Lìxué jiǎrú 曆學假如
Worked Examples for Calendrical Studies by 黃宗羲 (撰)
About the work
The Lìxué jiǎrú 曆學假如, in three juàn, is Huáng Zōngxī’s 黃宗羲 (1610–1695) pedagogical companion to his historical-philological Shòushí lì gù (KR3fb014). The title’s jiǎrú 假如 — literally “supposing that …” — signals the genre: a sequence of model problems and worked examples, framed as exercises in the calendrical-astronomical computation that Huáng wished to break out of its closed-craft transmission and place within the reach of literate-elite study.
Abstract
The opening of the work is a polemical preface (apparently by a friend of Huáng’s, though unsigned in the present recension), invoking Yáng Zǐyún 揚子雲’s famous formula that “one who comprehends Heaven, Earth, and Man is a rú” (通天地人之謂儒). The preface complains that post-Sòng Confucians abandoned the kāiwù chéngwù 開物成務 (“opening up things and bringing affairs to completion”) learning of the Yìjīng and shrank into purely moral-philosophical concerns; it then surveys the failed attempts at reform: Sháo Yōng 邵雍 (Kāngjié 康節) tried to systematise calendrics but his Huángjí 皇極 contains only “dead numbers”; Táng Shùnzhī 唐荊川 grasped Guō Shǒujìng’s secrets via Zhōu Yúnyuān 周雲淵 (周述學) of Shānyīn but concealed his source; Xíng Yúnlù’s 邢雲路 Lǜlì kǎo was actually the work of the commoner Wèi Wénkuí 魏文魁, again concealed. Against these concealments, the preface calls Huáng Lízhōu the true tōngtiāndìrén 通天地人 Confucian, whose Lìxué jiǎrú finally reveals openly the “golden needle” (金針) hidden by other calendrists.
The body of the work supplies the worked examples. Topics include the computation of qìshuò 氣朔 (solar nodes and new-moons) under both Shòushí and Shíxiàn methods, with explicit comparison; the spherical-trigonometric procedures for solar position; eclipse-prediction worked examples; and short tables of the parameters required for each kind of computation. The work is consciously addressed to the literate reader who would not have access to a Bureau astronomer’s apprenticeship.
NotBefore is set at 1644 (the conquest, after which Huáng’s main scholarly career began); notAfter at 1695 (his death). The work belongs to the same scholarly programme as KR3fb014 Shòushí lì gù and the broader project of recovering YuánMíng native mathematical astronomy as a respectable elite study.
Translations and research
- Sivin, Nathan. 2009. Granting the Seasons: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280. New York: Springer.
- 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.
- Henderson, John B. 1984. The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Elman, Benjamin A. 2005. On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550–1900. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. — Treats the early-Qīng restoration of native mathematical astronomy as a Confucian-respectable study.
Other points of interest
The unsigned preface’s specific charge — that Xíng Yúnlù plagiarised Wèi Wénkuí, and that Táng Shùnzhī plagiarised Zhōu Shùxué — is one of the most precise pieces of late-Míng intellectual gossip preserved in any Qīng source: it is the principal (and earliest) named attribution for the alleged Wèi-to-Xíng transmission, and a key piece of evidence for the otherwise obscure role of Zhōu Shùxué 周述學 as a hidden conduit of Yuán mathematical astronomy.
Links
- Companion work by the same author: KR3fb014 Shòushí lì gù 授時曆故.
- The text named in the preface as the hidden source of Táng Shùnzhī’s calendrics: KR3fb005 Shéndào dàbiān lìzōng tōngyì 神道大編曆宗通議 of 周述學.
- The text alleged to be Wèi Wénkuí’s actual work, attributed to Xíng Yúnlù: KR3f0008 Gǔjīn lǜlì kǎo 古今律歷考.