Book Review: Chinese Astronomy: Chūgoku no tenmon rekihō

Calendrical science, the major topic of this work, was the core of Chinese traditional "exact science". This study will therefore be of interest not only to specialists in the history and technique of astronomy but also to students of scientific thought in general. The interests of Western sinologists in Chinese astronomy have so far been largely focused upon the ancient period; scholars like G. Schlegel, L. de Saussure and H. Maspero were all interested in the problems of the origin, not of the history, of Chinese astronomy. In the second decade of the present century, some dozen Japanese astronomers and classicists also became involved in the dating and chronology of ancient China, which had been the subject of much controversy among European sinologists since the early eighteenth century; the "Astronomers' School", including S. Shinjo, M. Ueda and C. Noda, and the "Historians' School" of T. Iijima and M. Hashimoto debated with each other. Their interest too had been primarily sinological or chronological and only secondarily in the genuine history of science. For in fulfillment of that criterion of old-fashioned sinologists, "the older, the better", the period to which they directed their attention was limited to the Han dynasty. It is true, as the author claims, that the basic pattern of astronomy and calendrical science in China was formulated during the Han, and hence one can have a good grasp of the special features of traditional Chinese science by limiting one's attention to ancient times. Nevertheless, it was regrettable that comparatively little was known of the slow evolution of Chinese astronomy in the later period, a subject which had yet to receive proper historical treatment. In China, on the other hand, historians of mathematics like Li Yen and Ch'ien Pao-tsung worked on calendrical calculations, though only in the context of or in relation to the history of mathematics. Historiographers like Chu Wen-hsin remained merely compilers of the chronological development of Chinese calendrical science. It is Yabuuchi, of the "Astronomers' School", who has been instrumental in establishing the subject of Chinese calendrical studies as a branch of the history of astronomy and indeed as an independent discipline within the history of science, and no longer merely an aid to classical and historical studies. Transcending the limitations of the sinological approach, he extended his research down to the Ch'ing period. In the 19305, he embarked on his life-long project of tracing all astronomical developments throughout Chinese history. Basing himself mainly on the calendrical chapters of each dynastic history, which had previously been neglected sources, he explored almost every aspect of Chinese astronomical thought. Whereas his predecessors in the "Astronomers' School" aimed chiefly to apply astronomical methods to historical subjects, Yabuuchi devoted his main attention to the stream of astronomical thought as an intellectual discipline as well as a technical subject-matter, and in this he had the assistance of his sinologist colleagues in the Kyoto J inbun Kagaku Kenkyusho (Research Institute of Humanistic Sciences, Kyoto), where he spent most of his research career. This book consists of a collection of his various articles on the history of Chinese astronomy, arranged and enlarged to form a coherent whole by the author himself. The book is divided into three parts. Part I deals with a survey of Chinese calendrical science and astronomy down to the Ch'ing period; Part II deals with Western impact