Essay Review: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280,Granting the Seasons: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280,with a Study of its Many Dimensions and an Annotated Translation of its Records

The Wade-Giles romanization of Chinese is used in the book under review, except for modern name places which are transcribed in pinyin. Since the latter romanization has become the most common, I give pinyin transcriptions for Chinese terms, titles and names in pinyin; the Wade-Giles transcription is added between brackets for those found in the book, so that readers can identify them.

Cullen Christopher , The Suan shu shu “Writings on reckoning”: A draft translation of a Chinese mathematical collection of the second century BC, with explanatory commentary (Cambridge, 2004), 41; Chemla Karine Guo Shuchun , Les neuf chapitres: Le classique mathématique de la Chine ancienne et ses commentaires (Paris, 2004), 968–9.

Cullen , op. cit. (ref. 2), e.g. p. 36; Chemla Guo , op. cit. (ref. 2), 918–19, 923–4, 977–9.

Nakayama tells us that recent work by Qu Anjing has resolved an outstanding technical issue that previously led him to hold back the material prepared several decades ago; Kiyosi Yabuuti Shigeru Nakayama , Jujireki: Yakuchū to kenkyū : (Season-granting System: Annotated translation and study) (Kawasaki, 2006).

Yabuuti Nakayama , op. cit. (ref. 4), pp. iv–v.