Dunhuang calendars: a window into everyday time
Surviving calendars
Annual calendars become obsolete quickly. Dunhuang nevertheless preserves ninth- and tenth-century examples, both complete and fragmentary, that show how medieval readers organized a particular year's dates and activities. The collection includes locally produced manuscripts and printed almanacs brought from elsewhere.
An annual calendar turned astronomical calculations into information that could be consulted day by day. It identified the sequence of months, their lengths, their day names and seasonal markers. Annotated versions also recommended activities for particular dates, bringing household routines, official business and ritual practice onto the same page.
These publications differed in scope. Some were principally calendars with daily annotations. More extensive almanacs combined the year's dates with divinatory methods, diagrams and protective formulas. Their contents could be consulted without working through the technical calculations that produced the date sequence.
Page layout and local makers
Months could run successively across the page or appear in paired rows. Two or three horizontal registers separated the date sequence from other annotations. This arrangement helped readers follow a month while locating the information attached to an individual day. Diagrams provided another way to organize recommendations about directions and space.
The following features occur across the surviving calendars and almanacs. Their combination varies between publications.
| Page feature | Information supplied |
|---|---|
| Month headings | Month number, length and any leap designation |
| Day sequence | Numbered days and Ganzhi names from the stem-and-branch cycle |
| Seasonal annotations | Solar terms and, in some calendars, information about daylight or sunrise and sunset |
| Activity lists | Recommendations concerning travel, marriage, building, burial and other tasks |
| Directional diagrams | Classifications of favourable and unfavourable directions |
| Illustrations and protective material | Zodiac animals, ritual images, charms or amulets |
A printed almanac dated 877 combines several of these features. Its calendrical rows accompany small zodiac-animal illustrations, marriage guidance and divinatory material.
Some manuscripts name their compilers or copyists. Zhai Fengda was an active local compiler whose training in Dunhuang's prefectural school included calendar techniques and divinatory methods. He also held administrative office. His work connects specialist learning with regional government, rather than confining calendar production to the imperial capital.
Local compilation could produce differences in day assignments and retain era names after changes at the centre. Such features help distinguish calendars prepared in Dunhuang from straightforward copies of centrally issued publications. Printed almanacs could travel farther: a ninth-century fragment names the Dadao family of Chang'an's East Market as its printer, although the surviving copy was found at Dunhuang.
Printing and imperial authority
Woodblock printing made it possible to produce multiple copies of an annual almanac for sale. A printer's notice linked the publication to a commercial maker and address. Demand for the coming year's dates also gave private printers a reason to prepare their calendars early, creating a conflict with the court's control over official issue.
Under Emperor Wenzong, a complaint described printed calendars circulating in Sichuan and Huainan before the official calendar had been promulgated. An imperial order prohibited private calendar-printing blocks. The dispute concerned the ruler's authority to issue the calendar as well as the circulation of a useful annual publication. Private calendars continued to appear despite such restrictions.
Policy changed over time. A Later Zhou order of 953 allowed private printing and copying after official promulgation, while forbidding advance release. This arrangement separated official authorization of the year's calendar from the work of reproducing it. The surviving publications belong to a setting in which court authority, local administration and commercial production all helped determine how dates reached readers.
Daily activities and later almanacs
The activity lists cover both exceptional events and repeated tasks. Marriage, burial and taking office appear alongside bathing, travel, schooling, planting, building and household work. A date's classifications could differ by purpose, allowing a reader to look up advice for the intended activity.
These classifications combined time with a wider divinatory scheme. Directions and the changing positions assigned to calendrical spirits could affect the advice about where an activity should take place. Seasonal information and activity selection occupied the same publication, but an auspicious recommendation was not an astronomical measurement.
Modern almanacs retain the pairing of dates with Yi, suitable activities, and Ji, activities to avoid. Dunhuang calendars show an earlier stage of this annotated-calendar tradition, with their own terminology, layout and selection of material. The continuities are clearest in features such as daily activity lists and directional diagrams, while differences between editions show how publishers adapted the contents.
The lists record recommendations rather than a complete account of household behaviour. Handwritten additions and other dated documents can reveal how particular readers used them.