Gǔjīn lǜlì kǎo 古今律歷考
Examination of the Ancient and Modern Pitch-Pipes and Calendar by 邢雲路 (Xíng Yúnlù, 1549–after 1621, 明, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
Xíng Yúnlù’s monumental 72-juàn evidentiary treatment of Chinese pitch-pipe-and-calendrical history from the Six Classics to the late Míng. The Sìkù 提要 describes the structure: 6 juàn on pitch-pipes (lǜ), placed inexplicably between the historical-eclipses sections and the qìshuò computational sections; and 66 juàn on calendrical methods (lìfǎ), surveying every recorded system from antiquity through the Dàtǒng lì of the Míng with detailed kǎodìng (collation-rectification). Xíng’s central argumentative thrust is critical: in juàn 65 alone he advances eight refutations of the Yuán Shòushí lì and seven of the Míng Dàtǒng lì. The Dàtǒng refutations target three substantive errors: (a) the conflation of stellar-zodiacal divisions with the yuèjiàn lunar-station system (an error Xíng traces to Zhào Yǒuqīn the Yuándūzǐ of the Yuán KR3f0005); (b) the persistent use of Guō Shǒujìng’s 1281 zodiacal-palace boundaries despite three centuries of accumulated suìchā (precession) drift of some five degrees in winter-solstice solar position; (c) the abolition of the Shòushí’s built-in xiāozhǎng (diminution-and-growth) compensating mechanism, producing a 9-kè error in the timing of mid-month points. Xíng’s diagnostic case became the technical-intellectual basis for the Míng-late calendrical-reform party (alongside KR3f0007 Zhū Zàiyù’s Shèngshòu wànnián lì and Lǐ Zhīzǎo’s parallel agitation), which culminated in the Chóngzhēn lìshū 崇禎曆書 reform under Xú Guāngqǐ 徐光啟. The work’s collaborator was the mathematician Wèi Wénkuí 魏文魁 — described in Xíng’s preface as “as Zǔ Chōngzhī 祖冲之 and Chén Déyī 陳得一 of the ancients [were]” — who would later have his own career under the Chóngzhēn calendar debates as the conservative anti-Western counterpart of Xú Guāngqǐ.
Tiyao
[Sub-classification: 子部, Tiānwén suànfǎ class 1, tuībù sub-category. Edition: WYG.]
Respectfully examined: Gǔjīn lǜlì kǎo, by Xíng Yúnlù of the Míng. Yúnlù’s zì was Shìdēng 士登, a man of Ānsù 安肅, jìnshì of the Wànlì gēngchén year [1580], office reaching Vice Surveillance Commissioner of Shǎnxī. This book is detailed on calendrics and brief on pitch-pipes: among its 72 juàn, those treating lǜ are no more than 6, and even there [the work] is rare in its discoveries — only the dispute against the [doctrine of] the Huángzhōng [pitch-pipe being] 3 cùn 9 fēn is rather sharp-and-correct. Yet it is placed after the historical-period eclipses and before the bù qìshuò (initial-conditions and lunation-step) — one knows not on what principle.
The 66 juàn on calendrical methods, from the Six Classics down to the Míng Dàtǒng lì, are in every case examined-and-rectified one by one. His argument that the Zhōu changed [the calendar] in correctness implies changing [the order of] the months — this is broadly grounded in Zhāng Yǐníng’s 張以寜 Chūnwáng zhèngyuè kǎo 春王正月考. Only on the Shū’s “Wéi yuánsì shí yǒu èr yuè” 惟元祀十有二月, he indicates [this] as the jiànchǒu month [i.e. the second lunar month under the Xià system] and says that Shāng, although taking chǒu as correct, in numbering the months still took yín as the head — different from the Chūnwáng zhèngyuè kǎo’s position. But by both [accounts] the [calendar] was changed-in-correctness, while for Zhōu he says the months were changed and for Yīn he says the months were not changed — ultimately less compelling than Zhāng Yǐníng’s account.
Within juàn 65 there are 8 refutations of the Shòushí lì and 7 refutations of the Dàtǒng lì. His refutations of the Dàtǒng: he says that the Dǒu 斗 [Big Dipper] pointing to xīmù 析木, the sun in zōuzī 娵訾, are not the names of celestial-stellar division-and-allotment, but the names of [the lunar-station’s] yuèchén (lunar-time) place-of-arrival; yet the Dàtǒng lì takes the celestial-stellar succession-of-mansions and adds it as the earth-board yuèjiàn (lunar-station) — clearly inheriting Zhào the Yuándūzǐ’s error. Also: the Shòushí lì, at the Zhìyuán xīnsì year [1281], in the twelve [zodiacal-palace] boundary-divisions of the Yellow-Path solar position — these were what Guō Shǒujìng measured, and to the present-day [it] has been over 300 years; the winter-solstice solar position has already retreated 5 degrees. Therefore the solar-position degree-numbers should be newly revised. Yet the Dàtǒng lì uses Guō’s twelve-palace boundaries — incompatible with [precession]. Also: the Dàtǒng lì abolished the Shòushí’s diminution-and-growth method (xiāozhǎng), so that mid-month points (zhōngjié) are off by 9 kè.
In general, Yúnlù was skilled at calculation and originated many new techniques. The Dàtǒng being the calendar then in current use, he disputed it with particular force. Also, the Dàtǒng only abandoned the Shòushí’s diminution-and-growth, while in other respects largely inherited [it] — therefore [Yúnlù’s critique] reaches the Shòushí as well.
Méi Wéndǐng’s Wùān lìsuàn shūjì 勿菴厯算書記 says: “From Huáng Yútái 黄俞邰 [Huáng Yúzhī 黃虞稷] I borrowed-to-read the Gǔjīn lǜlì kǎo of Inspector-General Xíng [Yúnlù] and was startled by the mass of its many fascicles. Yet on close examination, [it is] sparse on the ancient methods, and what he expounds of the Shòushí method’s intent often misses its meaning”. Again: “The Xíng book only knows the Shòushí and merely cites the classics-and-histories to elaborate his arguments; the source-and-stream and successes-and-failures of the ancient calendar he could not clarify — let alone Western methods”. So Wéndǐng has reservations about Yúnlù’s book.
But the tuībù (computational-astronomy) study is essentially: relying on already-formulated methods and further computing the as-yet-incomplete subtleties. Where the earlier man’s intellectual power exhausts itself is precisely where the later man’s heart-and-mind starts — therefore this art is illuminated by being made progressively refined. Later [thinkers] dwell on the upper [shoulders of the earlier]. Yúnlù arrived at a moment when the calendrical study was wrecked-and-broken, and he alone was able to rise and attack its errors — his discernment exceeds others by one rank. Pioneering work is necessarily not [yet] refined; one must not insist on demanding the founder be perfectly precise. [創始難工，亦不必定以未宻議也.]
Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 46, fourth month [May 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 (Xíng Yúnlù 邢雲路)
The histories say: emperors-and-kings governing the realm took lǜlì (pitch-and-calendar) as primary; the Confucian penetrating Heaven-and-Man stops at lǜlì. Great words! How so? Because lǜ is the great-mass’s bore-hole — a single inhalation-and-exhalation of man traces it — while lì is the controlling-cord’s revolution — a single working-and-resting of man traces it. Even Heaven does not deviate, much less man. Therefore the Sage treasured these.
Yet lǜ gives birth to lì; and lì is the more important. Since [the Yellow Emperor’s astronomers] ChóngLí 重黎 lost the Way and Mǎ Biāo 馬彪 mis-recorded [things], the lower current became increasingly skewed and the whole subtlety lost-its-standard. Tangled threads ran in all directions — like this with the multitude. It is not heaven’s degrees that are wrong, but examination-and-investigation of [it] that has been wrong-headed.
I am not capable, but from early years I doted on lì-prefacing-counts; in late life I grew especially fond of [the subject], examining the ringed-tubes — driving my intellect to its labour. I once held the trigrams kūn 坤 and fù 復 [as] tally and warrant, weighing son-and-mother [pitch-pipes by] their meeting — for years now in my heart’s reckoning I have computed bamboo-strips. Therefore I broadly inquired in the present age, seeking [men of] our class. In the mountains I obtained Master Wèi 魏 — his name Wénkuí 文魁 — a man among the ancients comparable to Zǔ Chōngzhī 祖冲之 and Chén Déyī 陳得一. I and he, together, collated-against the various books and worked toward what is most-correct. Of all the calendar’s grand-schemes and fine-details, tracing antiquity down to the present, there was nothing whose hidden essence we did not pursue, no thread whose end we did not analyze. All loose-knots-and-cracks were exhaustively rectified, without surprise [missing anything]. Then we presented [the result] above.
The August Above [Wànlì emperor] showed pleasure-and-approval; the Lower Court’s discussion all said: “It will do”. But the Zhōngjuān (palace-eunuch) feared [it] and the matter was blocked, not put into effect.
I withdrew and sighed, saying: if Heaven did not wish this art to be put into practice, then it would not have committed this art to me. Heaven having committed this art to me — if not me, then who is responsible? And: the dàoshù (Way-and-art) is a public instrument. A public instrument residing in me, if I do not make it public to others, the spirits will hate me!
Therefore at the request of the various gentlemen of Jīnmíng 金明, I have collected [the work] into a finished volume and entrusted it to the woodblocks. If by this means we may speak together, knowing the Mandate, [seeing] the Great Pure (Tàiqīng) as in a mirror — pearled discs joined, planted-rays in order, gradient-steps level — perhaps so! Above, regulating the yīnyáng transformations; below, preserving the function of midwifery-and-nurture; let Yáo’s calendar carry [its] light, transmitted without ruin. The Zhuàn says: “The four seasons proceed, the hundred kinds-of-being are born”. Then between Heaven and me, what regret have I? — Xíng Yúnlù xù.
Abstract
Composition window: 1596 (the year of his first formal memorial on calendar reform, the moment from which his organized engagement with calendrical history is documented) – 1611 (the year the Ministry of Rites formally moved to act on his arguments, by which point the Gǔjīn lǜlì kǎo must have been in finished and circulating form to provide the evidentiary basis). The catalog meta date 1580 reflects only Xíng’s jìnshì year, not the work’s composition. The work was certainly in finished form before Méi Wéndǐng (b. 1633) borrowed it from Huáng Yúzhī 黃虞稷 (1629–1691) for study, locating its circulation comfortably in the early Qīng.
Two interpretive themes deserve emphasis. First, the work’s collaborator Wèi Wénkuí 魏文魁 — celebrated in Xíng’s preface as a recluse-mathematician of the rank of Zǔ Chōngzhī — would acquire complementary fame two decades later as the conservative leader of the Dàtǒnglì faction in the Chóngzhēn calendar debates of 1629–1635, opposing the Western-mathematical-astronomy reform led by Xú Guāngqǐ 徐光啟 and the Jesuits. The Wèi Wénkuí of Xíng Yúnlù’s preface and the Wèi Wénkuí of the Chóngzhēn lìshū polemics is the same man — a striking continuity of the late-Míng reform-conservative spectrum across a generation.
Second, the Sìkù editors’ verdict — both critical (citing Méi Wéndǐng’s reservations about Xíng’s grasp of pre-Yuán calendrical history) and defensive (“pioneering work is necessarily not [yet] refined”) — is one of the more sympathetic editorial assessments in the Tiānwén suànfǎ category. The editors’ framing positions Xíng as the diagnostic clinician who correctly identified the Dàtǒng’s drift even where his own positive proposals were limited; the late-imperial story of cumulative scientific progress through generations is articulated explicitly here.
The 提要’s casual reference to the Dàtǒng’s confusion-of-systems on the yuèjiàn / stellar-division question — “clearly inheriting Zhào the Yuándūzǐ’s error” — is one of the few instances where a Sìkù 提要 traces a Míng calendrical defect to a specific Yuán predecessor; the cross-reference reflects the editors’ systematic reading of KR3f0005 / KR3f0004 in conjunction with the present text.
For Xíng Yúnlù’s biographical and intellectual context (his memorials of 1596 and 1616, his Qīzhèng zhēnshù, his impeachment, his other works, and the relationship between his program and Zhū Zàiyù’s), see the 邢雲路 person note.
Translations and research
- Cullen, Christopher. Heavenly Numbers: Astronomy and Authority in Early Imperial China, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017 (background on the Shòu-shí lì / Dà-tǒng lì tradition).
- Sivin, Nathan. Granting the Seasons: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280, New York: Springer, 2009. The standard treatment of the system Xíng critiqued.
- Hashimoto Keizō 橋本敬造. Joju-reki no kenkyū 授時暦の研究, Kōbe: Tōhō Shoten, 1979.
- Jiāng Xiǎoyuán 江曉原. Tiān-xué wài-shǐ 天學外史, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Rénmín Chūbǎnshè, 1999. Treats the late-Míng calendrical-reform debate.
- Hé Bǐngyù (Ho Peng-Yoke). Chinese Mathematical Astrology: Reaching Out to the Stars, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
Other points of interest
The 提要’s adage chuàngshǐ nán gōng, yì bù bì dìng yǐ wèimì yì yě 創始難工，亦不必定以未宻議也 (“pioneering work is necessarily not refined; one must not insist on demanding the founder be perfectly precise”) is widely quoted in modern Chinese history-of-science writing as a model of late-imperial historicized judgment.
Xíng Yúnlù’s preface — with its Daoist-Confucian rhetoric of dàoshù wèi gōngqì (the Way-art is a public instrument) and its near-religious sense of personal calendrical mission (“if Heaven did not wish this art to be put into practice, then it would not have committed this art to me”) — is one of the most personally-charged self-justifications in the Tiānwén suànfǎ literature.