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The Position of the Futian Calendar on the History of East-West Intercourse of Astronomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Shigeru Nakayama
Shigeru Nakayama*
Affiliation:
University of Tokyo , Japan

Extract

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It is proved that the Futian calendar, a non-official one compiled in the Jianzhong reign period (780-783) in China, was brought to Japan in 957 by a Buddhist monk and was employed as the basis of horoscopes by the Buddhist school of astrology (Memo 1964). It was also used in competition with the official Chinese xuanming calendar for the usual functions demanded of a Chinese type lunisolar ephemerides, such as eclipse predictions. According to the view of the Song Dynasty Chinese scholar Wang Yinglin that the Futian calendar was “originally an Indian method of astronomical calculation” but Kiyosi Yabuuti has commented that Wang Yinglin’s appraisal of the Futian calendar is solely based on a resemblance in form as it copied the trivial point of taking its epoch as the Jiuzhi calendar according to Indian astronomical methods and does not display a fundamental understanding of the Indian calendar (Yabuuti 1944).

Type
Ancient Elements and Planetary Models
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 91: History of Oriental Astronomy , 1987 , pp. 135 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

References

Chen, Jiujin (1986) “A Study on the Futian Calendar”. Studies in the history of natural sciences (in Chinese), 5, no.1, 34–40.Google Scholar
Momo, Hiroyuki, (1964), On the Futian Li, Journal of History of Science, Japan, 71, 1l8–119(in Japanese)Google Scholar
Nakayama Shigeru, (1964). The Significance of the Futian Li on the History of Astronomy, Journal of History of Science, Japan, 71.120–122 (in Japanese)Google Scholar
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Yabuuti, (1944). History of Sui and Tan Calendricl Science (In Japanese), 43–44, Tokyo, Sanseido.Google Scholar