Dàtǒng lì zhù 大統歷注
Annotations on the Datong Calendar by anonymous
About the work
The Dàtǒng lì zhù 大統歷注, in twelve juàn, is a Míng-period anonymous practical hemerological commentary (lìzhù 曆注) on the official Dàtǒng lì 大統曆 — the Míng state calendar promulgated from 1384 and based, with minor adjustments, on Guō Shǒujìng’s 郭守敬 Yuán Shòushí lì 授時曆 of 1280. The work belongs to the xuǎnzé 選擇 (day-choosing) genre keyed to the imperial almanac: for each of the twelve months it gives the jiànchú 建除 governing branch (正月建寅 etc.), the two solar nodes (jiéqì 立春 / zhōngqì 雨水), and a dense table of shénshà 神煞 selectors used to determine the auspiciousness of particular days for particular activities.
Abstract
The work has no preface, dedication, or compiler’s xù — it opens cold with the hemerological tables: 「正月 / 建寅 / 立春正月節 / 前一日四絕後六日往亡初七日短羿二十一日短星 / 雨水正月中 / 此氣後故執危日注取魚遇天恩天故不注…」 (“First month / building in Yín / Lìchūn, the jié of the first month / one day before is the sìjué, six days after is wǎngwáng, the seventh day is duǎnyì, the twenty-first day is duǎnxīng / Yǔshuǐ, the zhōng of the first month / after this qì, on zhí-and-wēi days one annotates ‘fishing’; encountering tiānēn ‘heavenly grace’, however, one does not annotate”). The structure is identical for all twelve months: a sequence of jiànchú governing-branches keyed to the jiéqì and zhōngqì; a list of “four severances” (sìjué 四絕), “going-wasted” (wǎngwáng 往亡), “short stars” (duǎnxīng 短星), and “heavenly grace” (tiānēn 天恩 — days on which the standard ritual restrictions are lifted); and detailed day-length data (zhòukè 晝刻 / yèkè 夜刻) with sunrise and sunset times in kè and fēn tied to days post-jiéqì.
The work is anonymous in the source files and is so listed in the Xùxiū sìkù quánshū catalog, with neither author nor preface to fix a more precise date. The genre’s day-length tables and jiéqì-keyed shénshà structure conform to the late-Míng (16th–early-17th-c.) practical xuǎnzé tradition exemplified by the Wàn-lì-era Xiéjì biànfāng shū progenitors. notBefore is set at 1384 (the promulgation of the Dàtǒng lì); notAfter at 1644 (the fall of the Míng). Wilkinson notes (Chinese History: A New Manual) that “the earliest surviving Ming calendar dates from 1446,” consistent with a mid-Míng or later date for the present hemerological commentary.
Translations and research
- Smith, Richard J. 1992. Chinese Almanacs. Oxford: Oxford University Press / Hong Kong: HKU Press. — The standard Western-language treatment of the xuǎn-zé and tōng-shū tradition that underlies works of this kind.
- Smith, Richard J. 1991. Fortune-tellers and Philosophers: Divination in Traditional Chinese Society. Boulder: Westview Press.
- Hanson, Marta. 2011. Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. London: Routledge. — Includes treatment of Dà-tǒng calendar-based hemerology in late-Míng practice (chs. on plague management).
- 陳美東 Chén Měidōng. 2003. Zhōngguó kēxué jìshù shǐ: Tiān-wén-xué juǎn 中國科學技術史·天文學卷. Beijing: Kē-xué chū-bǎn-shè.
- 張培瑜 Zhāng Péi-yú et al. 2008. Zhōngguó gǔdài lì-fǎ 中國古代曆法. Beijing: Zhōng-guó kē-xué jì-shù chū-bǎn-shè.
Other points of interest
The Dàtǒng lì itself was essentially the Yuán Shòushí lì with the addition of small adjustments by Yuán Tǒng 元統 (chief astronomer of the Hóngwǔ Bureau): the system did not update the precessional constant or the suìchā 歲差 from Guō Shǒujìng’s 1280 values, so by the late Míng the resulting calendar was visibly out of step with observation. This drift — diagnosed publicly by Xíng Yúnlù in his KR3fb012 Wùshēn lìchūn kǎozhèng — was the proximate trigger for the Chóngzhēn reform project and the Jesuit-led Chóngzhēn lìshū. The present hemerological text is silent on these scientific deficiencies and stands wholly within the practical xuǎnzé tradition.