Three Research Notes on the Silk Manuscript *Tianwen qixiang zazhan 天文氣象雜占

Abstract

This paper specifically discusses three issues regarding the silk manuscript *Tianwen qixiang zazhan (Miscellaneous Prognostications Concerning Astronomy and Meteorology); they are its production and format, the scribes involved, and the date it was copied. Through comparison and analysis, I argue that the manuscript’s production was done by first drawing images and then by copying the text. The images and text were done by different scribes, and more than one scribe was involved in copying the text. Its date of copying was probably about the same time as the copying of the silk manuscript Xingde (Punishment and Virtue) A, that is, around the eleventh year of Emperor Gaozu of Han (195 b.c.e.).