Overview
Key data
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Author | Wang Xichan (1628–1682, style Xiao’an) |
| Completed | Kangxi reign, Qing |
| Volumes | Six |
| Core content | Calendrical computation, with eclipses and the five planets |
The author and the book
Wang Xichan commanded both Chinese and Western calendrical mathematics but held that one should establish a method of one’s own,
neither merely following the Western nor bound to the ancient.
The Xiao’an Xinfa is the calendrical work he established, named from his own style.
What was original in its method
Wang Xichan worked hardest on the method of eclipses,
and the procedure he fixed differs from the Western method then in use, forming a line of its own.
He was one of the few Chinese scholars of the early Qing able to correct the Western method.
Value
The Xiao’an Xinfa is the representative work of a Chinese scholar establishing his own calendar in the early Qing.
With Xue Fengzuo’s Tianxue Huitong and Mei Wending’s Lisuan Quanshu
it shows the three roads of early Qing calendrics: reconciliation, synthesis, and a method of one’s own.
Compiled and arranged by Chujia Kuang.