Shòushí lì gù 授時曆故
The Reasoning Behind the Granting-the-Seasons Calendar by 黃宗羲 (撰)
About the work
The Shòushí lì gù 授時曆故, in five juàn, is the early-Qīng historical-philological exegesis by Huáng Zōngxī 黃宗羲 (1610–1695) of the technical procedures of the Yuán Shòushí lì 授時曆 (1280) of Wáng Xún 王恂 and Guō Shǒujìng 郭守敬. By Huáng’s day the Shòushí’s mathematical core — the level/standing/fixed-difference (píng/lì/dìng sānchā 平立定三差) interpolation, the spherical arc-and-sagitta computations (húshǐ gēyuán 弧矢割圓) — had been overshadowed by the post-1645 Western methods of the Shíxiàn lì and was no longer a living tradition. Huáng’s project was to reconstruct the rationale of the Yuán system from its surviving fragments and supply a comprehensible explanation, both for its own intrinsic value and as a Ming-loyalist scholarly defence of Chinese native science against the Jesuit assumption that mathematical astronomy in China before 1629 had been a story of irreversible decline.
Abstract
The opening of the work is a postface (here printed in front-matter position) by Sòng Jǐngchāng 宋景昌 of Jiāngyīn, dated Dàoguāng 16 / 丙申 = 1836: “in the late Míng, Western methods came in and the Dàtǒng (Míng) calendar gradually fell into disuse; Huáng Lízhōu traced the Shòushí lì back to its sources and fixed the four-juàn recension; his son Bǎijiā 百家 carried this learning into the Míng-history office, where the Míngshǐ draft Lìzhì preserved the Shòushí fǎyuán 法原.” Sòng notes that Quán Xièshān 全謝山 (Quán Zǔwàng 全祖望) recorded a one-juàn version, but the received text is four (or, as transmitted in the Xùxiū sìkù recension, five) juàn — evidence of post-Huang revision; only the Zǔ Chōngzhī 祖沖之 rìjǐng suànshù 日景算術 note is corrupt and has been corrected.
The body opens with a Shòushí lì–Western-methods mnemonic (授時厤西法歌) — Huáng’s pedagogical device for relating the Yuán system to the Jesuit-derived Shíxiàn methods that his contemporaries actually used. The technical chapters cover (i) the system’s epoch and the tropical-year length; (ii) the píng/lì/dìng sānchā interpolation procedure for the solar and lunar inequalities; (iii) the arc-sagitta circle-cutting techniques; (iv) the planetary mean motions; and (v) the eclipse limits. Internal computations dated dīnghài 丁亥 (1647) place the work in the immediate post-conquest decade, when Huáng had withdrawn from active Southern-Míng resistance into permanent retreat and was beginning the major scholarly projects (the Míngrú xuéàn 明儒學案, the SòngYuán xuéàn 宋元學案, and his Yìxué xiàngshù lùn 易學象數論 KR1a0123) that defined his late life.
NotBefore is set at 1644 (the year of the Manchu conquest, after which Huáng’s main scholarly career began); notAfter at 1695 (his death). The Sòng Jǐngchāng postface of 1836 represents the editorial recovery of the work for the Xùxiū sìkù tradition.
Translations and research
- Sivin, Nathan. 2009. Granting the Seasons: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280, with a Study of Its Many Dimensions and a Translation of Its Records. New York: Springer. — The standard modern study and translation of the Shòu-shí lì; the indispensable Western-language companion to Huáng’s Lì gù.
- 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.
- Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A New Manual. — Cites Huáng Zōngxī as the author of the Míng-rú xué-àn and Lì-dài jiǎ-zǐ kǎo 歷代甲子考, but does not catalogue the present Shòu-shí lì gù by name.
- Henderson, John B. 1984. The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology. New York: Columbia University Press. — Treats Huáng’s place in the early-Qīng critical reception of inherited cosmology.
Other points of interest
Huáng Zōngxī’s calendrical writings — this Lì gù and its companion KR3fb015 Lìxué jiǎrú — are an important counter-example to the standard narrative that early-Qīng kǎozhèng learning was uninterested in mathematical astronomy. The fact that Huáng Bǎijiā 百家 carried his father’s reconstruction into the Míngshǐ office and incorporated it into the Lìzhì of the standard history is a major (and often-overlooked) channel of transmission of Yuán mathematical astronomy into the official Qīng record.
Links
- Companion work by the same author: KR3fb015 Lìxué jiǎrú 曆學假如.
- Parent system: the Shòushí lì 授時曆 of 1280, surviving in the present catalog as the relevant chapters of KR3f0005.
- Practical hemerological commentary on the same Yuán system: KR3fb006 Dàtǒng lì zhù 大統歷注 (the Míng official recension of Shòushí).