ABSTRACT
From early times until their replacement by the modern Gregorian calendar, the Chinese and Japanese used typical lunisolar calendars. Successive attempts to produce an improved system for reconciling two fundamentally in-commensurable periods-the tropical year and the synodic month-were made throughout the history of Chinese and Japanese calendars. The Chinese had an independent system of solar intervals for indicating seasonal changes, the most important phenomena in the regulation of agriculture. The art of calendar calculation in traditional East Asia was the most genuine contribution to exact science. The difference of purpose between calendar making in the West and in East Asia is clear. The astronomical attainments of the Chinese calendar were far beyond the concerns of the common people. The equivalent of the Hellenistic tradition of horoscopic astrology can be found in the manipulation of calendrical indexes in both China and Japan.
