No Comment: Remarks on the Source, Selection, Reliability, and Function of Non-Terrestrial Events Recorded in the Hou Hanshu 'Benji' (Basic Annals)

Daniel Patrick Morgan (1)

1 SPHERE (UMR_7219) - Sciences, Philosophie, Histoire

This article compares the solar eclipse records in Fan Ye’s Hou Hanshu “Benji” 本紀 to those in the Dongguan Hanji (225 CE), Sima Biao’s Xu Hanshu “Wuxing zhi” 五行志, Yuan Hong’s Hou Hanji, as well as Espenak and Meeus’ Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses to comment upon the source, selection, reliability, and function of the eclipse records included in his imperial annals of the Eastern Han (25–220 CE). It finds that while Fan Ye stuck faithfully to the reliable observational record in the Xu Hanshu he at once replaced its interpretative apparatus of omenology with one of politico-ritual action for simple reasons of genre.

Mots clés: History of astronomy; Historiography; Medieval China; Historiographie

Mots clés: Chine Trois royaumes-Dynastie des Sui; Histoire de l'astronomie

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Daniel Patrick Morgan. No Comment: Remarks on the Source, Selection, Reliability, and Function of Non-Terrestrial Events Recorded in the Hou Hanshu 'Benji' (Basic Annals). Monumenta Serica - Journal of Oriental Studies, 2019, 67 (1), pp.57-83. ⟨halshs-02156079⟩