Astral Sciences in Early Imperial China

Astral Sciences in Early Imperial China PDF Author: Daniel Patrick Morgan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110850941X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Challenging monolithic modern narratives about 'Chinese science', Daniel Patrick Morgan examines the astral sciences in China c.221 BCE–750 CE as a study in the disunities of scientific cultures and the narratives by which ancients and moderns alike have fought to instil them with a sense of unity. The book focuses on four unifying 'legends' recounted by contemporary subjects: the first two, redolent of antiquity, are the 'observing of signs' and 'granting of seasons' by ancient sage kings; and the other two, redolent of modernity, involve the pursuit of 'accuracy' and historical 'accumulation' to this end. Juxtaposing legend with the messy realities of practice, Morgan reveals how such narratives were told, imagined, and re-imagined in response to evolving tensions. He argues that, whether or not 'empiricism' and 'progress' are real, we must consider the real effects of such narratives as believed in and acted upon in the history of astronomy in China.

Astral Sciences in Early Imperial China

Astral Sciences in Early Imperial China PDF Author: Daniel Patrick Morgan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110850941X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Get Book Here

Book Description
Challenging monolithic modern narratives about 'Chinese science', Daniel Patrick Morgan examines the astral sciences in China c.221 BCE–750 CE as a study in the disunities of scientific cultures and the narratives by which ancients and moderns alike have fought to instil them with a sense of unity. The book focuses on four unifying 'legends' recounted by contemporary subjects: the first two, redolent of antiquity, are the 'observing of signs' and 'granting of seasons' by ancient sage kings; and the other two, redolent of modernity, involve the pursuit of 'accuracy' and historical 'accumulation' to this end. Juxtaposing legend with the messy realities of practice, Morgan reveals how such narratives were told, imagined, and re-imagined in response to evolving tensions. He argues that, whether or not 'empiricism' and 'progress' are real, we must consider the real effects of such narratives as believed in and acted upon in the history of astronomy in China.

Astral Sciences in Early Imperial China

Astral Sciences in Early Imperial China PDF Author: Daniel Patrick Morgan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107139023
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
An innovative history of astronomy in China, 221 BCE-750 CE, stressing plurality, change and the unifying power of myth-making.

Astral Sciences in Early Imperial China

Astral Sciences in Early Imperial China PDF Author: Daniel Patrick Morgan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781108506434
Category : Astronomical instruments
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
An innovative history of astronomy in China, 221 BCE-750 CE, stressing plurality, change and the unifying power of myth-making.

Astrology and Cosmology in Early China

Astrology and Cosmology in Early China PDF Author: David W. Pankenier
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107006724
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 617

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Book Description
Drawing on a vast array of scholarship, this pioneering text illustrates how profoundly astronomical phenomena shaped ancient Chinese civilization.

Overlapping Cosmologies In Asia

Overlapping Cosmologies In Asia PDF Author: Bill M. Mak
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004511679
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
A new, transnational, and interdisciplinary understanding of cosmology in Asian history. Cosmologies were not coherent systems belonging to separate cultures but rather complex bodies of knowledge and practice that regularly coexisted and co-mingled in extraordinarily diverse ways.

Heavenly Numbers

Heavenly Numbers PDF Author: Christopher Cullen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198733119
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
This book is a history of the development of mathematical astronomy in China, from the late third century BCE, to the early 3rd century CE - a period often referred to as 'early imperial China'. It narrates the changes in ways of understanding the movements of the heavens and the heavenly bodies that took place during those four and a half centuries, and tells the stories of the institutions and individuals involved in those changes. It gives clear explanations of technical practice in observation, instrumentation, and calculation, and the steady accumulation of data over many years - but it centres on the activity of the individual human beings who observed the heavens, recorded what they saw, and made calculations to analyse and eventually make predictions about the motions of the celestial bodies. It is these individuals, their observations, their calculations, and the words they left to us that provide the narrative thread that runs through this work. Throughout the book, the author gives clear translations of original material that allow the reader direct access to what the people in this book said about themselves and what they tried to do.

The Exercise of the Spatial Imagination in Pre-Modern China

The Exercise of the Spatial Imagination in Pre-Modern China PDF Author: Garret Pagenstecher Olberding
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110749920
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
This volume is distinctive for its extraordinarily interdisciplinary investigations into a little discussed topic, the spatial imagination. It probes the exercise of the spatial imagination in pre-modern China across five general areas: pictorial representation, literary description, cartographic mappings, and the intertwining of heavenly and earthly space. It recommends that the spatial imagination in the pre-modern world cannot adequately be captured using a linear, militarily framed conceptualization. The scope and varying perspectives on the spatial imagination analyzed in the volume’s essays reveal a complex range of aspects that informs how space was designed and utilized. Due to the complexity and advanced scholarly level of the papers, the primary readership will be other scholars and advanced graduate students in history, history of science, geography, art history, religious studies, literature, and, broadly, sinology.

Handbook of Divination and Prognostication in China

Handbook of Divination and Prognostication in China PDF Author: Michael Lackner
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004514260
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 570

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Book Description
The first book that systematically explores the manifold aspects of divination and prognostication in traditional and modern China.

Mathematical Commentaries in the Ancient World

Mathematical Commentaries in the Ancient World PDF Author: Karine Chemla
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108839576
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
Comparative analysis of the techniques and procedures of important mathematical commentaries in five ancient cultures from China to Greece.

The Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World

The Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004315632
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 595

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Book Description
Astronomical and astrological knowledge circulated in many ways in the ancient world: in the form of written texts and through oral communication; by the conscious assimilation of sought-after knowledge and the unconscious absorption of ideas to which scholars were exposed. The Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World explores the ways in which astronomical knowledge circulated between different communities of scholars over time and space, and what was done with that knowledge when it was received. Examples are discussed from Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, India, and China.