The original manuscript written by the "father superior of Chinese Astronomy" (Needham)

Gaubil, Antoine, French Jesuit missionary, astronomer, and historian at the Imperial Court in Beijing (1689-1759). "Traité de l'Astronomie Chinoise". Autograph manuscript.

€ 65,000.00

Near-complete manuscript of Antoine Gaubil's seminal "Traité de l'Astronomie Chinoise", published by Étienne Souciet in 1732 as the third volume of the "Observations mathématiques, astronomiques, géographiques, chronologiques et physiques, tirées des anciens livres Chinois". Several tables and three plates of diagrams that are part of the manuscript and relate to the "Traité" were instead published within the "Histoire de l'Astronomie Chinoise avec des Dissertations", the second volume of Souciet's publications of Gaubil's work. The present autograph manuscript was not used by Souciet for publication, but probably formed Gaubil's final revision. Numerous corrections and stricken-out lines are consistent with the published version. The manuscript is almost identical to the printed text except for the preface to three tables cataloguing Chinese records of lunar and solar eclipses (pp. 235-238 of the published "Traité"), which is missing here, while some of Gaubil's glosses are not included in the publication. It is worth mentioning that while no Chinese types were used for any of Souciet's publications, Gaubil's texts and tables include Chinese characters for many astronomical and other scientific terms and proper nouns. In several tables concerning Chinese constellations and the Chinese calendar, Gaubil systematically uses the original Chinese characters alongside their romanizations.

The treatise is divided into two parts, the first documenting the history of Chinese astronomy before the Han dynasty based on several Chinese classics like the "I Ching", "Shoujing", "Shijing", "Liji", the "Eyra" dictionary, the "Chunqiu" or "Spring and Autumn Annals", among others. The first section is dedicated to the tradition and probability of astronomical interpretations of some of the famous hexagrams in the "I Ching". Two beautiful plates connected to this chapter show drawings of all 64 hexagrams and the ancient "Ho Tu" and "Lo Shu" magic squares. With respect to the "Zhou Li", also known as "Rites of Zhou", Gaubil makes an interesting remark concerning the historical study of Chinese characters, proposing a comprehensive project aided by Chinese scholars: "From what I have said about the Jun character, we can see the importance of a critical history of the origin of, and changes to, many Chinese characters that are certainly hieroglyphs. On the other hand, there are Chinese characters that are certainly not hieroglyphs, and a history of these would be just as important. I confess that the history I propose is very difficult, and would require a great deal of time, sound criticism, a vast amount of Chinese erudition, and above all the help of several skilled Chinese". In this section, Gaubil also discusses the ancient astronomical and mathematical treatise "Zhoubi Suanjing" that is traditionally dated to the lifetime of the Duke of Zhou (11th century BCE). A beautiful diagram leaf with four geometrical figures corresponds to this chapter. The most remarkable figure is the famous "Hsuan thu" or "Gougu Theorem" diagram, one of the earliest known proofs of the Pythagorean theorem.

The second part on the history of Chinese astronomy since the Han dynasty to the present is more selective and practical in nature, also comprising numerous highly interesting tables. Gaubil points to particularly important contributions like those of the astronomers of Kublai Khan in the 13th century, but also those of the Jesuits, and introduces several methods used by Chinese astronomers. These include a "Chinese method to calculate the movement of the five planets" and methods to calculate solar and lunar eclipses. Furthermore, Gaubil provides several tables on the Chinese calendar, harmonizing the Chinese sexagenary cycle, the twelve-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac, and the twelve Terrestrial Branches with corresponding periods in the Julian calendar (1684-1731, 772-783, and 1720-31 CE).

The painstakingly comprehensive work exhibited by this treatise was invaluable not only for astronomers and those interested in the history of Chinese astronomy, but also for the European knowledge of Chinese history at large. Gaubil is also a chronicler of the emerging coalescence of European and Chinese astronomy and history in general. The earliest Jesuit observation of a lunar eclipse in China documented in one of the tables came to Gaubil's attention via a Chinese source. According to this source, a lunar eclipse was observed by a missionary in Jiangsu in 1627 (Julian date) that was also observed by Jesuits in Beijing. The same astronomical event was observed in Europe by Jacques Grandami, Denis Pétau, Pierre Gassendi, Johannes Kepler, and Giovanni Battista Riccioli on 20 January 1628, which allows Gaubil to correct the observations made by his predecessors in China with respect to the duration of the eclipse. In a note, Gaubil points to his source, unfortunately omitting the title: "The Chinese book from which I drew this observation does not mention the missionary's name". A likely candidate is Johann Adam Schall von Bell, as he was active in Jiangsu between 1627 and 1630. Gaubil also mentions observations of the moons of Jupiter made in Jiangsu since. These observations were probably made at the old Imperial observatory in Nanjing before its main instruments were transferred to Beijing in 1668.

Antoine Gaubil, who arrived in Beijing in 1722 and would remain there for the rest of his life, was the most important astronomer among the French Jesuits in China, and one of the greatest disseminators of Chinese science and wisdom in Europe in the 18th century. His work on astronomy and as a historian and translator of important Chinese texts such as the "I Ching" earned him the praise of Alexander von Humboldt as the wisest of the Jesuit missionaries. Joseph Needham even considers him "the interpreter general and father superior of Chinese astronomy".