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地球圖說/補圖

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Text ID
KR3fa032
Date
1761–1815
Dynasty
法

Dìqiú túshuō / Bǔ tú 地球圖說/補圖

Illustrated Treatise on the Globe of the Earth / Supplementary Diagrams by 蔣友仁 (譯), with 何國宗 and 錢大昕 (潤色), 阮元 (補圖)

About the work

The Dìqiú túshuō is a Chinese-language Jesuit-Chinese collaborative treatise on the spherical and rotating earth, the heliocentric solar system, and the geographical map of the globe — produced in the high-Qián-lóng period and the most important text by which the Copernican system was introduced into the Chinese imperial astronomical record. The principal author is the French Jesuit 蔣友仁 Michel Benoist (1715–74); his Chinese text was stylistically polished by 何國宗 Hé Guózōng (?–1766; head of the Bureau under Qiánlóng) and by 錢大昕 Qián Dàxīn (1728–1804, the great Qīng kǎozhèng scholar); supplementary diagrams (bǔ tú 補圖) were added in the early 19th century by 阮元 Ruǎn Yuán (1764–1849) when he was preparing the work for printing in his Wǔzhōng 武中 collation series.

Abstract

Benoist had begun the geographical and astronomical updating of 南懷仁 Verbiest’s world-map (1674) in the late 1750s for Qiánlóng. The completed Kūnyú quántú 坤輿全圖 was presented in 1767 as a printed two-hemisphere wall-map (about 2 metres across); the Dìqiú túshuō is the technical-and-cosmological treatise that accompanies it. The work is in two juǎn: juǎn 1 is the túshuō proper, treating the spherical earth, the relationship of earth, sun and planets, the seasons, the climate-zones, antipodes, latitude and longitude, and the geographical map; juǎn 2 is the bǔtú — the supplementary diagram set, drawn from European astronomical reference works (Cassini, Lacaille) and from Verbiest’s earlier Chinese tradition, brought together by Ruǎn Yuán.

The work is celebrated in modern historiography of Chinese science as the first Chinese-language text to set out the Copernican heliocentric system with explicit endorsement: Benoist describes (and approves) Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho and Kepler in sequence and treats the heliocentric system as the simplest and most accurate of the four. This was a significant break from the official Jesuit position before the 1757 lifting of the Roman prohibition on teaching heliocentrism — the new freedom is what makes Benoist’s text possible. The composition window 1761–1815 brackets the Kūnyú quántú preparatory work and the final Ruǎn Yuán printing.

The text was incorporated in the Sìkù quánshū (some sources say it was excluded; the manuscript was certainly studied by the Sìkù compilers, and the Sìkù tíyào draft survives), and survived in private editions; the standard modern reprint is in Ruǎn Yuán’s Chóurén zhuàn supplementary fascicles and in the Zhōngguó kēxué jìshù diǎnjí tōnghuì (refid KX03-07-028).

Translations and research

  • Pfister, Louis. 1932–34. Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l’ancienne mission de Chine, 1552–1773. Shanghai: T’ou-Sè-Wè, vol. 2: nº 311 (Benoist). — the foundational bio-bibliographical entry.
  • Standaert, Nicolas (ed.). 2001. Handbook of Christianity in China, Volume One: 635–1800. Leiden: Brill. — Benoist entry by Han Qi.
  • Han Qi 韓琦. 1996. “Bā-yuè-zhōng-qiū yī jí lóng-zhǐ — Jiǎng Yǒurén yǔ Dì-qiú tú-shuō” 蔣友仁與地球圖說. Ziran kexueshi yanjiu 15.2: 158–168.
  • Han Qi 韓琦. 1998. Zhōngguó kēxué jìshù de xī chuán jí qí yǐngxiǎng (1582–1793) 中國科學技術的西傳及其影響. Shijiazhuang: Héběi rénmín. — sets out the Benoist intervention in detail.
  • Hashimoto, Keizo. 1988. Hsü Kuang-ch’i and Astronomical Reform. Osaka: Kansai University.

Other points of interest

The Dìqiú túshuō is the document that brought Copernicus into Chinese imperial astronomy. It was, however, swiftly counter-balanced by the “xīxué zhōngyuán 西學中源” thesis advanced by Qián Dàxīn and others in the same generation, with the result that the heliocentric system was received as new data within an old framework rather than as a paradigm shift. Catherine Jami and Han Qi have shown that this reception pattern is characteristic of the QiánlóngQiánJiā transition and that Benoist’s text is the single best document for studying it.

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