On the Geographical Conception of the Ancient Chinese People -With Special Reference to their Spatial Concepts -

The Chinese people of old conceived the shape of the earth in several different ways. Vol.Ⅰ of the Chou-pi-suan-ching(周髀算経) states that the sky and the earth are both flat and that the sun moves in a circle around the north pole. Vol. Ⅱ of the same book further describes that both the sky and the earth are heaped up in and around the north pole and extend gradually downward in four directions. This is a terrestrial conception repressented by what astronomers call the theory of “canopy - like sky ( kai t‘ien 蓋天 )” According to another theory of “round or spherical sky ( kun t‘ien 渾天 ),” which, it is said,originated in the Han Dynasty, the sky and the earth are likened to an egg, with its shell regarded as the sky and its meat as the earth. The earth, therefore, is here conceived to be a spherical body. Again, in the Lieh tzu (列子), the Ch‘u tz‘u(楚辞), and other miscellaneous books, we find it theorized that the sky dips north-westerly and the earth south-easterly. This supposition may possibly have arisen from the fact that the continent of China is bounded on the east by the sea and on the west by Chains of mountains. In China, there has, since of old, been an established conception that the sky is round, while the earth is square. This is based on the philpsophy of real idealism propounded in the “Book of Mundane Mutations” and does not refer so much to the actual shape of the earth as to the principle of material being, for as it might be seen, none of the above-cited concepts of the earth held it to be square. Nevertheless, it can't be said on the other hand that there were none who considered the earth to be square. Tsou Yen (騊衍, about 370～320 B.C.), for one, belived in the squareness of the earth. Thus, Chinese concepts as to the probable shape of the earth were many and varied, but in most cases, the sky was supposed to move and the earth to stand still, though in but a few cases, it was held that the sky remained at rest, while the earth moved round, tossing up and down. There also remain some numerical figures which intended to indicate the bounds of both the earth and the world as they were conceived in those days. The figures given pertaining to the earth are only wild and imaginary, but those we find mentioned to cover the world are fairly approximate to the actual length and breadth of the presentday China proper. The expression, “Four Seas (四海),” Which the Chinese often employed, did not mean four seas literally, but it rather signified the surrounding unknown regions where alien people lived. Bordering on these “Four Seas,” there lay all the more unknown and unknowable lands, which they named either, “Great Wastelands (大荒),” or “Four Wastelands (四荒).” Since these did not represent certain fixed areas, however, they came to include more and more outlying lands, as the Chinese people gained further in their geographical knowledge. Aside from China and her people, various accounts are recorded about the countries and peoples of the world. In this respect, none are more detailed than the Shan-hai-ching (山海経). It is not clear, however, where these countries were and whether these peoples could really be found. Anyway, the Chinese people, like the ancient Greeks and Romans, had a notion that there were in the world queer-looking, grotesque men and women quite unaccountable to them