Page:On Chronology and the Construction of the Calendar.pdf/16



In the European Calendar we have a period of seven days, which we call a week. The days bear in English the names of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The Egyptians were the first people, who probably regarded the week as sacred to the heavenly bodies: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.

Although this period of seven days is not used in China, it is mentioned in the Chinese Calendar and the days are designated by help of the characters of the 28 Moon-stations (Su _), the meaning of which we will explain below [cf. table (7)]. 星 e mao 5B sing Sunday has the charactersfanghi sin wei "/ chang B Po pi Monday " " wei The Etui ve y Tuesday 11 ப Wednesday Khi " ten + kuli #tring # Kio Thursday nieu & len Kang Kuci Friday " niü & wei ti lieu D 氐 Saturday
 * tranchen
 * pi

It is not known, when this cycle in Chinese chronology is first mentioned. Confucius has called it t'sih (seven) and said, that it had existed since the beginning of the dynasty of Chow (1122 B.C.).

The period of time, properly deserving the name of the Chinese week, is that of 60 days, designated by the above mentioned 60 characters of the sexagesimal cycle Kiah-Tsze. In the Shu-king and Chun-tsieu we already find every important event stated not only by the indication of the emperor's name and year and the month and day of the month, but also by the name of the day in this sexagesimal cycle.

And therefore, as the days of the sexagesimal cycle are counted uninterruptedly through all centuries and do not depend upon complicated calculations, the Chinese historical data possess a high degree of exactitude and certainty, that is often wanting in the ancient records of other countries. In Section 11. we append a table, by help of which it is easy to find the day of the Chinese sexagesimal week, corresponding with the first of January in the Julian Calendar.