Qintianjian

What it is

The Qintianjian was the Chinese imperial government's office for the sky. Its staff watched the stars, computed the calendar, kept court time and judged what unusual sights above meant for the throne. A director headed it, and it sat in the middle ranks of the bureaucracy. Its work joined two things later kept apart: measuring and predicting celestial motion, and reading that motion as signs. The pairing rested on a Chinese view that heaven and earth move together, a view bound up with the Mandate of Heaven (tiānmìng), the idea that heaven backs a ruler's right to govern or withdraws it.

Where it comes from

State sky watching is old in China. Under the Zhou, court officers recorded celestial events and kept time, and the Zhouli, a classic describing an ideal government, names officials who watched stars, maintained the calendar and advised the ruler on what the sky showed. In Han times the Taishiling, or Grand Astrologer, held the task; Sima Qian occupied the post and compiled the Shiji, which contains a treatise on celestial offices. Sui and Tang courts used the names Taishiju and Taishijian. The title Qintianjian was taken up under the Ming and stayed until the imperial system ended. Foreign methods arrived in stages: Indian reckoning through Buddhism in the Tang, Islamic tables and instruments under the Yuan, European astronomy in the late Ming and Qing.

How it is done

Work was done from observatories, above all the Beijing Ancient Observatory, founded in 1442 and fitted in the 1670s with instruments built under Ferdinand Verbiest. Officials logged the positions and paths of celestial bodies and noted anything out of the ordinary. They forecast solar and lunar eclipses, worked out months and solar terms, and announced the hours by water clock and later by mechanical clock. Each year the office issued the official calendar, grading days as suitable or unsuitable for particular undertakings. For the emperor it named times for court ceremonies, building projects, campaigns and burials. Comets, new stars and odd groupings of planets were read as messages about his rule.

Tools and materials

Instruments included armillary spheres, rings arranged to model the sky, and celestial globes. Water clocks (louhu) measured the hours for the court. The annual calendar, the lishu, was itself an instrument of state, since it carried the seasons, the festivals and the favourable and unfavourable days. Islamic instruments and tables entered the office's stock under the Yuan, and European instruments were made for the observatory in the Qing. For geomantic advice on imperial buildings and tombs, officials of the Compass school worked from cyclical reckonings. Centuries of written observations formed another working resource and survive as an archive.

What it is for

The office existed to keep the emperor's rule in step with heaven. A calendar that correctly named the seasons and eclipses showed that the dynasty understood the sky and held its favour; a calendar in error was a political problem as much as an astronomical one. Its date choices were sought for ceremonies, construction, campaigns and imperial burials, so that state action fell on the right day. Its readings of comets and other unusual sights told the court whether an event favoured or warned the throne. Geomantic assessments fixed the placing and orientation of imperial buildings and tombs. All of this was framed as service to the dynasty.

Who does it

A director (jianzheng) headed the Ming office, which ranked mid-way in the bureaucracy. Its staff were officials trained in observation, calendrical computation and divination. From 1644 the directorship went to the German Jesuit Johann Adam Schall von Bell, who had already been reforming the calendar at court; the Belgian Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest followed in 1669 and built instruments for the observatory. The Chinese Muslim astronomer Yang Guangxian led a faction that contested Schall's position and the reformed calendar in 1664 and 1665. European Jesuits stayed in the office into the 18th century, their influence shrinking after the Society of Jesus was suppressed in 1773.

Peoples and places

The office served one dynasty after another, and its staff were Chinese officials. The Mongol-run Yuan court kept Chinese and Islamic astronomical sections side by side, drawing scholars from Central Asia and Persia. Under the Manchu Qing, Europeans held the top post for a time while the underlying framework, with its astrological and geomantic duties, stayed Chinese. Tang interest in Indian methods came by way of Buddhism. The calendar the office produced reached well beyond the palace, since it fixed the agricultural seasons and the festivals for the wider population. Its records, kept across many centuries, are studied by historians of science.

What people believe

Behind the office lay the conviction that sky and state are connected. The Mandate of Heaven holds that a ruler governs with heaven's approval and may lose it, so unusual celestial events bore on legitimacy and were read as praise or warning. Eclipses and comets were not neutral data. The same framework supported feng shui, the placing and orienting of buildings by cosmological reckoning, in which the office's officials were versed, particularly in the Compass school. Foreign astronomy could be adopted for calculation without displacing this outlook: European methods sharpened prediction while the divinatory and geomantic duties went on in Chinese terms.

When it is done

The office's year turned on the official calendar, issued annually, which set out months, solar terms and festivals and graded days as auspicious or not. Eclipses were the other fixed point: solar and lunar ones had to be forecast and reported to the emperor. Timekeeping ran daily, with the hours announced at court from water clocks and later mechanical clocks. The dynasty's ceremonies, campaigns and imperial burials waited on dates the office supplied. After the Qing fell, the office was reorganised in June 1912 to compile an almanac for the new Republic's first year.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Historians of science treat the office's long run of records as a data set: centuries of notes on eclipses, comets, supernovae and other celestial events that modern astronomy can still use. The bureau is also studied as a case of knowledge systems meeting, since Indian, Islamic and European methods were each taken in for calculation while the Chinese ritual and divinatory frame stayed in place. Reformers of the early Republic classed the calendrical, astrological and geomantic work as mixin, superstition, and the new state dropped it. The Jesuit directors and the Calendar Case draw attention as a clash of accuracy, faction and authority.

Compare and confuse

It is usually Englished as the Imperial Astronomical Bureau or the Directorate of Astronomy, and its Sui and Tang names, Taishiju and Taishijian, cover the same function. Feng shui is often mentioned alongside it, and one tie is clear: geomantic work on imperial buildings belonged to the Compass school whose reckonings the office's officials used. Unlike a modern observatory, its brief took in omens, auspicious dates and the ritual ordering of the state as well as calculation.

Law and persecution

The office ended with the dynasty. It was dissolved after the Qing fell in 1912 and the Republic of China was founded. Its astronomical work passed to modern scientific bodies, while the calendrical, astrological and geomantic duties were stopped by the state, having been labelled superstition by reformist opinion. In June 1912 the institution was moved to the Ministry of Education, reorganised as an observatory and given the task of compiling the almanac for the Republic's first year. Its site and instruments were preserved.

Today

The observatory in Beijing still stands and is a city attraction, now a museum and part of the Beijing Planetarium. Several of the instruments Verbiest had made for it in the 1670s survive. The archive of observations, covering many centuries, continues to be read by historians of science for its records of eclipses, comets and supernovae. The office has no successor holding its old mixture of duties: calculation went to scientific institutions, and the reading of days and omens ceased to be state business.

Questions people ask about Qintianjian

Good reading and sources

• Qintianjian on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data