Ancient calendars and constellations

by Emmeline M. Plunket

To any interested in the history of the Chinese calendar, or rather to any interested in the history of the human race, the question as to the reason for the choice of this point and for the equal honour in which it was held (as we have seen) by the Accadian, the Hindu, and the Chinese nations, is a question worthy of close attention.

In former Papers contributed to these Proceedings, I have drawn attention to the many indications in ancient cuneiform and Indian literature, which seem to point to the conclusion that about 6,000 B.C., in some part of Asia and in a latitude probably as far north as 40 degrees, a calendar was instituted by “some ancient race of men,” that this calendar dealt with a year beginning at the season of the winter solstice, and that the stars which at that date were chosen to mark the solstitial year were those in the first degrees of the constellation Aries in conjunction with—and the bright star Spica in opposition to—the sun. I suggested that the Accadians and later Babylonians, as also the Aryans of India, continued to follow as star-marks for their years the constellations chosen by the institutors of this ancient calendar, and that therefore in the course of ages the beginning of the years of these peoples moved gradually away from the season of the winter solstice, approaching always nearer to the vernal equinox, close to which point we find it “bound” at the time of the fall of the Babylonian power; while in India, where the star-mark Spica is still followed, the year now begins about twenty days after the spring equinox.

Indications in Mesopotamian and Indian literature have seemed to me to point to the above conclusions. The opposed view, held by most writers on the subject, is that only at the late date (about the beginning of our era) when the stars of Aries in conjunction, and the star of Spica in opposition, marked the equinoctial season, were they adopted as marks for the beginning of the year by Babylonians and Hindus respectively.

I think that the position held by the star Spica in Chinese ancient astronomical tradition may be claimed as telling strongly in favour of an originally solstitial as opposed to an originally equinoctial beginning of the sidereal years of the Accadian, Hindu, and Chinese nations, for never has the claim been made that the Chinese years were counted from the vernal equinox; but on the contrary the opinion has been very generally held and expressed by Chinese scholars that at some remote date the new year’s festival was held in China at the season of the winter solstice.

Gustav Schlegel, one of the latest writers on the subject of Chinese astronomy, though he admits that, “selon l’opinion générale l’année chinoise commence toujours avec le solstice d’hiver,” has put forward a view entirely opposed to this generally held opinion: according to his theory, the Chinese have from the most remote times counted their years, as they count them at present—i.e., from the new moon nearest to the season mid-way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox: and as he is convinced—as we have seen—that the beginning of the Chinese year was originally marked by the asterism Kio, he demands as the lowest possible date for this origin of the Chinese calendar, that of 16,916 B.C., when the constellation Kio marked, by its heliacal rising, the mid-season between solstice and equinox.

Schlegel brings forward many learned and ingenious arguments drawn from Chinese literature to support this theory. It would be impossible at second hand, and in a small space, to state fairly his arguments with a view to rebutting them. His volumes are full of valuable information concerning the “Uranographie Chinoise,” but it has not seemed to me when reading and re-reading his work, that the grounds on which he relies are sufficiently established to support the high claims to antiquity which he puts forward for the origin of the modern Chinese method of counting the year from the mid-season between solstice and equinox.

It has on the contrary seemed to me that on historical grounds a theory may be arrived at which will furnish a reasonable explanation of the present somewhat exceptional Chinese calendrical methods, and which will, if it is accepted, strongly reinforce the grounds for holding the already general opinion that the year in ancient times in China was solstitial. That opinion once established must lead us with increased confidence to attribute the honour traditionally paid by Hindus and Chinese alike to the initial point of their respective ecliptic series of star groups to, as I have said, their common acquaintance with a calendar established on high authority at the date in round numbers of 6,000 B.C.

The year in China is luni-solar, and it is, as has been pointed out, counted from the season exactly midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.

It is counted from this mid-season and not from the sun’s opposition to, or conjunction with, any particular star or star group. It is therefore not a sidereal but a tropical year; and it is estimated at exactly the same length as is our European Gregorian year.

We here in Europe are not yet tired of congratulating ourselves on the scientific success attained by Pope Gregory XIII., when in 1582 he, with the help of many learned men and astronomers, established, as a reform of the earlier Julian calendar, a method of securely binding all recurring anniversaries—civil and ecclesiastical—to the exact same season of the year.