The discussion on the origin of astronomy is closely related to the origin of China civilization. In the view of the western source of China civilization, China astronomy undoubtedly came with the "West". However, even if we admit that China's civilization system happened independently, we can still think that its astronomical knowledge was imported from other places. As early as the beginning of this century, Tadao Osaka, a Japanese, and Shinichi Shinzaburo had a heated debate on this issue, which had a great influence on the academic circles in China. The former holds the theory of western origin, while the latter holds the theory of local origin, and finally they all go away. 1986 A large number of rare cultural relics unearthed from Sanxingdui site in Guanghan, Sichuan, seem to support the theory that Chinese civilization originated in the west, or at least a combination of western ethnic groups and indigenous people. Guo Moruo once compared and explained the names of the Twelve Immortals, Twelve o'clock and Twenty-eight places with the names of the mysterious Chinese zodiac from the aspects of characters, figures, language, etymology and pronunciation, and found that ancient astronomy in China was closely related to Babylon.
Most of the previous comparative studies used traditional humanistic methods. It was not until the publication of more comprehensive Babylonian astronomical data in the 1950s that a more solid and in-depth comparative study of mathematical astronomy was conducted. By comparison, we find some facts that Chinese and Pakistani scholars can't explain: Babylonia was able to accurately deal with the uneven annual apparent motion of the sun at the latest during the Seleucid dynasty, probably in 500 BC or even earlier, and China astronomers didn't start to deal with this problem until 600 AD. The same is true of planetary motion. The importance of the two in China ancient astronomy has been explained in the previous discussion. The use of celestial coordinate system is also different. For example, in ancient China, the equatorial coordinate was always used, and the number of days in a week was divided into degrees, which was quite different from the western ecliptic and the 360-degree system. In terms of monthly transportation, China emphasizes "new moon" and Babylon emphasizes "new moon"; The treatment of copulation cycle is also under different backgrounds. According to the existing historical data, China people mastered the seven-leap cycle 19 years earlier than westerners, and its significance is also different. Therefore, we have reason to believe that under the existing evidence, Babylonian astronomy and ancient astronomy in China are regarded as two systems with independent origins. But at the same time, there is also a lot of evidence that the development of Tianxue in China may have been influenced by Babylon, which seems to be in the 6th century.
Yao Dian in Shangshu says, "What is your destiny? If you yearn for heaven, you will be like the sun, the moon and the stars, teaching people. ..... The period of 300 has a record of reaching the age of four on the 6th of leap month. It can be seen that as early as ancient times, there were officials in China who specially observed astronomical phenomena; Observing the four stars of bird, fire, deficiency and dragon in the southern transit at dusk can be divided into two parts; With the 366-day lunar calendar adjusted by leap month every year, the original standard table and missing engraving may have been used.
According to legend, it is the Calendar of the Xia Dynasty, and Xia Zhengxiao, which is preserved in Li Ji of the Great Generation, is generally considered to have been written during the Warring States Period. It is mainly based on natural phenomena such as astronomical phenomena and phenology to determine the seasons and months, record the horoscopes of some dark months and see the south, and point out the relationship between the direction of bucket handle and the early season of twilight. Although the recorded astronomical phenomena are mixed, the times are early and late, but some older materials are indeed preserved.
From the analysis of Oracle Bone Inscriptions unearthed in Yin Ruins, it can be seen that Yin replaces the Yin calendar: the sun records the year, the lunar calendar records the moon, and the leap month is used to adjust the season; The year has a flat leap, the month has a size, and the date of the main branch has continued to this day, December in the normal year and March in the leap year; With the knowledge of measuring points, the beginning of a year has been basically fixed, and there is a basically fixed relationship between seasons and month names; Take the new moon as the name of January; Leap month is the end of a year, with only spring and autumn seasons and no four seasons; At the beginning of the year, the setting of leap month is not calculated in advance, but determined according to observation. Oracle Bone Inscriptions has also preserved valuable astronomical records, such as solar and lunar eclipses, stars and nova.
According to "Zhou Li", the astronomical phenomena in the Zhou Dynasty have been divided in detail, including constancy, fluency, coma, coma or not, sun, moon, five-star movement and lack of time. Looking at the four names that often appear in the inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty, we can see that we have noticed the changes of the moon phase at that time. The method of setting leap at the end of the year was still practiced in the Western Zhou Dynasty. However, the appearance of the new moon during the solar eclipse recorded in the poem "Xiaoya" indicates that the China calendar will probably change the first month from the new moon to the new moon in the 7th and 8th centuries BC, and the names of 28 stars have partially appeared in it.