ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the roles of official astronomers and their family interests in the imperial state’s management of reproducing astronomical knowledge. The first case studied here is the new compilation project of astronomical treatises that took place in the early Qianlong reign. Rather than representing a voluntary initiative from the Jesuits, this chapter argues that the project arose from hereditary astronomer families’ need to obtain the mathematical knowledge that their Jesuit colleagues in the Astronomical Bureau had shrouded in secrecy since 1730. The rest of the chapter is devoted to a comparison between the mathematics program of the late Yongzheng reign and the College of Mathematics founded in the early Qianlong reign. The attempt to add mathematics into the curriculum of general education failed, and the Yongzheng mathematics program was terminated after just four years. It was replaced with the College of Mathematics, which aimed to recruit newcomers for the Astronomical Bureau and did not conflict with the hereditary astronomer families’ interests.
