Chóngxiū Géxiàng xīnshū (重修)革象新書
Revised New Treatise on the Reformed Astronomical Image-System by 趙友欽 (Zhào Yǒuqīn, 1271–1335, 元, zhuàn 撰); 王禕 (Wáng Yī, 1322–1373, 明, kāndìng 刊定 — abridgment-and-rectification)
About the work
A 2-juan early-Míng abridgment by Wáng Yī of Zhào Yǒuqīn’s original 5-juan Géxiàng xīnshū (preserved separately as KR3f0005). The original is one of the most innovative astronomical-and-optical treatises of the Yuán: covering calendrical computation, the Gàitiān-vs-Húntiān debate, the geometry of solar and lunar eclipses, an experimental investigation of pinhole-image formation (the camera obscura), and an iterative inscribed-polygon computation of π. Wáng Yī’s preface (“the original text borders on weeds-and-clutter and on the rough-and-rude, so that it positively obscures the points where the meaning resides — therefore I rearranged it, pruning the digressions, verifying the errors, putting the order right, and lifting out the essentials”) states his philosophy of editorial intervention. The Sìkù 提要 measures the result with characteristic balance: Wáng’s polishing made the prose “spruce and presentable” but also obliterated the editorial paper-trail, so that “the reader cannot trace the marks of his additions and deletions in order to recover his successes and failures”; he likewise “did not entirely sweep clean the corruptions in the body”. The Sìkù editors therefore — invoking the precedent of the parallel admission of the Xīn / Jiù Tángshū — included both Zhào’s original (KR3f0005) and Wáng’s abridgment (KR3f0004) in the canon. Note on textid mapping: the canonical catalog meta assigns title (原本)革象新書 5 卷 to KR3f0004 and (重修)革象新書 2 卷 to KR3f0005, but the actual Kanripo source files under both IDs are reversed (the KR3f0004 directory holds the 2-juan abridgment; the KR3f0005 directory holds the 5-juan original). This work-note describes the work present in the KR3f0004 source directory — i.e. the 2-juan Chóngxiū Géxiàng xīnshū.
Tiyao
[Sub-classification: 子部, Tiānwén suànfǎ class 1, tuībù sub-category. Edition: WYG.]
Respectfully examined: Chóngxiū Géxiàng xīnshū, 2 juàn, by Wáng Yī of the Míng — an abridgment-and-rectification (shāndìng 刪定) of the Yuán Master Zhào’s original. Yī’s Dàshìjì xùbiān 大事記續編 is already catalogued. This book combines Master Zhào’s original 5 juàn into 2 juàn. Yī’s own preface states: “The original text borders on weeds-and-clutter and on the rough-and-rude, so that it positively obscures the points where its meaning resides. I therefore rearranged it: pruning the digressions, verifying the errors, putting the order right, and lifting out the essentials”. Now collated against the original: the passages he polished are quite numerous, and the passages he deleted not few. However, at the points of revision he gave no critical discussion, leaving the reader unable to retrace his additions-and-deletions and so to evaluate his successes-and-failures. Furthermore, the corruptions within [the original] he likewise did not entirely sweep clean. Only its prose-and-diction’s weed-piles, once polished, became spruce-and-presentable — and Yī can also be said to be skilled at smoothing-and-altering. Speaking with measured judgement: the original recension’s diction, though somewhat redundant, is detailed-and-rich and can be examined; the revised recension’s text, though rather brief, is concise-and-direct and easily understood. Each has its own strength; neither can be set aside. Therefore we have now followed the precedent of the Xīn-and-Jiù Tángshū and recorded both, side by side.
Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 46, tenth month [November 1781].
Chief Compilers: (subject) Jì Yún 紀昀, (subject) Lù Xíxióng 陸錫熊, (subject) Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: (subject) Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Original preface (Sòng Lián 宋濂)
The Géxiàng xīnshū is the work of Master Zhào Yuándū 趙緣督先生. The Master was a man of Pòyáng who lived in seclusion and concealed himself; people did not know his name and style — some say his name was Jìng 敬, zì Zǐgōng 子恭; some say it was Yǒuqīn 友欽 — his name cannot be determined. Therefore the world simply called him by his self-given sobriquet, “Master Yuándū”. The Master was a son of the Sòng imperial clan, well-versed in Tiānguān, Dùnjiǎ, Qiánshì (occult-administrative manuals), and other books, wishing to distinguish himself by [practical] achievement. One day, sitting in a wineshop at Zhīshān, he met a tall man with sweeping eyebrows and square pupils, who demanded wine and drank it deeply. The Master, struck, approached him; they discussed the xuán (Mystery) at length, and the man said: “Why have you come so late?” Then he produced from his bag the Jiǔhuán Qīfǎn dānshū 九還七返丹書 (alchemical book) and presented it. On parting, the Master asked his name; he replied: “I am Shí Dézhī 石得之 of Fúfēng” — Dézhī being the immortal of the Apricot Grove (Xìnglín xiānrén 杏林仙人) of legend. Thereupon the Master regarded worldly affairs as remote, no longer minding them. From time to time he went to the Eastern Sea coast and lived alone for ten years, writing tens of thousands of words of commentary on the Zhōuyì, of which his contemporaries had no knowledge — only Fù Wényì gōng Lìjí 傅文懿公立極 alone held him in awed respect, taking him to be expounding what earlier men had not. The Master then again abandoned [his retreat], rode a green mule with a small page in attendance, and travelled back-and-forth among the Qú 衢 and Wù 婺 mountains-and-rivers; people did not see him carry provisions, yet on his journey he never lacked. None could say what art he used. When his travels grew weary he stopped, and sat down peacefully in oblivion-of-self (zuòwàng 坐忘). He was finally buried at Lóngyóu Jīmíngshān 龍游鷄鳴山, in Qú [-zhōu].
There was Zhū Huī Démíng 朱暉德明, a man of Lóngyóu, who long followed the Master and obtained his astronomical-calendrical learning, and so received this book; Huī himself became famous as a zhāntiān (heavenly-divination) specialist. After Huī died, his fellow-townsman and disciple Zhāng Rùn 章濬, deeply afraid that [the work] would perish without transmission, urgently corrected its corruptions and printed it on patterned-wood blocks, and came to ask Liàn (myself) for a preface.
Liàn has heard that the Tiānguān art has, in every dynasty’s reckoning, necessarily had subtle differences. The intent must be: through ongoing examination-and-verification, to align with the heavenly motions. From the Táng across into the Sòng, the methods grew increasingly refined; under the Yuán they became especially close. Yēlǜ Wénzhèngwáng Chǔcái 耶律文正王楚材 (Yēlǚ Chǔcái), taking the Jīn Dàmíng lì 大明厯 as too late by [an amount equal to] one heaven, then reduced the [excess in the] jiéqì divisions, diminished the zhōutiān seconds, eliminated the jiāozhōng rates, regulated the yuèzhuǎn remainders, on through the two Luminaries (sun and moon) and the Five Phases’ precedence-and-following in rising-and-setting — all worked through and corrected. And taking Western-region against Chinese earth-distance, he established the lǐchā (mileage-difference) for adding-or-subtracting [adjustments]; this is called the Xīzhēng Gēngwǔ Yuánlì 西征庚午元厯, which may be said to have left no regret.
Then Xǔ Wénzhènggōng Héng 許文正公衡, Wáng Wénsùgōng Xún 王文肅公恂, and Tàishǐlìng Guōgōng Shǒujìng 太史令郭公守敬 (Guō Shǒujìng), together with Northern-and-Southern Day-Officers Chén Dǐngchén 陳鼎臣 and Dèng Yuánlín 鄧元麟 and others, comprehensively investigated the methods of all dynasties, re-measured the variations of the rising-and-falling motion of the sun, moon, stars, and asterisms, and selected the median values to constitute the calendrical foundation: namely the established Shòushí lì 授時厯; the Lìjīng 厯經 and Lìyì 厯議 of two books still survive — verifiable, not falsified.
The gentlemen say: those by whom the present-age computations [were done] were all two-or-three great Confucians, who united their spiritual powers, broadened their evidence-and-experience, equipped their instruments-and-observatories, and only then could they reach this level of subtlety. Now the Master lived in an age when astronomical books were forbidden, sojourning alone south of the Great River with no instrument-of-heaven-observation; yet his book repeatedly accords-without-gap with these gentlemen’s [results] — though his peerless intellect made it possible, truly because the principle of the human heart-and-mind is the same and so all corresponded without north-south distinction.
Further, I have heard that the Western Region is far in the ten-thousand-lǐ-distance. After the Yuán took its country, there was Zhāmǎěrdān 扎瑪尔丹 (Zhāmáĕrdān) who presented the Wànnián lì 萬年厯; its method-of-prognostication uses only the Twelve Palaces and divides them into three-hundred-sixty degrees. As for the doctrines of the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions and their cìshè divisions, all are as if not heard there; yet in computing the lunar-and-solar eclipse-magnitudes, [the result] also accords with China — likewise because the principle is the same. Alas: within the four seas — within and without — all peoples with round skulls and square feet, their hearts are all the same and their principles all not different. How could it only be in heavenly-divination that this is so?
The Master’s Yì writings have already perished in the war-fires; his military and immortal-arts writings also do not survive. What does survive is just this work — and it should be transmitted side-by-side with the Lìjīng without doubt. I therefore particularly preface the Master’s affairs at the head of the volume, so that the reader may know that the Master’s learning extended through Heaven and Man. — Sòng Lián of Jīnhuá, xù.
Original preface (Wáng Yī 王禕)
Géxiàng is a Sītiān (Office-of-Heaven) book. Master Zhào Yuándū of Pòyáng compiled it. The Master’s name was Yǒumǒu (some [character], i.e. uncertain), zì Zǐgōng; in the Sòng his ancestral lineage held the imperial-clan registration; his learning was strong in pitch-pipes, calendrical methods, and arithmetic, while his art of Tiānguān (Officials of Heaven) and xīngjiā (asterism-school) was especially refined — reading his book, one can see this. His book has chapters such as Tuībù and Lìchéng, all carrying examples-of-prognostication-verification; while géxiàng itself comprises Heaven-and-Earth, sun-and-moon, the Five Planets, the Four Seasons, and the calendrical-image regulations — all are present here. Yet his text-and-words drift toward the rambling and the rough, so that it positively obscures the points where the meaning resides. I therefore arranged it: pruning the digressions, verifying the errors, putting the order right, and lifting out the essentials — so that the diction grew increasingly concise and the meaning increasingly clear. Now: the Office-of-Heaven studies are what the Confucian must apply himself to, yet the world routinely sets it aside without expounding it. Why? Those with intent in this matter — let them seek it in this book, and the subtleties of refinement-and-mystery may then be obtained. — Wáng Yī of Jīnhuá, xù.
Abstract
Composition window for the abridgment: 1368 (founding of the Míng, when Wáng Yī entered Hóngwǔ-court service and could undertake non-official literary projects) – 1373 (Wáng’s death by execution at Yúnnán in early 1374, by lunar reckoning still Hóngwǔ 6 = 1373). The abridgment circulated alongside the original 5-juan recension throughout the late Míng and Qīng. The Sìkù editors — under the explicit precedent of the Xīn / Jiù Tángshū — included both the original (KR3f0005) and Wáng Yī’s abridgment, recognizing that each preserves something the other does not.
Editorial assessment: the Sìkù 提要 is unusually candid about the limits of Wáng Yī’s editorial work. He is praised for prose-polishing (xiūshì 修飭) but criticized on two specific counts: he gave no editorial discussion of his interventions (so a later reader cannot reconstruct what he changed), and he did not in fact correct the substantive astronomical-mathematical errors of the original (his pruning was largely cosmetic). The 提要’s verdict — “the original is detailed-and-rich and can be examined; the revised is concise-and-direct and easily understood” — is the standard later judgment, and it is the principal reason both recensions remain in active use.
For the original work’s content (camera-obscura optics, π-computation, gàitiān / húntiān synthesis, eclipse geometry), see KR3f0005.
The two original prefaces preserved in the WYG front matter — Sòng Lián 宋濂’s earlier preface to Zhāng Rùn’s printing of the original 5-juan recension, and Wáng Yī 王禕’s own preface to the abridgment — are the two principal biographical sources for Zhào Yǒuqīn (see the 趙友欽 person note). Sòng Lián’s preface in particular preserves the earliest connected narrative of Zhào’s encounter with the alchemical immortal “Shí Dézhī” 石得之 of Fúfēng, his ten-year retreat on the East Sea coast, his lost Yì commentary, his itinerant period in the QúWù mountains, and his death-and-burial at Jīmíngshān in Lóngyóu (Qúzhōu). The Sòng Lián preface also contains the most quotable defense of cross-cultural scientific universalism in the late-Yuán / early-Míng literature: “Within the four seas — within and without — all peoples with round skulls and square feet, their hearts are all the same and their principles all not different. How could it only be in heavenly-divination that this is so?”
Translations and research
- Volkov, Alexei. “Calculation of Pi in Ancient China: From Liu Hui to Zhao Youqin,” in Chinese Science 11 (1993–94): 27–48.
- Sivin, Nathan. Granting the Seasons: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280, Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, New York: Springer, 2009. The standard study of the Shòu-shí reform context invoked by Sòng Lián’s preface.
- Needham, Joseph (with Wáng Líng), Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 3 (Mathematics), and vol. 4.1 (Physics), Cambridge University Press, 1959 / 1962. Discusses Zhào Yǒuqīn’s pinhole-image experiment in the optics section.
- Bo Shuren 薄樹人, “Zhào Yǒuqīn jí qí Géxiàng xīnshū” 趙友欽及其《革象新書》, in Kēxué shǐ jíkān 科學史集刊 12 (1984).
Other points of interest
The textid–source mismatch (catalog meta has KR3f0004 = original / 5-juan and KR3f0005 = abridgment / 2-juan; the actual file directories carry the swapped assignment) deserves an editorial note in any future reconciliation of the Kanripo catalog with the source corpus.