Tiānwén sānshíliù quántú 天文三十六全圖
Thirty-Six Complete Astronomical Diagrams by 黃道時 (制)
About the work
The Tiānwén sānshíliù quántú is a Míng-period one-juǎn set of thirty-six “complete” sky diagrams designed by Huáng Dàoshí 黃道時. The catalog records the author as “黃道時制” — the catalog field bundles the personal name with the function-marker zhì 制 (“made”, “designed”), which has been split here to put 制 as the function annotation. CBDB places Huáng Dàoshí in the mid-16th century (index year 1554), which gives the work a composition window of roughly the Jiājìng — early Wànlì period.
Abstract
The “thirty-six diagrams” structure (sānshíliù tú 三十六圖) is a standard didactic organisation for Míng popular astronomy: the set typically covers the Sānyuán enclosures (three diagrams), the Èrshíbāxiù lodges (twenty-eight diagrams), the Qīzhèng seven regulators (a single diagram of the ecliptic with the planets’ positions), and four “comprehensive” diagrams covering eclipses, halos, comets and meteors — adding up to thirty-six. The work belongs in the same Míng túshuō family as KR3fa014 (Xú Jìngyí’s Tiānxiàng yí quántú) and KR3fa015 (Yuán Qǐ’s Tiānwén túshuō).
The text is preserved in private Míng libraries and in modern reprint series — notably the Zhōngguó kēxué jìshù diǎnjí tōnghuì (refid KX03-07-014). Modern historians of pre-Jesuit Chinese astronomy treat the three Míng túshuō together as a small but coherent body of evidence for the late-Míng lay astronomical curriculum.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Pan Nai 潘鼐. 1989. Zhōngguó héngxīng guāncè shǐ 中國恆星觀測史.
- Stephenson, F. Richard. 1994. “Chinese and Korean Star Maps and Catalogs.” In Harley & Woodward (eds.), The History of Cartography, vol. 2.2, Chicago: UCP, 511–578.