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Overview
Key data
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Author | Ruan Yuan (1764–1849) |
| Completed | 1799 (fourth year of Jiaqing, Qing), with later supplements |
| Volumes | Forty-six in the main series, with later continuations |
| Contents | Biographies and doctrines of astronomers and mathematicians of successive ages |
The meaning of “chouren”
The word chouren comes from “the sons of the chouren” in the “Treatise on the Calendar” of the Shiji,
meaning hereditary specialists, and later used specifically of astronomers and mathematicians.
Ruan Yuan took it for his title, giving biographies to the astronomers and mathematicians of successive ages.
Contents and form
The work gives a biography to each astronomer and mathematician in turn:
the life first, then the doctrines, and finally an appraisal.
It runs from Xi and He and Shang Gao in high antiquity to Mei Wending and Wang Xichan under the Qing,
and includes Western calendrical scholars who came to China.
Luo Shilin, Zhu Kebao and others later continued it, forming a series.
Value
The Chouren Zhuan is the first Chinese collection of scientists’ biographies.
For the origins and figures of ancient astronomy and calendrical computation it is the outline;
its appraisals also show Ruan Yuan’s attitude to Chinese and Western learning.
Full text
No electronic full text of this work is available here. No electronic full text was obtained.
The title, date, summary and index structure compiled here are offered under CC BY 4.0 (attribution: Chujia Kuang · kuangchujia.com).
Compiled and arranged by Chujia Kuang.