This essay reviews one volume of the seri es the History of Chinese Science and Technology, the Volume on As tronomy by Prof. Chen Meidong. Chen has been one of the leading figures in the f ield of the history of Chin...This essay reviews one volume of the seri es the History of Chinese Science and Technology, the Volume on As tronomy by Prof. Chen Meidong. Chen has been one of the leading figures in the f ield of the history of Chinese astronomy. This volume can be considered as a sum mary of his work during his 30 years of research and as a book absorbing researc h findings by contemporary Chinese scholars. The volume, therefore, reflects the general state of the field, and constitutes a milestone in the course of studie s on the subject. In this essay the author compares the volume with two preceding works on the sam e subject. One is the Zhongguo Tianwenxue Shi (History of Chine se Astronomy) (hereafter referred to as the Blue Book, from the color of the boo k’s cover) by a group of researchers, including Chen, published in 198 1; the other is Joseph Needham’s Volume III, Section 20, "Heavenly Sc iences", of the Science and Civilization in China, published in Cambridge in 19 59. While the former represented the state of the field in 1980 and has long bee n the essential reference for students of Chinese astronomy, the second has been influential world wide because it presented a concise description of the nature of ancient Chinese astronomy. The historiographic idea of this volume is very similar to that of the Blue Book . The book is aimed at presenting Chinese astronomy as a forerunner of modern as tronomy. Its contents are organized around several topics, including astrono mical observations and measurements, calendars, stars observations, star maps an d catalogues, instruments, cosmological beliefs, and so on. This volume has made remarkable progress in both scope and depth of all those topics. The calendar i s Chen’s research specialty, and the volume provides an authoritative picture of the development of Chinese calendrical computation and technology. Th e book also includes biographical sketches of more than one hundred Chinese astr onomers, a tremendous effort to bring astronomical facts into the historical con texts. This is something that is lacking in the Blue Book. On many important iss ues, such as on the Shi Shi Xing Jing star catalogue, and on the setting of the beginnings of calendrical years during the Zhou dynasty, this vo lume provides in- depth accounts and analyses, either by summarizing works by others, or by presenting his own findings. Of course, there are some other issue s, such as on the Twenty- eight lunar lodges and on the mathematical reconstru ction of calendrical computation, the volume fails to present results of up- t o- date scholarship. The scope of Needham’s section on Chinese astronomy is certainly not a match to that of this volume. For example, the calendar is simply ignored in th e Needham book. But in spite of that limit in content, Needham gives a very prec ise and persuasive picture of Chinese astronomy--its political nature, its pol ar and equatorial system, its virtue in empirical observation, etc. While Chen’ s book is considerably voluminous, it refuses to spend any space on dis cussing the nature and characteristics of Chinese astronomy. In the opinion of t he author, this constitutes a serious shortcoming of this excellent work. The au thor is also induced to raise a historiographic question: Should the study of Ch inese astronomy go beyond the excavation of forerunners of modern astronomy and expand into the sphere of social and cultural studies of Chinese sciences? He st rongly proposes Yes. He thinks the volume by Chen will in fact become an invalua ble reference for such efforts. Therefore, he heartily applauds the contribution made by Prof. Chen Meidong in the form of this volume.展开更多
文摘This essay reviews one volume of the seri es the History of Chinese Science and Technology, the Volume on As tronomy by Prof. Chen Meidong. Chen has been one of the leading figures in the f ield of the history of Chinese astronomy. This volume can be considered as a sum mary of his work during his 30 years of research and as a book absorbing researc h findings by contemporary Chinese scholars. The volume, therefore, reflects the general state of the field, and constitutes a milestone in the course of studie s on the subject. In this essay the author compares the volume with two preceding works on the sam e subject. One is the Zhongguo Tianwenxue Shi (History of Chine se Astronomy) (hereafter referred to as the Blue Book, from the color of the boo k’s cover) by a group of researchers, including Chen, published in 198 1; the other is Joseph Needham’s Volume III, Section 20, "Heavenly Sc iences", of the Science and Civilization in China, published in Cambridge in 19 59. While the former represented the state of the field in 1980 and has long bee n the essential reference for students of Chinese astronomy, the second has been influential world wide because it presented a concise description of the nature of ancient Chinese astronomy. The historiographic idea of this volume is very similar to that of the Blue Book . The book is aimed at presenting Chinese astronomy as a forerunner of modern as tronomy. Its contents are organized around several topics, including astrono mical observations and measurements, calendars, stars observations, star maps an d catalogues, instruments, cosmological beliefs, and so on. This volume has made remarkable progress in both scope and depth of all those topics. The calendar i s Chen’s research specialty, and the volume provides an authoritative picture of the development of Chinese calendrical computation and technology. Th e book also includes biographical sketches of more than one hundred Chinese astr onomers, a tremendous effort to bring astronomical facts into the historical con texts. This is something that is lacking in the Blue Book. On many important iss ues, such as on the Shi Shi Xing Jing star catalogue, and on the setting of the beginnings of calendrical years during the Zhou dynasty, this vo lume provides in- depth accounts and analyses, either by summarizing works by others, or by presenting his own findings. Of course, there are some other issue s, such as on the Twenty- eight lunar lodges and on the mathematical reconstru ction of calendrical computation, the volume fails to present results of up- t o- date scholarship. The scope of Needham’s section on Chinese astronomy is certainly not a match to that of this volume. For example, the calendar is simply ignored in th e Needham book. But in spite of that limit in content, Needham gives a very prec ise and persuasive picture of Chinese astronomy--its political nature, its pol ar and equatorial system, its virtue in empirical observation, etc. While Chen’ s book is considerably voluminous, it refuses to spend any space on dis cussing the nature and characteristics of Chinese astronomy. In the opinion of t he author, this constitutes a serious shortcoming of this excellent work. The au thor is also induced to raise a historiographic question: Should the study of Ch inese astronomy go beyond the excavation of forerunners of modern astronomy and expand into the sphere of social and cultural studies of Chinese sciences? He st rongly proposes Yes. He thinks the volume by Chen will in fact become an invalua ble reference for such efforts. Therefore, he heartily applauds the contribution made by Prof. Chen Meidong in the form of this volume.
