Overview
Key data
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Nature | A chapter preserved in the Da Dai Liji |
| Length | About four hundred characters, arranged over the twelve months |
| Form | Each month: stars first, then seasonal signs, then farming and government |
| Core content | Seasonal signs, stars, farming, sacrifice |
Form and structure
The text proceeds by month. Each month opens with the stars (as “in the first month, Ju appears; at dusk Shen culminates; the Dipper’s handle hangs downward”), then gives the seasonal signs (as “the insects awake,” “the geese go north”), then farming and human affairs.
This way of attaching affairs to each month anticipates the “Monthly Ordinances” and the “Explanation of the Seasonal Instructions.”
What “Xia” in the title means
The title’s “Xia” has been read two ways: as a book of the Xia dynasty, or with Xia meaning “great,” so that “small zheng” marks it as not the court’s own first month. Today it is generally held to have been composed no earlier than the Warring States, though its material is very old.
Echoing the “use the season of Xia” of the Canon of Yao, the Xia Xiao Zheng came to be seen as a relic of the Xia calendar.
The value of its seasonal signs
Its seasonal signs are what is most precious. The names of plants, insects and birds it uses are ancient,
and can be checked against modern phenology to infer the climate and the face of the calendar of its time.
Value
The Xia Xiao Zheng is the earliest surviving phenological almanac in China.
The later line of the “Monthly Ordinances,” the “Explanation of the Seasonal Instructions” and the Monthly Ordinances of the Four Classes of People can all be traced back to it.
The “Xia season” was a Confucian watchword: Confucius urged that one “use the season of Xia,” that is, the calendar the Xia dynasty was held to have used. The view runs from the Analects down through the centuries and became a lasting orientation in the history of Chinese calendrics.
Compiled and arranged by Chujia Kuang.