Lì cè 曆測
Calendrical Probings by 魏文魁 (撰)
About the work
The Lì cè 曆測, in five juàn, is the principal surviving theoretical writing of Wèi Wénkuí 魏文魁 (zì Yùshān 玉山) of Mánchéng — the leading conservative astronomical opponent of the Jesuit-led Chóngzhēn lìshū 崇禎曆書 reform of 1629–35. The work surveys the Chinese calendrical tradition diachronically, mounts a defence of native methods (with Zǔ Chōngzhī of the LiúSòng singled out for special veneration), and supplies the intellectual basis for Wèi’s Dōngjú 東局 (“Eastern Bureau”) rival reform programme — established at court in opposition to Xú Guāngqǐ’s 徐光啟 and Lǐ Tiānjīng’s 李天經 Xījú 西局.
Abstract
The opening discursive section serves as the work’s preface and intellectual self-statement. Beginning with the cosmogonic gesture “from the antecedent antiquity onward” (伊遂古之初), it surveys the calendar tradition from Huángdì and Zhuānxū through Yáo, Shùn, the XiàShāng, and the Zhōu — regretting that “only the tǔguī 土圭 instrument was transmitted” from the latter. It then treats the Lǔ-historians’ eclipse records, faulting even Hàn classicists like Dǒng Zhòngshū 董仲舒, Liú Xiàng 劉向, and Liú Xióng 劉雄 for failing to advance the underlying mathematics; praises Zǔ Chōngzhī 祖沖之 of the LiúSòng (Dàmíng lì 大明曆) as the great precursor of mathematical astronomy; criticises Yī Xíng 一行 and the Sòng Confucians for letting the science decay; and grants Guō Shǒujìng’s 郭守敬 Shòushí lì 授時曆 partial credit while ultimately faulting it. The polemical tone — with its insistence that “the ancient Chinese astronomy already contained everything needed” and its defence of Zǔ Chōngzhī — is exactly the conservative posture from which Wèi opposed the Jesuit reform.
The Dōngjú programme that the Lì cè underwrote was decided empirically through a sequence of test eclipse predictions over 1629–34, in each of which the Xījú’s methods proved more accurate; the Dōngjú was wound up in 1635 and the Chóngzhēn lìshū was substantially complete by that date. NotBefore is set at 1628 (the eve of the controversy); notAfter at 1635 (the Dōngjú’s closure). CBDB returns Wèi at c_personid 128113, with no dates entered; the homonym at 427463 is biographically incompatible. The Míngrén zhuànjì records confirm Wèi’s commoner status and Mánchéng origin but do not give precise lifedates.
Translations and research
- Hashimoto Keizō 橋本敬造. 1988. Hsü Kuang-ch’i and Astronomical Reform: The Process of the Chinese Acceptance of Western Astronomy 1629–1635. Suita: Kansai University Press. — The standard Western-language treatment of the controversy and Wèi’s role in it.
- Jami, Catherine. 2012. The Emperor’s New Mathematics: Western Learning and Imperial Authority during the Kangxi Reign (1662–1722). Oxford: Oxford University Press. — Continues the story into the Kāng-xī era and discusses the legacy of the Dōng-jú polemic.
- Chu Pingyi 祝平一. Several articles on the Míng–Qīng calendrical debates in EASTM, Chinese Science, and elsewhere — particularly on the social-political context of the reform controversy.
- 黃一農 Huáng Yī-nóng. Several papers on Schall, the Pù-zhù 鋪註 controversy, and the conservative anti-Western faction.
- 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.
Other points of interest
The Lì cè circulated alongside Wèi’s other writings (the Lìyuán 曆元, the Xuǎnzé yìshū 選擇議疏, and an Xuánjī yí 璿璣議) as the documentary basis of the Dōngjú programme; collectively they constitute the principal extant evidence for the conservative-native counter-position to the Chóngzhēn lìshū. The Sìkù editors (and Xùxiū sìkù compilers thereafter) preserved the Lì cè not as endorsement of its substantive astronomy but as documentation of the controversy.