Tiānwén mìzhǐ 天文秘旨
The Secret Doctrine of Astronomy
About the work
The Tiānwén mìzhǐ is a seven-juǎn Qīng-period anonymous (者不详 zhě bù xiáng, “compiler unknown”) astrological-and-astronomical work. The title mìzhǐ 秘旨 (“secret doctrine”) signals a work in the esoteric xīngmìng 星命 (“stellar-destiny”) tradition rather than in the orthodox imperial-bureau positional astronomy. The work occupies a borderland between the official tiānwénzhì 天文志 tradition and the zǐbù divination literature, presenting the canonical Chinese sky in its astrological-fortune interpretation.
Abstract
The work is anonymous and undated. The seven-juǎn structure and the mìzhǐ framing place it in the late-imperial xīngzhàn / xīngmìng sub-genre alongside such works as the Lǐngtái mìyuàn 靈臺秘苑 of the Sòng tradition, the KR3fa011 Shéndào dàbiān of the Míng, and the various Wǔxīng dàyì and Bùtiān gē annotated traditions. Internal references to the Kāngxī yǒngnián lì (the imperial calendar epoch of 1684) — if present in the working text — would date it to the post-Verbiest period; absent that, the broad bracket adopted here is the Qīng dynasty (1644–1911).
The text covers (a) the Sānyuán and Èrshíbā xiù with their xīngzhàn significations; (b) the Qīzhèng and their astrological-stations; (c) the Sìyú 四余 (the four supplementary calendrical-astrological terms — Zǐqì 紫氣, Yuèbó 月孛, Luóhóu 羅睺 / Rāhu, Jìdū 計都 / Ketu); (d) eclipses and their portents; (e) comets, meteors and atmospheric anomalies; (f) the fēnyě assignments of asterisms to terrestrial regions; (g) summary tables of astrological fortunes.
The text is preserved in the Sìkù wèishōu shū jíkān and reprinted in the Zhōngguó kēxué jìshù diǎnjí tōnghuì (refid KX03-07-033).
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Ho Peng Yoke 何丙郁. 1969. The Astronomical Chapters of the Chin Shu with Amendments, Full Translation and Annotations. Paris/The Hague: Mouton. — the standard reference for the xīng-zhàn tradition that this work continues.
- Ho Peng Yoke 何丙郁. 2003. Chinese Mathematical Astrology: Reaching Out to the Stars. London: RoutledgeCurzon. — the principal English-language treatment of the late-imperial astrological-astronomical tradition.
- Pankenier, David W. 2013. Astrology and Cosmology in Early China. Cambridge: CUP.