Granting the seasons. The Chinese astronomical reform of 1280. With a study of its many dimensions and a translation of its records. With the research collaboration of the late Kiyosi Yabuuti and Shigeru Nakayama (Q954760): Difference between revisions

The present book is a brilliant and wide-ranging study of the famous Shoushi li (the Shoushi li is the famous Chinese astronomical canon which was promulgated in 1280, at the beginning of the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty; it is generally considered as the summit of Chinese instrumental and mathematical astronomy and, as such, it wholly depends on numerical techniques foreign to the Greek geometrical tradition). Far from considering his subject under the narrow angle of the technical history of astronomy, on the contrary, the author views alike technical and non-technical dimensions of the question as elements of interdependent historical processes (``cultural manifolds''). While doing so and when manageable, he never forgets the comparative dimension of the history of astronomy, given what is presently known of ancient civilisations in this respect. Consequently, he provides a sophisticated and critical analysis of the complex cultural, political, bureaucratic, personal and technical background of the underlying astronomical reform. Although the author always shows a degree of sinological expertise reflecting the state of the art at its best in such domains (not only Western but also Chinese and Japanese), he has succeeded to make his book highly readable, particularly by translating the totality of Chinese terms into English, even the names of reign-periods and technical terms but always without leaving aside the needs of specialists since he also provides detailed index, showing the correspondence between English and Chinese terms. In addition, well beyond the Shoushi li itself, the book also contain a general survey of Chinese astronomy which will certainly become a valuable substitute of most aspects of Joseph Needham's history of Chinese astronomy for many readers (cf. Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge, vol. 3, 1959). As regards the translation itself, the author has kept the usual mathematical arsenal (algebraic and the like) minimal in order to avoid the pitfalls of anachronism often inherent in such a metamorphosis of ancient formulations. To sum up, the present book will constitute at the same time a necessary basis of further investigations into Chinese astronomy and, more broadly, a landmark with respect to the history of world astronomy.