Guo Shoujing (郭守敬)

Overview

The translated histories identify Guo Shoujing as an astronomer, engineer, mathematician, and official. This record brings together 10 passages from 6 chapters across 3 histories, with names, dates, relationships, offices, and events preserved as source-backed claims.

Names

Type	English	Chinese	Pinyin
Personal	Guo Shoujing	郭守敬	Guo Shoujing
Surname	Guo	郭	Guo
Alternate	Guo Jing	郭敬	Guo Jing
Personal name	Guo Shoujing	郭守敬	Guō Shǒujìng
Personal name	Guo Shoujing	郭守敬	Guo Shoujing
Personal name	Guo Shoujing		Guo Shoujing
Given	Shoujing	守敬	Shoujing
Title		郭太史

Identity

Historicity: Historical
Identification: Named
Sex: Male

Sex: male
Strongly inferred · mingshi:032:s0007, mingshi:034:s0013, qingshigao:028:s0047, qingshigao:272:s0005, yuanshi:066:s0221

Roles

Astronomer
Engineer
Mathematician
Official
Scholar
Scientist

Life and dates

Attested activity

Source Date: Text: 十九年以後（據《元史》為至元十九年以後） · Regnal Year: 19 · Western Year: c. AD 1282
Explicit event contextual date · mingshi:034:s0011, mingshi:034:s0012, mingshi:034:s0013
Source Date: Text: 至元 · Reign Id: yuan-zhiyuan · Western Interval: Start: AD 1264 · End: AD 1294
Explicit event contextual date · mingshi:032:s0007, mingshi:032:s0115, mingshi:032:s0112
Source Date: Text: 元 · Western Interval: Start: AD 1271 · End: AD 1368
Explicit · qingshigao:272:s0030
Source Date: Text: 元郭守敬 · Western Interval: Start: AD 1271 · End: AD 1368
Explicit · qingshigao:028:s0047
Source Date: Text: 大德二年 · Western Year: AD 1298
Explicit event contextual date · yuanshi:066:s0220, yuanshi:066:s0221
Source Date: Text: 通惠河 · Western Year: AD 1293
Strongly inferred · yuanshi:066:s0231
Source Date: Text: 雍正癸卯 · Western Year: AD 1723
Explicit event contextual date · qingshigao:050:s0003, qingshigao:050:s0007

Career and standing

Label: astronomer / 天文學者
Explicit · qingshigao:050:s0007
Label: Grand Astrologer / 太史 · Action: held
Explicit · yuanshi:066:s0221

Places and affiliations

Polity: Yuan / 元 · Relation: served
Explicit · qingshigao:272:s0030
Polity Id: yuan · Relation: served
Explicit event contextual date · mingshi:032:s0007, mingshi:032:s0008, mingshi:032:s0115
Polity Id: yuan · Relation: served
Explicit · qingshigao:028:s0047, yuanshi:066:s0221

Works and attributed material

Work: Season Granting Calendar / 授時曆 · Relation: associated-with
Strongly inferred · mingshi:034:s0011, mingshi:034:s0012, mingshi:034:s0013
Work: Season Granting Calendar / 授時曆 · Relation: author
Strongly inferred · mingshi:032:s0005, mingshi:032:s0007, mingshi:032:s0114
Work: ready reckoners / 立成 · Relation: editor
Explicit · mingshi:034:s0013, mingshi:034:s0015

Events and relationships

Kind: scholarly · Role: compiler · Action: arranged-and-reduced-to-two-fascicles · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 十九年以後（據《元史》為至元十九年以後） · Regnal Year: 19 · Western Year: c. AD 1282
Explicit · mingshi:034:s0012, mingshi:034:s0013
Kind: scholarly · Role: completer · Action: brought-to-completion · Other Person Id: Wang Xun (王恂) · Provenance: Mode: historian-judgment
Uncertain · mingshi:034:s0015
Kind: engineering · Role: builder · Action: built-tonghui-canal
Explicit · yuanshi:066:s0231
Kind: scholarly · Role: astronomer · Action: determined-precession-rate · Outcome: precession number close to Tycho's / 所定歲差之數亦為近之
Explicit · qingshigao:028:s0047
Kind: scholarly · Role: creator · Action: established-five-methods · Label: established five calendar methods, including ecliptic difference / 創法五端，內一曰黃道差
Explicit · mingshi:032:s0112
Kind: engineering · Role: advisor · Action: sealed-jinkou-channel
Explicit · yuanshi:066:s0221
Kind: scientific · Role: authority · Action: supplied-tropical-year-baseline · Other Person Id: Tycho (第谷)
Explicit · qingshigao:050:s0007

Assessments and attributes

Assessment: famed for calendrical precision yet still inexact · Provenance: Mode: historian-judgment
Explicit · qingshigao:272:s0030
Assessment: harmonized fen and miao and reduced the ready reckoners to two fascicles · Provenance: Mode: historian-judgment
Explicit · mingshi:034:s0013
Assessment: methods founded on right-triangle and arc-versine geometry, finer than antiquity · Provenance: Mode: historian-judgment
Explicit · mingshi:032:s0114

Source notes

Historicity: historical
Explicit · mingshi:032:s0007, mingshi:034:s0013
Statement: Titles of his calendar works can be traced in his biography. / 傳中，有書名可考。
Explicit · mingshi:032:s0007

References in the histories

Open any source group to read the Chinese and English passage in context.

History of Ming, Chapter 32Volume 32 Treatises 8: Calendar 2 · 2 passages

Open chapter

郭守敬、齊履謙傳中，有書名可考。 Titles of those works can still be traced in the biographies of Guo Shoujing and Qi Lüqian.

按郭敬創法五端，內一曰黃道差，此其根率也。 Commentary: Guo Shoujing established five methods; ecliptic difference is one of them, and these are its fundamental rates.

History of Ming, Chapter 34Volume 34 Treatises 10: Calendar 4 · 2 passages

Open chapter

郭守敬比類編次，整齊分秒，裁爲二卷。 Guo Shoujing drew analogies among the drafts, harmonized the minutes and seconds, and reduced the work to two fascicles.

意者王先有藁，而郭卒成之歟？ Perhaps Wang prepared the drafts and Guo brought them to completion?

Draft History of Qing, Chapter 28Volume 28 Treatises 3: Astronomy 3, Sun, Moon, and the Five Planets, Fixed Stars, Yellow and Red Paths, the Twelve Stations, and Lunar Lodges, Hun Dan Zhong Xing · 1 passage

Open chapter

迨至第谷，方定恆星每歲東行五十一秒，約七十年有餘而行一度，而元郭守敬所定歲差之數亦為近之。 Tycho fixed annual eastward motion at 51 seconds—about one degree in seventy years—close to Guo Shoujing's Yuan rate.

Draft History of Qing, Chapter 50Volume 50 Treatises 25: Calendar 6 · 1 passage

Open chapter

西人第谷所定，減郭守敬萬分之三。 Tycho Brahe set a value three parts in ten thousand below Guo Shoujing's.

Draft History of Qing, Chapter 272Volume 272 Biographies 59: Tang Ruowang, Yang Guangxian, Nan Huai Ren · 2 passages

Open chapter

崇禎初，日食失驗，光啟上言：「台官用郭守敬法，歷久必差，宜及時修正。」 Early in the Chongzhen reign, when a predicted solar eclipse missed, Xu Guangqi submitted a memorial: "The Astronomical Bureau still uses Guo Shoujing's methods; given enough years, error is inevitable—the calendar ought to be corrected now."

元郭守敬號為精密，然經緯之度，尚不能符合天行，其後晷度遂以積差。 Yuan's Guo Shoujing was called exacting, yet even his longitudes and latitudes never fully matched heaven's motion; gnomon readings drifted ever farther off.

History of Yuan, Chapter 66Volume 66 Treatises 19: Rivers and Canals 3 · 2 passages

Open chapter

五年間，渾河水勢浩大，郭太史恐沖沒田薛二村、南北二城，又將金口已上河身，用砂石雜土盡行堵閉。 Within five years the Hun grew so powerful that Guo Shoujing feared it would wash away the Tian and Xue villages and both city walls; the channel above Jinkou was then entirely sealed with sand, stone, and earth.

且郭太史初作通惠河時，何不用此水，而遠取白浮之水，引入都城，以供閘壩之用？ When Guo Shoujing built the Tonghui Canal, why did he draw clear Baiteng water from afar rather than this turbid source?