从中国学习西方天文学 朝鲜王朝后期西方天文学引入新论

Learning Western Astronomy from China A New Perspective on the Introduction of Western Astronomy in Late Chosǒn Korea

耶稣会士所制《时宪历》被清朝用作官方历法后,朝鲜宫廷立即发起了掌握这一体系秘密的计划。此后一个多世纪中,朝鲜宫廷派遣了一系列官方使团到北京,向耶稣会士和清朝天文学家学习天文计算。之前的历史叙述把这一过程描绘成朝鲜对"西方"科学的引进。与此相反,本文将朝鲜后期引入西方天文学的事件重置于更恰当的历史背景,即中朝科学关系之中。首先,比起朝鲜人对新奇的西方科学纯智力上的兴趣,这一计划的产生,更多是由于李朝宫廷迫切需要同新的中国朝代保持一致的计时体系。第二,领导这个计划的官员们认为他们自己是在沿袭一个重要的历史先例,即15世纪早期世宗大王引入元朝《授时历》的计划。最后,为使由西方神父制作、"野蛮的"清王朝使用的历法体系合法化,朝鲜天文学家们赋予它一个新的文化身份;他们认为它并非完全源于西方,而是来自由徐光启和梅文鼎等中国士人发起的中西综合。更重要的是,因为《授时历》最初是由明朝主持制作的,可以看成是朝鲜王朝正确地采用了中国的高贵遗产——明朝灭亡后朝鲜是中国文化唯一合法的继承者。

When the Qing dynasty adopted in 1645 the Jesuit-made Shixian li as its official calendrical system, the Chos6n court immediately launched a project to master the secrets of the new Jesuit calendar. For over a century thereafter, the Chos 6n court dispatched a series of official missions to Beijing to learn astronomical calculation from the Jesuits and Qing astronomers. Contrary to the previous historical accounts which portrayed this process as the introduction of ＂Western＂ science into Korea, this paper relocates the late Chos6n episode of introducing Western astronomy into a more proper historical context - the Sino-Korean scientific relationships. First of all, this project was driven not so much by pure intellectual curiosity of the Koreans about the exotic Western science as by an urgent need of the Korean court to keep its time keeping system in accord with that of the new Chinese dynasty. Secondly, those who lead the project thought themselves of following a prominent historical precedence - King Sejong＇s project to introduce the Shoushi li system of the Yuan dynasty in the early fifteenth century. And lastly, to legitimize the calendrical system made by the foreign priests for the use of ＂barbarian＂ Qing regime, the Korean astronomers gave it a more sound cultural identity; it was not of purely Western origin, they argued, but was created as a Sino-Western synthesis by the initiatives of such Chinese figures as Xu Guangqi and Mei Wending; And, more importantly, since it was originally made under the auspice of the Ming dynasty, the Shixian li could be counted a noble legacy of the ＂Central Kingdom＂ to be rightly adopted by the Choson Kingdom -the only legitimate heir of the Chinese culture after the fall of the Ming dynasty.