The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[eggyk]

Pisces has 29 nymphs, 30 labels (29 in the main diagram,  1 in the central medallion), and 31 stars (29 in the main diagram and 2 in the central medallion).  That diagram is the only one that has stars and labels in the central medallion.

I already discussed my theory for why there are 29 nymphs and 31 stars in that diagram. It does not depend on COT vs EOT, or the sign, or the month.  It only assumes that the Author wanted that diagram to have 30 "things", like all the others; but the Scribe drew only 29 "things" by mistake, then mis-counted the stars as 28 and over-corrected by drawing the two in the center, then properly counted the labels as 29 and corrected by adding the label in the center.

February has only 28 days 3/4 of the time, and 29 days 1/4 of the time.  So, even if we assume that the month was meant to be February not Mars, and we disregard the label and two starts in the center,  the count of "things" on that diagram is closer to the equal number (30) seen in all the other diagrams, than to the mean or majority number of days of February in the Western calendar.  

Okay, I see. 

Counting the label in the middle as the last "thing" is something that I agree is plausible. I do have some concerns regarding the order of mistakes, though. 

The middle circle of the pisces diagram is substantially larger than the other diagrams, seemingly in order to fit the stars in the middle. If the stars were drawn after mistakenly drawing the nymphs, that implies that the inner circle would have been anomolously larger and emptier than the others had no mistake occured. If we are assuming there to be a mistake, it seems more likely to me that the inner stars were drawn first. Then the author accidentally drew 1 nymph too many, and so one of the middle stars did not receive a label.

However, "Mars" as the month name for Pisces would be correct if the month names were written after 1582; since, after the Gregorian reform, Pisces spanned from about February 18 to about March 19.  That is, 19 days of March and only 11 or so of February.  But that would definitely have  been independent of why the diagram was labeled Pisces, and would have no relevance for the COT vs EOT question.

So, in summary, that is my explanation for that anomaly: the first diagram is about the interval of the year from Lìchūn to Jīngzhé (~30.437 days), and the Author assigned it to Pisces because it was the sign that best matched that interval of the year (with ~16 days of overlap, against ~14 for Aquarius).  Then somebody else, after 1582, wrote the name "Mars" because it best matched the sign (with ~19 days of overlap).

So to make sure that I understand, you are saying that the diagram was made for the 30 day period of Lìchūn -> Jīngzhé, which corresponded mainly with february (or at least began in february). The original author then understandably drew the zodiac sign that aligned with february: pisces. Then, later on someone wrongly interpreted it as march. 

Honestly, I have strong doubts that the month names are from a period after 1582. The prevalence of month names that match/almost match the VMS are found most commonly in the late 13th century to the mid-late 15th century. Especially octembre and yong (jong, joing, jung) only seem to be found in that period. Matches dry up significantly in the 16th century, and by the 17th century most names have become standardised. That does not exclude the possibility of a very rare dialect or uneducated person after 1582, but it becomes increasingly unlikely the later you go, in my opinion. But none of this is relevant to this theory unless the month names were added at the same time as the diagrams, by the same author.

Without a coherent, Chinese picture of what a solar term is and how it came to be divided into 15, all arguments based on those divisions are sitting on a bad foundation.

There's been so much back and forth that I don't know who is arguing what anymore, but this You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (have to use automatic translation in my browser) shows the Han dynasty Tàichū calendar, with months being split into 2, and each half-month period being represented by three 5-day periods.