Origin And Development Of The Calendarial Culture In Early China Before 10th Century

The unprecedented discoveries of manuscripts written on bamboo and silk from the Warring States et Western Han period brought up to us a significant amount of technical texts on matters dealing with law, economy, mathematics, medicine, health care, magic, astrology, hemerology, and divination. From what can be known from the archaeological contexts of these findinds, the manuscripts were for the most part owned by members of the local elites, such as magistrates, administrators, civil and military officers. It may also be assumed that they were intended for the personal or professional use of their owners. A common feature of these manuscripts is that they appear to be collections of generally short texts, with imprecise boundaries and put together in a way that often seems quite arbitrary to us. For manuscripts concerned with the same specialty, there is also a strong intertextuality between genetically unrelated collections. Philologists have convincingly shown that contamination and cross-fertilization is a constant phenomenon in these texts, making it very difficult or even impossible to establish precise filiations at the level of manuscripts.Nevertheless, it is the manuscript as an object with an unique arrangement and specific contents that constitutes the medium through which texts were transmitted. In that respect, codicology provides an interesting and profitable research tool since it precisely focuses on the materiality of texts, taking into account all the elements that endow a manuscript with its singular aspect. The codicological approach permits us to deal with problems related to the study of calendarial culture in early China without dissociating them from those resulting from a larger investigation of the process involved in the production of manuscripts. This process, as far as it can be reconstructed with enough certainty, may lead us towards a better understanding of the techniques involved in the way texts were transfered from one manuscript to another and, therefore, transmitted through time.Chapter One firstly indicates the significance of the paper and generally introduces the study of the calendar in the early China. It reviews the representative researches and achievements in this area and specially demonstrates the definition , the elements and features of it. The readers are supposed to have a clear picture of the contents and the characteristics of this journal, which is a precondition for the following analysis of each field of contents.Chapter Two is a deep study on the use of the Twelve Calendarial Beasts as a year-count in early China. It finds out that the Suiyin and Suiyang are all from the terms of Tibeto-Burman Languages through a cross-language study. This Chapter also makes an attempt to give a new interpretation of the twelve calendarial beasts' uncommon names in the unearthed bamboo slips and silks of Qin and Han dynasties, which has not received due attention from the researchers. It demonstrates that these uncommon names are derived from the theory called Wuxing Sanhe which describes the three developmental stages of Five Elements (Wu Xing) and the interrelated conception called Sijiu. This method reflects an interesting and unbeknown thoughtway of the ancient Chinese people, and is worthy of drawing our attentions. Moreover, there is a changing image of twelve animales in medieval Chinese buddhist literature which is from Twelve Canlendarial Beasts to Twelve Demonic Spirits.Chapter Three mainly deals with the use of the Twelve Calendarial Beasts as a month-count in early China by the same way of former chapter. It demonstrates that the Yueyin and Yueyang in the Han's documents and the moon names on Chu Silk Books from Zidanku are also from the terms of Tibeto-Burman Languages through the cross-language study. This conclusion can be supported by the analysis of the contents and pictures on Chu Silk Books.Chapter Four mainly studies the use of twenty-eight Xiu as a day-count in early China. Starting with the method called New-moon Lodge(shuoxiu) in the divinatory texts such as hemerological manuscripts from Shuihudi, there were two changes in the using of the twenty-eight Xiu as a day-count in the ancient China. One was the Twenty-seven Xiu Day-count in the middle Tang Dynasty which was influenced by Indo-Persian astrology. The other was Seven Sexagenary Cycles (qiyuanjiazi) which consisted of an ever-recurrent cycle of 420 days. It is well known that the second change has been of common use in calendars and almanacs starting with the Southern Song period. But in this paper, through the study on the continuity of Twenty-eight Xiu day-count found in the Xixia and Dunhuang, the beginning time of Seven Sexagenary Cycles can be advanced to the Five Dynasties period. This paper also reckons the origin of Seven Sexagenary Cycles and draws some conclusions. Firstly, Seven Sexagenary Cycles perhaps came from Futian li and was made to fuse the cycles such as sixty days, twenty-eight Xiu, nine palaces (jiugong) and seven luminaries (qiyao). Secondly, the beginning time in Futian li is not the first day of the fifth year of Xianqing but exactly the The Rains (yushui) of this year. Thirdly, the setting of the first year and the arithmetic of the Pile-up days (jiri) in Futian li are all derived from Jiuzhi li. At last, it stands a good chance that Seven Sexagenary Cycles was firstly used in the calendars and almanacs of Xixia and Dunhuang and was later adopted by the official dated publishing calendars of the Southern Song period.There is a conceivable change in the use of the twenty-eight Xiu as a day-count by the ancient Uighur during the 11th~14th century: the early method of twenty-eight Xiu day-count inherited the Chinese traditional method called New-moon Lodge(shuoxiu) which can be found in the divinatory texts such as hemerological manuscripts from Shuihudi during the late Warring States period and the early Han period; the late one is an another method of day-count which used the twenty-seven Xiu and was influenced by Indo-Persian astrology that are included in the some Buddhist canon. In addition, there is also a different method named Seven Sexagenary Cycles (qiyuanjiazi) whose first epoch is not the Chinese traditional lodge "Xu" but the "Lou". All these changes reflected the characteristics of the ancient Uighur's day-count and the communication of the different cultures in that period.Chapter Five study on the time-count way during the Qin and Han dynasty. It mainly focuses on the relation between the Twelve Hours System and the Sixteen Hours System. Moreover, it also discusses the time of Sacrificial Ceremony in the Qin and Han dynasty.Chapter Six is the deep study on Firestar Calendar in early China. However one Firestar cannot signal the time of some fundamental agricultural work for 10 millenia because of precession, the Antares,αSco, can be affirmed the only firestar in Shang-Yin ages. The rise or set of a star coincides with the sunrise or sunset only once in the tropic solar year of which Gregorian year is a good approximation. The heliacal setting of Antares in the autumn could be a sign of the end of agricultural activities. There is a way of Intercalation of Firestar Calendar in the Unearthed manuscripts written on Bamboo slips and Silks and shows that Firestar Calendar is also a precise traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. At the same time, this way of Intercalation could be found in the Nebra Disc which is considered a cultural relic of early Europe.Chapter Seven is the gathering of the study on three day-count ways: Jianchu and Rongliri. The latter can be regarded as the one of the picture day-count ways. It demonstrates the two ways'rules, origins, and the spreads aftertime.In short, this dissertation aims to conclude the all studies by two points of view. One is the relationship of the two most important calendars in early China: the Ten-Month Solar Calendar and Firestar Calendar. All the year-count way, month-count way and day-count way in this paper can be proved to come from these two calendars. The other is the popular convention that conceals under these Chinese calendarial culture.