Huíhuí lìfǎ 回回曆法
The Islamic Calendar Method by 貝琳 (校刊)
About the work
The Huíhuí lìfǎ 回回曆法 is the late-fifteenth-century printed recension, by Bèi Lín 貝琳 of the Nánjīng Qīntiānjiān, of the Hóng-wǔ-period Chinese translation of the Islamic ephemeris-and-procedural manual brought to the Míng court at its founding. The original translation, completed in Hóngwǔ 16 (1383), was the work of the Khwarezmian-tradition astronomers Mǎshā Yīhēi 馬沙亦黑 and Mǎ Yīhēi (etc.) together with the Hànlín jiǎntǎo Wú Bózōng 吳伯宗 and Lǐ Chōng 李翀; it remained in Bureau manuscript circulation for nearly a century before Bèi Lín collated it, completed lacunae, and printed it in Chénghuà 13 (1477). The Huíhuí lì tradition supplied the Imperial Astronomical Bureau with a parallel Islamic-style ephemeris (“West-of-the-Western-Borders calendar,” Xīyù lì 西域曆) used alongside the Dàtǒng lì for cross-checking, especially of eclipses.
The Kanripo bundle KR3fb003+004 jointly transmits Bèi Lín’s edition: KR3fb003 carries the Wú Bózōng preface of 1383 and the procedural text proper; KR3fb004 (Huíhuí lìfǎ shìlì 釋例) is the companion explanatory manual of worked examples. The works are physically bound together in the Xùxiū sìkù quánshū recension on which the present catalog draws.
Abstract
The Wú Bózōng preface of 1383 (Hóngwǔ shíliù nián wǔyuè Hànlín jiǎntǎo chén Wú Bózōng jǐng xù 翰林檢討臣吳伯宗謹序), preserved at the head of KR3fb003, frames the project as part of the Hóngwǔ emperor’s programme of incorporating foreign learning into imperial service: the Islamic calendar “had come in from beyond the borders [of XīShāng, i.e. the Persian-Arab lands]; for over a hundred years under the Yuán it had remained obscure and unpublished. Now, having met with sage brilliance, it is set forth and used in China — a complete repertoire (備一家之言).” The rhetoric of “engraved and disseminated, set side-by-side and applied alongside the books of the Chinese sages” reflects the Hóngwǔ court’s deliberate retention of Yuán-period Islamic specialists at the new Bureau.
The technical body covers (i) the system’s epoch, fixed at the Hijra (西域阿剌必年 Xīyù Ālābǐnián — Bèi Lín’s text places this at Suí Kāihuáng 19 jǐwèi = 599 CE, computing 786 years from the Hijra epoch to Hóngwǔ jiǎzǐ (1384), the working epoch of the translation); (ii) the twelve “fixed months” (bùdòng de yuè 不動的月) of 30-and-29 days alternating, with intercalary day-supplements; (iii) the twelve zodiacal palaces (gōng 宮); (iv) the use-numbers (yòngshù 用數), with degree-fractions to fēn 分, miǎo 秒, wēi 微, xiān 纖; and (v) the underlying parameters of the solar, lunar and planetary mean motions, drawn from a Khwarezmian zīj (probably the Zīj-i Sanjarī tradition, on Yabuuti’s analysis).
Bèi Lín’s edition was the first printed text of any Islamic-derived astronomical material in Chinese, and through this edition the Huíhuí lì entered the textual record of late-imperial Chinese astronomy. The Sìkù tíyào and Méi Wéndǐng’s 梅文鼎 Lìsuàn shūjì 厯算書記 both observe of the Huíhuí lì that “it was engraved by Bèi Lín” 回回曆貝琳所刻. Composition bracket: notBefore 1383 (the original translation), notAfter 1490 (Bèi Lín’s death year); the printed recension as transmitted is c. 1477.
Translations and research
- van Dalen, Benno. 2002. “Islamic Astronomical Tables in China: The Sources for the Huihui li.” In History of Oriental Astronomy, ed. S. M. Razaullah Ansari, 19–32. Dordrecht: Kluwer. — Identifies the principal Khwarezmian zīj parameters underlying the Bèi Lín edition.
- van Dalen, Benno. 2002. “Islamic and Chinese Astronomy under the Mongols: A Little-Known Case of Transmission.” In From China to Paris: 2000 Years Transmission of Mathematical Ideas, ed. Yvonne Dold-Samplonius et al., 327–356. Stuttgart: Steiner.
- 陈久金 Chén Jiǔjīn. 1996. Huí-huí tiān-wén-xué shǐ yánjiū 回回天文学史研究. Nán-níng: Guǎng-xī kē-jì chū-bǎn-shè. — The standard Chinese-language monograph on Sino-Islamic astronomy; treats Bèi Lín’s edition in detail.
- Yabuuti Kiyosi 藪內清. 1997. Islamic Astronomy in China during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, trans. Benno van Dalen and Antoine Pottage. Historia Scientiarum 7: 11–43. — Foundational Western-language study.
- 李亮 Lǐ Liàng. 2016. Yuán Míng lì-fǎ jí qí yánjiū 元明历法及其研究. Hé-féi: Zhōng-guó kē-xué jì-shù dà-xué chū-bǎn-shè. — Recent comprehensive treatment.
Other points of interest
The 1383 translation was a court project drawing on personnel from the Yuán Huíhuí sītiānjiān 回回司天監 (Islamic Bureau of Astronomy) at Shàngdū and from Persian astronomers attached to the imperial household. The Bèi family thereafter held Qīntiānjiān posts in succession through seven generations to the fall of the Míng — one of the great hereditary astronomical lineages of late-imperial China.