卷六·第 273–280 问　诸民族的月名、年型、日名、年制与纪元

§273. What are the names of the months of the nations?

第二百七十三问　诸民族的月名是怎样的？

I have gathered them in tables, to fix their names in memory and to make the matter easy, for going into it minutely and aiming at exactness in it would take long, and might lead into calculations and conditions. This is the table.

我把它们汇集在表中，好记住它们的名字，也让事情容易些；因为要细究、求精确，就会拖得很长，还可能牵涉到计算与条件。这就是那张表。

§274. Which of these months agree in their beginnings?

第二百七十四问　这些月份里，哪些月首相合？

The months of the Jews agree in their reckoning with the months of the Arabs, and their beginnings differ only by a day in some circumstances, for reasons belonging to their religion. But they do not keep company in their names, for the Arab months are not intercalated and the months of the Jews are intercalated. It is the same with the months of the Indians compared with the months of the Arabs, except that their beginnings always run ahead, since they are reckoned from the conjunction of the two luminaries. The months of the Indians keep company with the months of the Jews, though sometimes a month differs because of an intercalation made by one of the two parties, and then they return to keeping company. The months of the Syrians correspond to the months of the Romans and differ from them in nothing except the beginning of the year, for the Romans make it Kānūn the Latter. As for the Copts, the beginning of their year agrees with the first of Day-māh among the months of the Persians; then the months correspond up to the end of Ābān-māh and differ in what comes after it, because of the difference in the places of the epagomenal days. These are not part of Ābān-māh, as the common people think, but are placed after it, because at the last intercalations of the Persians they used to place them after whichever month had its turn for the intercalation. The months of the Sogdians begin from the sixth day of Farwardīn-māh and continue from there to the end.

犹太人的月份在计算上与阿拉伯人的月份相合，月首只在某些情形下，因属于他们宗教的缘故，相差一天；但它们在名称上并不相伴，因为阿拉伯月不置闰，而犹太月置闰。印度人的月份与阿拉伯月相比也是如此，只是印度的月首总是领先，因为它们从日月二光的合朔起算。印度月与犹太月相伴，只是有时因双方之一置了闰，有一个月不同，随后又回到相伴。叙利亚人的月份与罗马人的月份对应，除了岁首之外毫无不同，因为罗马人以后卡农月为岁首。至于科普特人，他们的岁首与波斯月中的代伊月初一相合；此后各月相应，直到阿班月之末，之后便不同了，因为附加日的位置不同。附加日并不像一般人所以为的那样属于阿班月，而是放在它之后，因为在波斯人最后几次置闰时，他们把附加日放在轮到置闰的那个月之后。粟特人的月份从法尔瓦丁月初六开始，从那里一直延续到末尾。

§275. Do the lengths of the months of the Jews change?

第二百七十五问　犹太人的月份长短会变吗？

With them the year is of two kinds: pshūṭā, that is, simple, and ʿibbūr, that is, intercalated. Each of the two kinds is of three sorts. The first is ḥasērīn, that is, deficient, in which Marḥeshwān and Kislēw are each deficient, 29 days each. The second is shelēmīm, that is, full, though if it had been called excessive it would have been better; it is the year in which each of the two months mentioned is full, 30 days. The third is kesidrān, that is, regular, left as it is, in which the two are in the arrangement given in the table, Marḥeshwān deficient and Kislēw full. These are made necessary because they do not allow the beginning of their year to be a Sunday, a Wednesday or a Friday. The rest of the months do not change from their state.

在他们那里，年有两类：普舒塔，意思是简单的；伊布尔，意思是置闰的。两类各有三种。第一种是哈塞林，意思是缺的，其中玛西班月和基斯流月都缺，各二十九日。第二种是谢勒米姆，意思是满的——若称作“多余的”会更好——这是上述两个月各满三十日的年。第三种是凯西德兰，意思是规则的、保持原样的，其中两个月照表中的安排，玛西班月缺、基斯流月满。之所以必须这样，是因为他们不许岁首落在星期日、星期三或星期五。其余各月不改其状。

§276. How do the months of the Indians agree with the lunar months, when there are 30 days in each of them?

第二百七十六问　印度人的月份每月都有三十日，怎样与太阴月相合？

The Indians use the day in several kinds of measure. Among them is sauramāna, which is the solar day, meaning one part of 360 parts of the solar year; among them is cāndramāna, which is the lunar day, also called tithi, meaning one part of 360 parts of the lunar year; among them is nakṣatramāna, which is the time in which the Moon traverses one of its 27 mansions; and among them is sāvanamāna, which is the day of rising, the one commonly known. It is known, then, that the solar day exceeds the day of rising, and that the lunar day falls short of the day of rising, by what we have mentioned of the amount of the lunar month, that it is 29½ days, and that is in days of rising. What we have given in the table are lunar days, because they are one thirtieth of what lies between two mean conjunctions.

印度人用几种量度的日。其中有索拉曼那，即太阳日，意思是太阳年三百六十份中的一份；有昌德拉曼那，即太阴日，又称提提，意思是太阴年三百六十份中的一份；有纳克沙特拉曼那，即月亮走过它二十七宿之一的时间；还有萨瓦纳曼那，即升起日，也就是一般所知的日。由此可知，太阳日长于升起日，太阴日短于升起日，这由我们讲过的太阴月的长度可知：它是二十九日半，而这是以升起日计的。我们在表中所列的是太阴日，因为它们是两次平合朔之间的三十分之一。

§277. Have the days and the months names?

第二百七十七问　日与月有名字吗？

The Indians have names for the days, and the regents of the days are from among the devas, who are the angels with them; the people of Sogdiana, Khwārazm and the like have them too. But they are not well known, and they are quickly corrupted by copyists. Although the days of the week are well known among the people of the earth and there is no difference about them among them, the Persians did not use them [corrected: MS has 'then the Persians use them'], but used for the days of the month names which they claimed to be the names of God and of the angels; we have put them in this table. Then the masters of the Arabic language followed them and produced for the thirty nights names which the people of the desert never mentioned, not even a few of them, and the affectation and frigidity in them are plain. The names of the days of every Persian month.

印度人有日的名字，诸日的主宰出自提婆，也就是他们那里的天使；粟特、花剌子模等地的人也有。但这些名字并不广为人知，又很快被抄写者弄讹。虽然一周七日在世上各族中广为人知，彼此并无分歧，波斯人却不用它们〔抄本作“于是波斯人用它们”，据文义改正〕，而是给月中诸日起名，他们声称那是神与天使的名字；我们把这些名字列在这张表里。后来阿拉伯语的大师们仿效他们，给三十个夜晚造出名字，沙漠居民从未提过，连其中几个都没提过，其中的矫揉造作与乏味显而易见。每个波斯月诸日的名字。

§278. What are the years of these nations?

第二百七十八问　这些民族的年是怎样的？

This is clear from what has gone before in speaking of their months, of the nasīʾ and of the intercalations. The year is either lunar or solar. The lunar year is either simple, of 12 months, used by the Muslims, the Turks and the Easterners, its mean amount being 354 days, though it sometimes happens to be 353 days [corrected: MS has 'three and fifty'] or 355, without intention on the part of anyone using it; or intercalated, of 13 months, and those who use it are the Indians, the Jews, the Turks, the Easterners, the Greeks in ancient times and the Arabs in the Jāhiliyya. The days of the solar year are 365 days and a fraction of a day close to a quarter; it is used by the Romans, the Syrians, the Copts, the Persians and the Sogdians, and they differ only in its beginnings, in the said fraction, and in the way of adding it to the year, as we have set out before.

这在前面讲他们的月份、讲纳西与置闰时已经清楚了。年或是太阴年，或是太阳年。太阴年或是简单的，十二个月，穆斯林、突厥人与东方诸族用它，平均长度三百五十四日，但有时也会是三百五十三日〔抄本作“五十三”，据算改正〕或三百五十五日，这并非用它的人有意为之；或是置闰的，十三个月，用它的是印度人、犹太人、突厥人、东方诸族、古时的希腊人和蒙昧时期的阿拉伯人。太阳年的日数是三百六十五日又一日的零头，接近四分之一；罗马人、叙利亚人、科普特人、波斯人与粟特人用它，他们只在岁首、在上述零头、在把零头加入年中的方法上有所不同，正如我们前面所说。

§279. What are the eras?

第二百七十九问　什么是纪元？

An era is a well-known moment in time at which something happened whose fame spread in a nation or nations, such as the appearance of a religion, the rise of a dynasty, a great war, a destroying flood and the like. That moment becomes as it were a starting-point for time, or a convention, and the years, months and days are counted from it to any assumed moment, so that by it the lengths of periods are known, and how much lies between each earlier moment and the later one.

纪元是一个著名的时刻，其时发生了某件事，其名声传遍一个或几个民族，如一个宗教的出现、一个王朝的兴起、一场大战、一场毁灭性的洪水之类。那个时刻就仿佛成为时间的起点或约定，年、月、日从它数到任何假定的时刻，借此便知道各段时期的长短，以及每一个较早的时刻与较晚的时刻之间相隔多少。

§280. What are the cycles?

第二百八十问　什么是周期？

Cycles are years of known number in which some matter returns to exactly the same state: such as the 33 years in which one and the same lunar month returns to the same moment among the seasons of the year, the first of al-Muḥarram to the first of spring, for example; and such as the 30 lunar years in which Saturn returns from the orb of the signs to its place, and the fractions attached to their days are used up. When the years of the eras grow many, cycles are used in them, so that these are like the tens for them and what remains of them like the units.

周期是一定数目的年，在其中某件事恰好回到同一状态：比如三十三年，其中同一个太阴月回到一年四季中的同一时刻，例如穆哈兰姆月初一回到春季之初；又如三十个太阴年，其中土星从黄道圈上回到它的原位，附在这些年日数上的零头也恰好用尽。纪元的年数一多，就在其中使用周期，使周期对它们来说如同十位，剩下的如同个位。

§280a. What are the eras of the nations?

第二百八十问之二　各民族的纪元是什么？

The era of the Muslims is from the first of the year of the Hijra from Mecca to Medina, and it is in simple lunar years. The era of the People of the Book is the era of the Greeks, from the first of the year in which Seleucus, king of Antioch, was proclaimed king, even though it is known as that of Alexander. The Christians use it with the years of the Syrians or of the Romans; the Jews use it with their intercalated lunar years; and it is used too with the years of the Ḥarrānians known as the Ṣābians. The People of the Book have other eras, such as the creation of Adam, the flood of Noah, the drowning of Pharaoh, the building of the Temple by Solomon and its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar; but they disagree about them among themselves, and so they use the one about which there is no disagreement among them, which is the first one mentioned, I mean the era of Alexander. The Arabs in the Jāhiliyya used to date by the days of the famous battles among them, and before the Hijra their era was the Year of the Elephant, in which God destroyed the Abyssinians who came from al-Yaman to destroy the Kaʿba, and in which the Prophet, God bless him and give him peace, was born. The people of Persia, in the days of their dynasty, used to date by the years of the king reigning over them, and when he died they dated by the years of the one who reigned after him. After their dynasty passed away they date by the year in which Yazdajird son of Shahriyār son of Kisrā Abarwīz, the last of their kings, came to the throne, and in it they use their year without intercalation. Most of the Magians date from the death of Yazdajird, which is 20 years after his accession. As for the ancient Copts, it is said that they dated by Nebuchadnezzar the First, and Ptolemy works with this in the Almagest for the mean positions of the planets, while for the fixed stars he uses the era of Antoninus, the king of the Romans in his time. The modern Copts, who intercalate the years together with the Romans, date by Augustus, the first of the Caesars. In the books of the stars is also found the era of Diocletian, king of the Romans, who was the last of their unbelieving kings; after him their kings became Christian.

穆斯林的纪元从先知由麦加迁往麦地那的希吉拉那一年的年首算起，用的是简单太阴年。有经之人的纪元是希腊人的纪元，从安条克国王塞琉古称王那一年的年首算起，虽然它以亚历山大的纪元著称。基督徒把它与叙利亚年或罗马年一起用；犹太人把它与他们的置闰太阴年一起用；被称为萨比人的哈兰人的年也用它。有经之人另有别的纪元，如亚当受造、挪亚洪水、法老溺水、所罗门建圣殿、尼布甲尼撒毁圣殿；但他们彼此对这些有分歧，所以用他们之间没有分歧的那一个，就是首先提到的那一个，我是说亚历山大纪元。蒙昧时期的阿拉伯人以他们之间著名战役的日子纪年，希吉拉之前他们的纪元是象年，那一年真主毁灭了从也门来摧毁天房的阿比西尼亚人，先知——愿真主福佑他、赐他平安——也生于那一年。波斯人在他们王朝的时代，按统治他们的国王的年数纪年，国王一死，就按继位者的年数纪年。王朝消亡之后，他们从他们最后一位国王、库思老·阿巴尔维兹之孙、沙赫里亚尔之子耶兹德格德即位的那一年纪年，并在其中用不置闰的年。大多数祆教徒从耶兹德格德之死纪年，那是他即位后二十年。至于古时的科普特人，据说他们以第一位尼布甲尼撒纪年，托勒密在《天文学大成》中推行星的平均位置就用这个纪元，而推恒星时用安东尼努斯纪元，那是他那个时代罗马人的国王。与罗马人一同置闰的近世科普特人，以诸恺撒之首奥古斯都纪年。星书中还可见到戴克里先纪元，他是罗马人的国王，是他们最后一位不信的国王；在他之后，他们的国王成了基督徒。

The Indians have many eras, some ancient and some recent. The one well known among them is śakakāla, that is, the time of Śaka; he was a usurping tyrant, and they dated from his killing. There is no doubt that every nation has an era or eras; either news of them has not reached us, or it has reached us and speaking of it would take long, and we have put them in their places.

印度人有许多纪元，有古的也有近的。他们之中著名的是萨卡卡拉，即萨卡之时；萨卡是一个篡位的暴君，他们从他被杀之时纪年。毫无疑问，每个民族都有一个或几个纪元；或者它们的消息没有传到我们这里，或者传到了，但讲起来会很长，我们已把它们放在各自的地方。