Modern Western Astronomy In The Late Qing Dynasty:Translation And Adaptation

Born out of philosophy and developed with the help of mathematics,astronomy in ancient China was involved in politics and gradually found its way into society.Guided by Shi Xue(a view that all studies are born for application),it was turned into the very tool for feudal ruling class to explore the will of Heaven and to compile calendar.At the end of Ming Dynasty,modern western astronomy was introduced to China,the philosophy of which had collided fiercely with its Chinese counterpart.The collision lasted for two and a half centuries,and it was not until late Qing Dynasty when a series of works on astronomy,represented by Tan Tian(Outlines ofAstronomy),were translated,accepted and disseminated,marking the earliest stage of modern Chinese astronomy.Inspired by the cultural historic view of translation and adopting it as the main framework,it is believed that there is a mutual construction and manifestation between translation of science and culture.Therefore,a theory that an orbit where a certain science adapted to could be changed due to the mutual gravitation aroused by transaltion is raised as "the perturbation theory of translation".This study investigated the original works of Outlines of Astronomy(the 1851 and 1869 editions)and their translation works(the 1859 and 1874 editions),and analyzed the translation and introduction of modern western astronomy by summarizing the following issues:(1)what translation methods Li Shanlan and Alexander Wylie had applied,(2)how they created the new terms,(3)in which way the translation revealed the dissemination of scientific thoughts,and(4)from what aspects it contributed to the construction of modern Chinese astronomy.It is found that there was altogether three stages of gaming between Chinese and western astronomy.namely fierce confrontation,repeated competition,and absorption and integration.The obstacles for translating and spreading western astronomy lie in:(1)the astronomical knowledge gap produced by disciplinary difference,(2)the contradiction between western scientific belief and Chinese belief in the connection between Heaven and human-beings,and(3)the resistance from the conviction that China was superior over the western world,and that the western learnings originated from China.Even with the translation of Chong Zhen Li Shu and Di Qiu Tu Shuo,Chinese Astronomy was still solely used for compiling calendar,and could not get rid of the harness of ruling class.This story did not stop until the late Qing Dynasty,when the Chinese scholars fond of western learnings and Protestant missionaries in pursuit of science,developed a translation mode of "Westerners interpreting while Chinese recording",originally invented in late Ming Dynasty.Li Shanlan,as the representative of the Chinese recording scholars,attempting to bridge the gap between Chinese and western culture within the traditional Confucian context,translated a masterwork on modern western astronomy with the interpretation by Alexander Wylie,Outlines ofAstronomy.into Tan Tian(????),a significant book which introduced the frontier issues on astronomy to Chinese people.As for the translation of new terms,usage of old terms and coinage of new words were both adopted.In hope to replace the old terminology with a novel one,they chose Tian Wen(??)as the new equivalence for "astronomy",out of a number of alternatives with overlapped meanings,such as Tian Suan(??),Tian Guan(??),and Tian Xue(??)etc.Moreover,new equivalence were established between "nebulae" and Xing Lin(??)and "gravitation" and She Li(??),thus broadening the field of Astronomy to Stellar Astronomy and Astro-dynamics.It is claimed that translations of modern astronomy represented by Tan Tian epitomized the gaming in astronomy between western and Chinese scholars,and their cautious choices between novelty and convention in an attempt to inherent from Chinese astronomy philosophy.Mediated by translation,the translators introduced new research paradigm,which further specified astronomical disciplines,theoretically meeting the demands to revitalize Chinese astronomy.In translating key terminologies,they initiated a shift of research focusing from connection between Heaven and Human beings to objective astronomical bodies,which deconstructed the application-oriented science so as to change the disciplinary feature of Chinese astronomy on one hand,and shook the ingrained philosophical belief in Heaven and laid a conceptual foundation for building new discipline on the other.Consequently,government and NGOs cooperated to popularize the education of astronomy by means of establishing educational institutes,providing substantial support for constructing new disciplines required by modern education system.Stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade of this one.Thanks to the translation of western astronomy in late Qing Dynasty,Chinese astronomy was motivated towards modern times.