundred years and is genuinely useful for jīngxué. Submitted on the Qiánlóng 44th year, 3rd month (= 1779, April). Editors-in-chief: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief proofreader: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Sān zhèng kǎo is the canonical eighteenth-century settlement of the most technically vexed Chūnqiū interpretive question — the sān zhèng (Three Regnal Calendars) problem — and the work that, in the Sìkù editors’ view, ended a four-century dispute. The Sòng problem was created by the doctrine that Confucius, in editing the canon, had “applied the Xià calendar,” with two specifications: Hú Ānguó and Cài Yuándìng’s “month-changed but seasons not adjusted” (the Zhōu’s first month was retained but referred to as the Xià spring), and the more radical denial that any calendar shift had occurred (canon and zhuàn simply contradict each other, the Chūnqiū uses Xià). Wú Nài clinches the case for the Zhōu calendar by detailed cross-examination of canon entries against datable astronomical phenomena and by his synoptic table mapping zǐchǒuyín lunations onto the Xià, Shāng, Zhōu, and Qín calendars in parallel, with the Tàichū (104 BCE) calendrical reform’s renumbering of the Qín months registered as a separate column.
The Sìkù tiyao’s verdict is unusually generous for a short work: Wú had “broken through a century of confusion” and made a real contribution to canonical scholarship. Composition is bracketed by his 1736 jìnshì and his 1747 death.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. For the sān zhèng problem in modern Chinese scholarship see Zhāng Péiyú 張培瑜, Zhōngguó xiān-Qín shǐ lì biǎo 中國先秦史曆表 (Qí lǔ shū shè, 1987); for the Qing-dynasty argument tradition Wú Nài fits into, see Yáng Zhàoguì, Qīng dài Chūnqiū xué yán jiū (Wǔnán, 2010).
Other points of interest
The synoptic table is the centerpiece visual of Qing sān zhèng literature: a single grid that registers, against the twelve zhī (lunations zǐ through hài), the corresponding month-numbers and seasonal labels in the Xià, Shāng, Zhōu, and Qín calendars, plus the Tàichū-revised Qín numbering. This compact diagram is the most efficient single explanation of the calendrical complexity facing any reader of pre-imperial Chinese chronological documents.
Links
- ctext.org: Sān zhèng kǎo (Sìkù WYG facsimile)
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (2018), § 36