Zhōu Shùxué 周述學
Style name Yúnyuān 雲淵, hence “Mr Yúnyuān” 雲淵先生. Native of Shānyīn 山陰 (Shàoxīng prefecture, Zhèjiāng); approximate dates Jiā-jìng-era to early Wànlì (c. 1518–c. 1582). No CBDB record located; biographical reconstruction derives from the Guāng-xù-period editor’s preface preserved at the head of his Shéndào dàbiān lìzōng tōngyì and from the references to him in Huáng Zōngxī’s polemical preface to KR3fb015 Lìxué jiǎrú.
A Míng-period independent polymath who declined office under Qiú Luán 仇鸞 and “ended his days as a commoner” (以布衣終). His reputation in the Wànlì–Tiānqǐ era rested on three claims: (i) recovery of the gūtiān gēyuán 弧天割圜 (spherical-trigonometry) techniques underlying the Yuán Shòushí lì 授時曆 of Guō Shǒujìng 郭守敬, the technical chapters of which had been lost from circulation by the mid-Míng — Táng Shùnzhī 唐順之 of Wǔjìn and Gù Yìngxiáng 顧應祥 of Chángxìng had both sought the books in vain; (ii) integration of the western Huíhuí lì longitude-and-latitude (jīngwěi) and língfàn 凌犯 occultation procedures with native Chinese methods; and (iii) the production of the encyclopaedic Shéndào dàbiān 神道大編 in over a thousand juàn — covering calendrics, charts, the Huángjí 皇極, mathematical harmonics, the Shānjīng and Shuǐjīng zhì, geographical astrology (fēnyě), arithmetic, Tàiyǐ 太乙, liùrén / dùnjiǎ 壬遁, yǎnqín 演禽, fēngjiǎo 風角 ornithomancy, military fúzhèn 符陣, geomancy, lùmìng 祿命, jiànchú 建除, mortuary procedures, the Five Movements and Six Qi, and oceanic compass-needle navigation 海道鍼經. The first eighteen juàn of this encyclopaedia — the Lìzōng tōngyì 曆宗通議, here counted as 20 juàn — survive as KR3fb005; further surviving Míng blue-grid manuscripts include the Suànhuì 算會 in 15 juàn and the Huátiān wǔxīng 華天五星 in 9 juàn.
Huáng Zōngxī’s preface to Lìxué jiǎrú names Zhōu as the source from whom Táng Shùnzhī obtained the Shòushí secrets — Táng then concealing the source — making Zhōu a key (and undervalued) hinge in the late-Míng transmission of Yuán mathematical astronomy. He is likewise cited at one remove in the polemical preface to KR3fb011 Wèi Wénkuí’s Lì cè. Modern surveys: Shí Yúnlǐ 石雲里, “Zhōu Shùxué jí qí lìxué chéngjiù” 周述学及其历学成就, Zìrán kēxué shǐ yánjiū (1998).